Crawford-Kavaliauskas ESPN Telecast Peaked At 1,648,000 Viewers

[Ruthless-RKO]

Source

In an anomaly among boxing broadcasts, ESPN drew its peak audience Saturday night during the first of three fights it televised from Madison Square Garden.

Helped by formidable lead-in programming, ESPN’s Heisman Trophy telecast, the three-bout broadcast headlined by Terence Crawford and Egidjius Kavaliauskas peaked long before the main event began. A peak audience of 1,648,000 watched the early part of the Michael Conlan-Vladimir Nikitin featherweight fight.

An average audience of 1,481,000 viewers watched Crawford’s ninth-round technical knockout of Kavaliauskas in a welterweight title fight later Saturday night. The tripleheader, which lasted nearly three hours, attracted an overall average audience of 1,350,000, the largest average for an ESPN/Top Rank boxing show in 2019.

ESPN’s post-Heisman boxing broadcast last year averaged 1,865,000 viewers.

The peak viewership for the main event that night – lightweight champ Vasiliy Lomachenko’s 12-round, unanimous-decision victory over Jose Pedraza – was just over 2,100,000. That fight averaged 2,013,000 viewers last December 8 from The Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden.

The previous Crawford fight that aired live on ESPN drew a peak audience of 2,800,000 and an average viewership of 2,245,000. The undefeated three-division champion stopped Jose Benavidez Jr. in the 12th round of that October 2018 bout at CHI Health Center in Omaha, Nebraska, Crawford’s hometown.

[victor-romeo]

Those are good numbers..

[Onetimeonly]

EO won't be happy about this.

[ValMar]

Those are good numbers..

Very good numbers, surely.

[tiny_acres]

I dont see any promoters complaining with numbers like that

[Enlightened-One]

Crawford’s ratings for his most recent bout aren’t that impressive, especially when you consider that the Kownacki-Arreola PBC event on Fox averaged 1.301m viewers, peaking at 1.869m.

So just think about that! Crawford’s status in the sport and the viewership figures he’s achieving.

Crawford’s average viewership for the Kavaliauskas bout is 40% less than the equivalent statistic he achieved against Benavidez, with both fights broadcast by ESPN.

That’s a big drop!

So I’m a tad surprised about fellow forum posters being impressed by Crawford’s latest viewership figures.

[walter5]

You can't really compare ESPN ratings to Fox. There's still going to be a huge discrepancy in numbers between cable and network ratings due to availability and the fact that the older audience still tends to skew towards network TV. Also not taken into account on ESPN is that they're on in every singe sports bar and airport in the world.

If you want to do that compare the performance of American Ninja Warrior on NBC to what the PBC is doing on Fox and let me know how you feel about their viewership figures. Most networks realize that boxing is going to draw a niche audience and that only the largest events have a broad appeal to advertisers. The network associated with ESPN, ABC, put an episode of Shark Tank on opposite of Kownacki/Arreola and it blew them out of the water for a fraction of the price to produce. ESPN, on the other hand, is keeping sports viewers with that property.

[margaret thatcher]

Nah but I'm really impressed with PPV Tank though, ya, him vs Gamboa shoulda been on there

[Enlightened-One]

You can't really compare ESPN ratings to Fox. There's still going to be a huge discrepancy in numbers between cable and network ratings due to availability and the fact that the older audience still tends to skew towards network TV. Also not taken into account on ESPN is that they're on in every singe sports bar and airport in the world.

If you want to do that compare the performance of American Ninja Warrior on NBC to what the PBC is doing on Fox and let me know how you feel about their viewership figures. Most networks realize that boxing is going to draw a niche audience and that only the largest events have a broad appeal to advertisers. The network associated with ESPN, ABC, put an episode of Shark Tank on opposite of Kownacki/Arreola and it blew them out of the water for a fraction of the price to produce. ESPN, on the other hand, is keeping sports viewers with that property.

Did you conveniently forget to address my other point comparing Crawford’s latest ESPN viewership figures to his own previous bouts covered by the very same network (i.e. the 40% drop).?

I love how people only ever attempt to challenge minutiae elements from my posts instead of every single point detailed in my entire argument, whilst pretending they’ve successfully proven me wrong about everything I’ve said.

