Dan Rafael of ESPN reports that Saturday night’s boxing events on HBO and Showtime were down based on ratings from Nielsen Media Research.
HBO’s event drew an overall average of 663,000 subscribers for the live event. Showtime’s event, which aired at about the same time as HBO’s event drew an overall average of 400,000 subscribers.
Broken down into segments HBO’s opening bout of Humberto Soto taking on Antonio Orozco drew 698,000 viewers peaking at 798,000. Orozco won the decision. In the main event, Viktor Postol knocked out Lucas Matthysse in the 10th round in what many believed was an upset. The event drew 642,000 subscribers peaking at 814,000.
For Showtime, the opening bout featuring Jose Pedraza and Edner Cherry drew 338,000 subscribers peaking at 514,000. Pedraza defeated Cherry via split decision. In the main event, Adrien Broner stopped Khabib Allakhverdiev in the 12th round. The main event drew 509,000 viewers and peaked at 609,000.
The last time the two networks held boxing events on the same night HBO edged out Showtime in ratings. Last June an HBO “Boxing After Dark” card drew 562,000 versus a Showtime event featuring Deontay Wilder’s first title defense which drew 482,000 viewers overall.
Payout Perspective:
Split viewership for boxing fans on Saturday night or lack of interesting fights? The HBO event was down from prior events this year although Matthysse (who may have been groomed for Pacquiao) was the top name of the night for HBO. Notably, Postol was trained by Freddy Roach. The problem was that the opening bout outdrew the main event. As for the Showtime event, the 400,000 broadcast average is below normal viewership. As we noted, Wilder’s June fight against Eric Molina averaged 678,000 viewers but the overall broadcast on Showtime was 482,000.
too much will eventually put people off.
6 events a year are more than enough.
I think it was a case of split viewership. The HBO card was better on paper with both fights were expected to be competitive and Matthysse is a fan favorite.
The Showtime card was a joke. Broner v. Somebody I’ve Never Heard Of. The typical crap that a protected fighter does to get a paycheck. I don’t understand how any sanctioning body could have made that a title fight.
Think of it this way – one average card and one below average card managed to draw about 1M viewers. Neither of these cards was going to appeal to casual viewers, and fans were split as to which fight to watch. Subtract from that a few of us boxing fans who chose to watch the UFC instead and there’s your number.