ESPN ran a marathon of classic boxing matchups on Saturday afternoon including the Ali-Frazier trilogy. Viewership for the marathon fared well with there being no live sports to watch.
The third fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier drew the most viewers on Saturday on ESPN with 699,000 viewers and 177,000 in the A18-49 demo. It also drew a household rating of 0.43. The first fight between Ali-Frazier airing on ESPN Saturday afternoon drew 641,000 viewers and 147,000 viewers in the A18-49 demo and a household rating of 0.42. The second fight drew 607,000 viewers with 156,000 viewers in the A18-49 demo and a household rating of 0.38.
In addition to the trilogy, ESPN ran the following fights on Saturday:
5:30pm ET Mike Tyson-Michael Spinks: 475K viewers, 137K viewers A18-49, 0.33 HH
4:00pm ET Marvin Hagler-Thomas Hearns: 452,000 viewers, 109K viewers A18-49, 0.31 HH
2:00pm ET De La Hoya-Chavez: 413,000 viewers, 152K viewers A18-49, 0.26 HH
1:00pm ET Foreman-Holyfield: 410,000 viewers, 154K viewers, A18-49 0.27 HH
3:00pm ET De La Hoya-Trinidad: 384,000 viewers, 101K viewers, A18-49 0.27 HH
Payout Perspective:
At a time without any live events, ESPN is getting creative by having a theme for programming. While not as good as live sports, boxing replays of some of the famous fights in the sport’s history did well as sports fans try to acclimate to a life without live events. Certainly the Top Rank library cane in handy for the network Saturday.
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