It doesn’t matter if you disagree with me, but Crawford’s latest viewership figures are disappointing if we compared them to his previous bouts on ESPN and also the majority of PBC fight cards.

It’s really that simple and there’s no counter-argument either, when all I’ve stated is the fückïng obvious.

I’m even going to go one step further by claiming that the viewership figures for ESPN’s marquee bouts during 2019 appear to be on the decline if we compared them to the audiences that watched Top Ranks’ biggest bouts of 2018.

[Onetimeonly]

Yup, upset.

[Best Coast]

An average audience of 1,481,000 viewers watched Crawford’s ninth-round technical knockout of Kavaliauskas in a welterweight title fight later Saturday night. The tripleheader, which lasted nearly three hours, attracted an overall average audience of 1,350,000, the largest average for an ESPN/Top Rank boxing show in 2019.

ESPN’s post-Heisman boxing broadcast last year averaged 1,865,000 viewers.

The peak viewership for the main event that night – lightweight champ Vasiliy Lomachenko’s 12-round, unanimous-decision victory over Jose Pedraza – was just over 2,100,000. That fight averaged 2,013,000 viewers last December 8 from The Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden.

No surprise that this year's Post-Heisman boxing telecast would have less viewers than Loma-Pedraza did last year (which directly followed last year's Heisman presentation). The actual 2019 Heisman viewership was significantly lower than the 2018 Heisman viewership as well:
https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2019/1 ... sman-espn/

Last Saturday’s Heisman Trophy Presentation averaged a 1.5 rating and 2.54 million viewers on ESPN, down 17% in ratings and 13% in viewership from last year (1.8, 2.93M) but up 15% and 17% respectively from 2017 (1.3, 2.18M).

There was a very good reason the 2019 Heisman Presentation had considerably less viewers than the 2018 show. The 2019 Heisman race was a very predictable landslide win for Joe Burrow which took all the suspense out of the final vote tally and Heisman Presentation telecast.
https://www.heisman.com/articles/joe-bu ... an-trophy/

Burrow shattered Heisman voting records, notching the highest percentage of first place votes, the highest percentage of possible points and appearing on the most ballots. His margin of victory (1,846 points) bettered the long-standing record set by O.J. Simpson in 1968.

1 Joe Burrow 2,608
2 Jalen Hurts 762
3 Justin Fields 747

The 2018 Heisman race was much closer and brought a definite feel of suspense to last year's Heisman Presentation telecast:

https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/aw ... -2018.html

1 Kyler Murray 2167
2 Tua Tagovailoa 1871

[gilgamesh]

EO won't be happy about this.

Seeing this post early, and then seeing what happened so shortly afterward was genuinely f*cking hilarious

[Enlightened-One]

EO won't be happy about this.

Seeing this post early, and then seeing what happened so shortly afterward was genuinely f*cking hilarious

I’m glad I made you laugh.

The information I conveyed in my post was factually correct though.

[Ruthless-RKO]

Seeing this post early, and then seeing what happened so shortly afterward was genuinely f*cking hilarious

I’m glad I made you laugh.

The information I conveyed in my post was factually correct though.

It’s also a fact that Spence has never hit 1m viewers for any fight he’s had on Showtime.

[Enlightened-One]

I’m glad I made you laugh.

The information I conveyed in my post was factually correct though.

It’s also a fact that Spence has never hit 1m viewers for any fight he’s had on Showtime.

By my own admission, I haven’t reviewed Spence Jr’s non-PPV viewership figures, but here are his PPV stats:

Errol Spence Jr. vs. Mikey Garcia (375,000)

Errol Spence Jr. vs. Shawn Porter (350,000)

Terence Crawford vs. Amir Khan (150,000)

Terence Crawford vs. Victor Postol (55,000)

Crawford’s average viewership for the Kavaliauskas bout is 40% less than the equivalent statistic he achieved against Benavidez, with both fights broadcast by ESPN.

I do know that it’s extremely rare for Showtime events to achieve more than a million non-PPV views.

However, had Spence competed on Fox for the Ocampo and Peterson bouts, he would have easily achieved far in excess of one million viewers.

