The Vasiliy Lomachenko-Jose Pedraza fight on ESPN on Saturday night drew 1.865 million viewers on the network for its two-hour broadcast which was preceded by the Heisman Trophy telecast.
The lead-in likely helped the Top Rank Boxing ratings but Lomachenko is becoming destiny television for many fans. The event drew 0.63 in the A18-49 demo per ShowBuzz Daily. The fight alone during the telecast drew 2,013,000 viewers and peaked at 2,100,000 per Nielsen.
Its the second-most viewed fight on ESPN this year after Terrence Crawford’s win over Jose Benavidez this past October.
The Heisman Trophy Presentation on ESPN drew 2.928 million viewers and came on a night of a UFC PPV, HBO Boxing and the replay of Fury-Wilder on Showtime.
Lomachenko’s last fight on ESPN this past May against Jorge Linares drew slightly over 1 million viewers.
He drew 1.73M viewers last December for his win over Guillermo Rigondeux.
Payout Perspective:
Lomachenko was put in this same timeslot in 2017 after the Heisman Trophy Presentation and did better this time around. It could be that more fans are aware of Lomachenko and used to Top Rank on ESPN that improved the ratings. But, viewers are definitely gravitating toward Lomachenko as the ratings dipped after the Heisman telecast and then rose again when Lomachenko was about to fight. We shall see what he does next as his next anticipated fight looks to be in April.
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