Wilder-Washington Peaked at 1.86 Million Viewers & Averaged 1.76M

[Ruthless-RKO]

The “PBC on FOX” boxing tripleheader headlined by WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder’s knockout of Gerald Washington averaged 1.76 million viewers Saturday night, according to ratings released Tuesday morning by Nielsen Media Research.

Viewership for the main event of FOX’s tripleheader peaked at 1.86 million in its final 15 minutes. The rating made the Wilder-Washington fight the most-watched boxing match thus far this year in the United States, though the telecast obviously was available to many more viewers than typical HBO, Showtime and basic-cable broadcasts because it was televised on free TV.

The Wilder-Washington tripleheader went head-to-head with a Bulls-Cavs game on ABC and a Flyers-Penguins game on NBC on Saturday night. The NBA game, in which LeBron James didn’t play against former teammate Dwayne Wade, peaked at 2.43 million viewers. The NHL game peaked at 1.91 million viewers.

The Wilder-Washington ratings, while reasonably competitive with the NBA and NHL telecasts, were lower than Wilder’s last appearance on broadcast television. Wilder’s domination of Chris Arreola drew a peak viewership of 2.54 million in a fight also broadcast by FOX on July 16. That fight also took place at Legacy Arena.

Wilder-Washington, which marked the third time Wilder has headlined a show on broadcast television, also drew lower ratings than his 11th-round stoppage of France’s Johann Duhaupas in September 2015 at Legacy Arena. That telecast peaked at 2.36 million viewers on NBC.

[DazDiCanio]

It will be nearly time to cash Wilder out, I reckon. Anyone with any eye for the sport can see that the guy is very limited and brings nothing to the title of HW Champ.

He is running out of opportunities to defend against low level opponents.

See ye, ye clown

[caldo2025]

Wilder is taking the Adonis route to title defenses. He's fighting bums in his home town so he can get the knockout and run around the ring like an absolute dink. Like they just knocked out Ali or something.

Wilder has had 5 title defenses and not one of them was a mandatory. Supposedly, the WBC has mandated Adonis and Wilder's next defenses but we'll see if they find a way around those mandatory defenses.

Hopefully, this time next year we'll have ONE heavyweight champion again and his name is Anthony Joshua. Just a matter of getting him in the ring with these dopes.

[montrealsuper]

Unfortunately this Wilder Fraud Show has only just begun - Haymon has the WBC in his pocket and this sham fraud "reign" is going to go on for years because Wilder is the most important chess piece on Haymon's board right now - Wilder is going to be fixed along for years until Haymon can fabricate his next fraud hwt belt holder to pass the belt on to - Wilder vs Joshua or Klitschko or Parker or Ortiz or Fury are all impossibility pipe dreams which will never happen unless Haymon can get control of those fighters - Welcome to Al Haymon boxing

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Awful numbers

[gilgamesh]

Wilder is taking the Adonis route to title defenses. He's fighting bums in his home town so he can get the knockout and run around the ring like an absolute dink. Like they just knocked out Ali or something.

Wilder has had 5 title defenses and not one of them was a mandatory. Supposedly, the WBC has mandated Adonis and Wilder's next defenses but we'll see if they find a way around those mandatory defenses.

Hopefully, this time next year we'll have ONE heavyweight champion again and his name is Anthony Joshua. Just a matter of getting him in the ring with these dopes.

I wouldn't get excited. Wilder's mandatory is Stiverne again

[Enlightened-One]

Awful numbers

Are they lower than HBO's recent non-PPV figures?

[jockpunk]

Awful numbers

Are they lower than HBO's recent non-PPV figures?

No but for a free show those are pretty poor.

[Enlightened-One]

Awful numbers

Are they lower than HBO's recent non-PPV figures?

No but for a free show those are pretty poor.

Compared to?

[SaadOffTheDeck]

reruns of friends

[jockpunk]

reruns of friends

LOL. Unless I am mistaken some of the bigger PBC shows on CBS, FOX ect have done in the ballpark of 3+million viewers.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

reruns of friends

LOL. Unless I am mistaken some of the bigger PBC shows on CBS, FOX ect have done in the ballpark of 3+million viewers.

Wilder is one of their bigger draws.

[Enlightened-One]

Wasn't the PBC up against two other sporting events, with the viewing figures being 22% up on Deontay Wilder's previous outing on the same network?

[punchoutsb]

Wasn't the PBC up against two other sporting events, with the viewing figures being 22% up on Deontay Wilder's previous outing on the same network?

Was it?

The Wilder-Washington ratings, while reasonably competitive with the NBA and NHL telecasts, were lower than Wilder’s last appearance on broadcast television. Wilder’s domination of Chris Arreola drew a peak viewership of 2.54 million in a fight also broadcast by FOX on July 16. That fight also took place at Legacy Arena.

OP states it did 680,000 less than Arreola, but I don't know which numbers are correct.

[Enlightened-One]

Wasn't the PBC up against two other sporting events, with the viewing figures being 22% up on Deontay Wilder's previous outing on the same network?

