ESPN reports that Saturday night’s Top Rank Boxing telecast of Terence Crawford-Julius Indongo drew the second-highest boxing match on cable television in 2017.
Crawford disposed of Indongo with a body shot in the third round to unify 4 titles in the junior welterweight division.
The event drew a 1.0 metered market rating during the main event per Nielsen. According to an ESPN press release, New Orleans was the top local market where the telecast averaged a 1.6 metered market rating including a 2.0 rating during the main event.
Payout Perspective:
We should have ratings for the fight later today but promising ratings for Crawford. Although not stated in the press release, we can assume that the highest-rated fight on cable this year was July’s Manny Pacquiao-Jeff Horn fight. Horn’s upset win over Pacquiao drew an overnight 1.8 metered market rating for the event and 2.4 rating for the fight. The telecast peaked at 4.4 million viewers and averaged 3.1 million viewers across three ESPN channels. Arguably, Crawford could be the best boxer around today and the promising ratings means that viewers are being introduced to him. Despite a dip with Vasyl Lomachenko’s debut on ESPN earlier this month, the ESPN-Top Rank partnership appears to be going well.
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