The vast majority of PBC events on Fox gain far more impressive viewership figures than those achieved by ESPN.

Also, the Brook-Spence bout was aired off-peak in the US, because it was a PPV event in the UK (achieving 275K buys according to BARB).

From purely a commercial perspective, Errol Spence Jr. is a much bigger name than Terence Crawford. It’s not even remotely close.

In fact, I’m really surprised that no one has commented about the 40% drop in Crawford’s viewing figures for his non-PPV events.

[Ruthless-RKO]

It’s also a fact that Spence has never hit 1m viewers for any fight he’s had on Showtime.

By my own admission, I haven’t reviewed Spence Jr’s non-PPV viewership figures, but here are his PPV stats:

Errol Spence Jr. vs. Mikey Garcia (375,000)

Errol Spence Jr. vs. Shawn Porter (350,000)

Terence Crawford vs. Amir Khan (150,000)

Terence Crawford vs. Victor Postol (55,000)

Crawford’s average viewership for the Kavaliauskas bout is 40% less than the equivalent statistic he achieved against Benavidez, with both fights broadcast by ESPN.

I do know that it’s extremely rare for Showtime events to achieve more than a million non-PPV views.

However, had Spence competed on Fox for the Ocampo and Peterson bouts, he would have easily achieved far in excess of one million viewers.

The vast majority of PBC events on Fox gain far more impressive viewership figures than those achieved by ESPN.

Also, the Brook-Spence bout was aired off-peak in the US, because it was a PPV event in the UK (achieving 275K buys according to BARB).

From purely a commercial perspective, Errol Spence Jr. is a much bigger name than Terence Crawford. It’s not even remotely close.

In fact, I’m really surprised that no one has commented about the 40% drop in Crawford’s viewing figures for his non-PPV events.

FACT: Spence has recorded better ppv buys than Crawford

Also FACT: Crawford has produced better figures on regular tv.

It all depends on who you fight.

Like I’ve said before, TR didn’t want Postol on PPV, it was the only way HBO would have the fight. Khan is not a popular as he used to be. It’s NOT a fight anyone really wanted to see.

Mikey Garcia should really get more credit for their PPV buys, he has a much bigger following. Also it was him to actually called out Spence. Had it not been for him, Spence would not have had a PPV fight in March. Against Porter, you’ve got a WW unification between 2 of the better WW’s in the world today.

It’s not surprising Spence has done ‘well’ on PPV.

[Ruthless-RKO]

From purely a commercial perspective, Errol Spence Jr. is a much bigger name than Terence Crawford. It’s not even remotely close.

In fact, I’m really surprised that no one has commented about the 40% drop in Crawford’s viewing figures for his non-PPV events.

Why always use percentages to make it look worse than it is? TV viewership numbers go up and down all the time. You can’t expect better numbers every time someone fights. It all depends on what else is on tv, other sports etc.

[Enlightened-One]

From purely a commercial perspective, Errol Spence Jr. is a much bigger name than Terence Crawford. It’s not even remotely close.

In fact, I’m really surprised that no one has commented about the 40% drop in Crawford’s viewing figures for his non-PPV events.

Why always use percentages to make it look worse than it is? TV viewership numbers go up and down all the time. You can’t expect better numbers every time someone fights. It all depends on what else is on tv, other sports etc.

Forty percent is a significant drop in ratings though.

The figure is big enough to almost certainly not be considered trivial in nature.

It’s simply not a mild fluctuation.

[Ruthless-RKO]

Why always use percentages to make it look worse than it is? TV viewership numbers go up and down all the time. You can’t expect better numbers every time someone fights. It all depends on what else is on tv, other sports etc.

Forty percent is a significant drop in ratings though.

The figure is big enough to almost certainly not be considered trivial in nature.

It’s simply not a mild fluctuation.

So let’s say Crawford's next fight on ESPN does 2.2m.. are you gonna praise him saying it was a 40% increase from his last fight?

[Enlightened-One]

By my own admission, I haven’t reviewed Spence Jr’s non-PPV viewership figures, but here are his PPV stats:

Errol Spence Jr. vs. Mikey Garcia (375,000)

Errol Spence Jr. vs. Shawn Porter (350,000)

Terence Crawford vs. Amir Khan (150,000)

Terence Crawford vs. Victor Postol (55,000)

Crawford’s average viewership for the Kavaliauskas bout is 40% less than the equivalent statistic he achieved against Benavidez, with both fights broadcast by ESPN.