Was it?

The Wilder-Washington ratings, while reasonably competitive with the NBA and NHL telecasts, were lower than Wilder’s last appearance on broadcast television. Wilder’s domination of Chris Arreola drew a peak viewership of 2.54 million in a fight also broadcast by FOX on July 16. That fight also took place at Legacy Arena.

OP states it did 680,000 less than Arreola, but I don't know which numbers are correct.

http://mmapayout.com/2016/07/pbc-on-fox ... m-viewers/
http://mmapayout.com/category/boxing/pr ... champions/

[Perseus]

A viewing audience that wasn't far off the numbers of competing NHL and NBA games.
They did something right.
Nobody gets football numbers, if your broadcast is close to NHL and NBA numbers you're not doing too bad.

[Kalan]

If you're coming in 3rd to regular season basketball and hockey games -- and those guys play like a 100 games a season including the playoffs -- its not good.

Bare in mind that this was advertised as a World Heavyweight Championship Fight and Wilder is the only American Heavyweight Champion in years.

Ali fought some embarrassingly bad World Title Fights on free TV, like the Alfredo Evangelista mess ... But I think even that one did better than Wild-Wash

[tiny_acres]

If you're coming in 3rd to regular season basketball and hockey games -- and those guys play like a 100 games a season including the playoffs -- its not good.

Bare in mind that this was advertised as a World Heavyweight Championship Fight and Wilder is the only American Heavyweight Champion in years.

Ali fought some embarrassingly bad World Title Fights on free TV, like the Alfredo Evangelista mess ... But I think even that one did better than Wild-Wash

Well obviously when there were only 3 channels the viewership would be higher.

But I do agree that being beaten by hockey is pathetic.
Boxing has become a niche sport

[Kalan]

There were a ton of channels when Ali fought Evangelista... You'd have to go back to the 1950's to get 3... But people had other things to do then, like make out and pet away with a cute girl at the drive-in movie... or go out and play with the neighborhood kids as happens less today... or play cards, checkers, or board games on the front porch with the neighbors while smoking, drinking, and snacking away. Or just BSing over the back fence while tending to the garden. Or sitting down to dinner together and doing the dishes afterwards. The days before smart phones, microwaves, dishwashers, 6 feet wide TV screens with surround sound, and lightning fast computers.

[mickey1975]

Are they lower than HBO's recent non-PPV figures?

No but for a free show those are pretty poor.

Compared to?

Any free to air show on national tv in The UK.

[caldo2025]

Wilder is taking the Adonis route to title defenses. He's fighting bums in his home town so he can get the knockout and run around the ring like an absolute dink. Like they just knocked out Ali or something.

Wilder has had 5 title defenses and not one of them was a mandatory. Supposedly, the WBC has mandated Adonis and Wilder's next defenses but we'll see if they find a way around those mandatory defenses.

Hopefully, this time next year we'll have ONE heavyweight champion again and his name is Anthony Joshua. Just a matter of getting him in the ring with these dopes.

I wouldn't get excited. Wilder's mandatory is Stiverne again

Their first fight was great I thought. Stiverne had a lot of quit in him in that fight though. Maybe he's got his shat together and he can make it interesting. I do like Stiverne.

[Enlightened-One]

No but for a free show those are pretty poor.

Compared to?

Any free to air show on national tv in The UK.

Shouldn’t the typical network audience figures be considered in our evaluation of the Wilder-Washington ratings? For instance, in the UK, sporting events covered by Channel 5 will never surpass their equivalents televised by the BBC or ITV.

The Wilder-Washington fight televised by FOX peaked at 1.76m viewers on the 25th February, the week prior (during the same time-slot and network), ’24: Legacy’ peaked at 938K (on the 18th).

Therefore, the peak audience figures of last Saturday's PBC event enjoyed 88% more viewers than the weekly TV show that is typically aired by the FOX network during the same time-slot, despite the PBC going head-to-head against two other sporting events covered by rival networks.

The peak audience figures for the Wilder-Washington bout are also 22% higher than the ratings received for Deontay’s previous fight against Chris Arreola that was televised by the same FOX TV network during the same time-slot.

In terms of your remark about UK ratings, it was reported in November last year that the average audience viewing figures of a Super-Sunday Premier League game in the UK is only 1.03m.

The FA Cup final in the UK only attracted 6.7m viewers (BBC & BT Sport combined).

Rather than express criticism, please explain the figures that you deem wholly acceptable for the PBC to achieve, in the context of Haymon's company being a fairly new business venture, with audience figures growing?

Didn't the UFC figures start low and then organically grew over time?

[Boxing Prospect]

Yamanaka got 4,000,000 ish viewers yesterday in Kanto alone to face Carlson...

[littlepug]

Yamanaka got 4,000,000 ish viewers yesterday in Kanto alone to face Carlson...

and they say boxing is dying

[Ruthless-RKO]

Yamanaka got 4,000,000 ish viewers yesterday in Kanto alone to face Carlson...

These smaller weight guys are huge in Asia though.