Saturday night’s HBO Boxing event featuring Andre Ward drew 742,000 subscribers per Sports TV Ratings. The one-fight telecast served as a warmup for Ward’s showdown with Sergey Kovalev this November.
The event drew 356,000 viewers in the adult 18-49 category per Sports TV Ratings. Ward handily defeated his opponent via unanimous decision. Per Sports TV Ratings the pre-fight show drew 573,000 viewers (291K in A18-49) from 10:36pm-10:56pm ET and the post-fight interviews drew 606,000 (190K in the A18-49 demo).
Below is a list of HBO boxing events this year and its ratings
| HBO Fight Date | Fight | Subscriber Rating | Notes |
| 1/30/2016 | Kovalev/Pascual II | 1,179,000 | |
| 2/29/2016 | Crawford/Lundy | 982,000 | |
| 3/5/2016 | Ortiz/Thompson | 740,000 | Boxing After Dark |
| 3/5/2016 | Jessie Vargas/Ali | 726,000 | undercard |
| 3/26/2016 | Ward/Barrerra | 1,064,000 | |
| 4/16.2916 | Pac/Bradley III | 750,000 | PPV replay |
| 4/23/2016 | GGG/Wade | 1,325,000 | |
| 5/14/2016 | Khan/Canelo | 767,000 | PPV replay |
| 6/4/2016 | Vargas/Salido | 833,000 | same night as UFC Prelims |
| 6/11/2016 | Lomachenko/Martinez | 585,000 | same night as SHO Box |
| 6/11/2016 | Verdegjo/Martinez | 513,000 | undercard |
| 7/30/2016 | Crawford/Postol | 378,000 | PPV replay |
| 8/6/2016 | Ward/Brand | 742,000 | |
Payout Perspective:
In comparing Ward’s last fight with this one, it’s apparent that no one thought this fight would have much entertainment value. Yet, it did much better than the Crawford/Postol PPV replay. You could certainly make the argument that the UFC programming took away some of the viewers. Then again, its likely that Ward is a polarizing figure and the fight did not appeal to most fight fans as the reasons for the disparity in viewership for Ward’s fight Saturday versus his one in March.
Ward is a great fighter, truly a modern great, he just isn’t very exciting unless he has the right opponent and guys like Froch, Kessler, and Kovalev provide the right opponent opposite his style
This was a painful fight to watch. I’m surprised the fight did this well. I was surprised when HBO agreed to put it on. I thought it would bomb.
Had they promoted the fight more, it would have drawn 1 million subscribers.
Ward a super talent…but chose to be boring…like rigondeux and crawford( in his last fight)….thou i think kovalev will force ward to fight
All of hunters fighters are boring to watch. Berto and Khan both used to have wars regularly and now fight with hardly any aggression. Khan spends the whole fight holding and pulling heads down. Berto can’t win a fight against a decent opponent.