I do know that it’s extremely rare for Showtime events to achieve more than a million non-PPV views.

However, had Spence competed on Fox for the Ocampo and Peterson bouts, he would have easily achieved far in excess of one million viewers.

The vast majority of PBC events on Fox gain far more impressive viewership figures than those achieved by ESPN.

Also, the Brook-Spence bout was aired off-peak in the US, because it was a PPV event in the UK (achieving 275K buys according to BARB).

From purely a commercial perspective, Errol Spence Jr. is a much bigger name than Terence Crawford. It’s not even remotely close.

In fact, I’m really surprised that no one has commented about the 40% drop in Crawford’s viewing figures for his non-PPV events.

FACT: Spence has recorded better ppv buys than Crawford

Also FACT: Crawford has produced better figures on regular tv.

It all depends on who you fight.

Like I’ve said before, TR didn’t want Postol on PPV, it was the only way HBO would have the fight. Khan is not a popular as he used to be. It’s NOT a fight anyone really wanted to see.

Mikey Garcia should really get more credit for their PPV buys, he has a much bigger following. Also it was him to actually called out Spence. Had it not been for him, Spence would not have had a PPV fight in March. Against Porter, you’ve got a WW unification between 2 of the better WW’s in the world today.

It’s not surprising Spence has done ‘well’ on PPV.

Then why did you initiate the comparison between Spence Jr. and Crawford?

You’d have surely already known the stats that I was going to cite in my response?

We both know that Spence Jr. is a bigger commercial draw than Crawford is.

And we both know that Spence Jr. has lots of options to engage in marquee bouts against big names at 147lbs, but Terence Crawford doesn’t have any.

I don’t want to sound presumptuous, but I think we both agree that Spence Jr. would currently generate better figures on regular TV, because he has a superior choice of dance partners and Fox also has a bigger audience than ESPN.

[Enlightened-One]

Forty percent is a significant drop in ratings though.

The figure is big enough to almost certainly not be considered trivial in nature.

It’s simply not a mild fluctuation.

So let’s say Crawford's next fight on ESPN does 2.2m.. are you gonna praise him saying it was a 40% increase from his last fight?

It’ll be an improvement on his average viewership figures. And that’s all we can really say.

Do you think that Crawford can ever achieve 2.2m viewers again on regular TV, because the ratings for Top Ranks’ shows on ESPN are on the decline (if we compared 2018’s figures to 2019 for their marquee events)?

I hope Crawford can manage 2.2m viewers again, but I don’t know how he can do this if Top Rank can’t work with the PBC.

I feel that Crawford’s fan base will inevitably decline if he continues facing subpar lacklustre anonymous opposition.

[Ruthless-RKO]

I don’t want to sound presumptuous, but I think we both agree that Spence Jr. would currently generate better figures on regular TV, because he has a superior choice of dance partners and Fox also has a bigger audience than ESPN.

Yeh, because like you said, his fellow PBC boxers are well known, would generate more appeal. I jus hope his future mandatories are good/decent opponents.

[Onetimeonly]

EO won't be happy about this.

Seeing this post early, and then seeing what happened so shortly afterward was genuinely f*cking hilarious

He's nothing, if not predictable.

[Onetimeonly]

From purely a commercial perspective, Errol Spence Jr. is a much bigger name than Terence Crawford. It’s not even remotely close.

In fact, I’m really surprised that no one has commented about the 40% drop in Crawford’s viewing figures for his non-PPV events.

Why always use percentages to make it look worse than it is? TV viewership numbers go up and down all the time. You can’t expect better numbers every time someone fights. It all depends on what else is on tv, other sports etc.

Huge UFC card running simultaneously.

[tiny_acres]

Why always use percentages to make it look worse than it is? TV viewership numbers go up and down all the time. You can’t expect better numbers every time someone fights. It all depends on what else is on tv, other sports etc.

Huge UFC card running simultaneously.

Dont state facts they will just be twisted