HBO Boxing drew an average viewership of 910,000 subscribers according to ESPN. The event featured Timothy Bradley taking on Brandon Rios and peaked at 1.03 million viewers.
In addition the opening bout on the show featured Vasyl Lomanchenko taking on Romulo Koasicha. The fight averaged 585,000 and peaked at 657,000. Per Sports TV Ratings, the pre-fight packages on HBO drew 523,000 subscribers.
Sports TV Ratings breaks down the HBO programming:
Bradley-Rios: 10:45pm-11:20pm ET – 910,000 viewers
Lomaehenko v. Koasicha: 9:44pm-10:22pm ET – 585,000 viewers
Pre-fight on HBO: 9:32pm-9:44pm ET – 523,000 viewers
Per ESPN’s Dan Rafael, HBO paid around $3 million for the fight which was less than Bradley’s fight this past June against Jessie Vargas.
Payout Perspective:
Perhaps a disappointing number for Timothy Bradley based on the amount reported HBO paid for the fight, HBO fights featuring a “named” fighter has been drawing over 1 million subscribers this year and Bradley (after his win over Pacquiao) was to have been a “named” fighter. In addition to the UFC event Saturday night, the big LSU-Alabama game.
So much for boxing not being popular anymore.
Ratings don’t lie.
I don’t think Bradley’s win over Manny helped him get any fans. His fight with Provodnikov probably did. I figured this would do over 1M. With that said, it’s pretty close. I don’t think there’s a reason for concern. This is generally in line with what Bradley draws.