ESPN's Smith-Hart Main Event Peaked At 673,000 Viewers

[Ruthless-RKO]

Viewership for ESPN’s boxing doubleheader went up Saturday night once the Titans’ upset of the Ravens ended, but still was lower than usual.

According to Nielsen Media Research, ESPN’s main event between Joe Smith Jr. and Jesse Hart drew a peak audience of 673,000 toward the end of it. The average viewership for Smith-Hart was 515,000.

The overall average viewership for this nearly two-bout broadcast was 388,000. That average is the lowest for an entire ESPN boxing telecast since the basic-cable giant entered an exclusive content agreement with Bob Arum’s Top Rank Inc. in June 2017.

The previous low for average viewership during that partnership was the 469,000 that watched a show headlined by heavyweights Kubrat Pulev and Bogdan Dinu on March 23 in Costa Mesa, California. Bulgaria’s Pulev knocked out Romania’s Dinu in the seventh round that night.

The Smith-Hart doubleheader faced competition from not only the NFL playoff game between Baltimore and Tennessee, but from DAZN’s stream of a boxing card from San Antonio that featured Jaime Munguia’s 11th-round knockout of Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan in the main event.

Viewership figures for the aforementioned ESPN boxing broadcasts account only for those on linear television. Nielsen tracks television viewership, but ESPN doesn’t release viewership information for boxing shows it makes available through ESPN+, the company’s $5-per-month streaming service.

The opener of ESPN’s telecast, which began at 10:12 p.m. from Hard Rock Hotel & Casino’s Etess Arena in Atlantic City, New Jersey, featured two lesser-known boxers who were competing in the biggest fight of their respective careers.

Source

[Enlightened-One]

It’s in the best interest of all fight fans for ESPN’s boxing broadcasts to attract decent viewing figures on all platforms, because otherwise this network will eventually stop supporting the sport.

I’d be interested to know the trend for ESPN’s boxing broadcasts, as it’ll help gauge the trajectory of their viewership figures, since this will illustrate whether the sport is on the ascendancy (barring a few anomalous peaks and troughs) or whether it’s on the decline.

If it’s the latter, then there’s real cause for concern about these latest figures.

[Ruthless-RKO]

It’s in the best interest of all fight fans for ESPN’s boxing broadcasts to attract decent viewing figures on all platforms, because otherwise this network will eventually stop supporting the sport.

I’d be interested to know the trend for ESPN’s boxing broadcasts, as it’ll help gauge the trajectory of their viewership figures, since this will illustrate whether the sport is on the ascendancy (barring a few anomalous peaks and troughs) or whether it’s on the decline.

If it’s the latter, then there’s real cause for concern about these latest figures.

How well does ESPN actually promote these types of fights?

For the typical hardcore fan, this was a pretty good fight on paper.

[Enlightened-One]

It’s in the best interest of all fight fans for ESPN’s boxing broadcasts to attract decent viewing figures on all platforms, because otherwise this network will eventually stop supporting the sport.

I’d be interested to know the trend for ESPN’s boxing broadcasts, as it’ll help gauge the trajectory of their viewership figures, since this will illustrate whether the sport is on the ascendancy (barring a few anomalous peaks and troughs) or whether it’s on the decline.

If it’s the latter, then there’s real cause for concern about these latest figures.

How well does ESPN actually promote these types of fights?

For the typical hardcore fan, this was a pretty good fight on paper.

I could be wrong, but Showtime’s and ESPN’s viewership recent audience figures for boxing are relatively poor. So are DAZN’s, based purely on their small (but growing ) customer base.

I doubt that ESPN & Showtime are doing enough to push their boxing events.

Fox seems to be attracting massive audiences for their PBC shows. And we may see Zuffa Boxing launched later on this year.

2020 could prove to be a changing of the guard, in terms of major networks televising boxing.

[Ruthless-RKO]

How well does ESPN actually promote these types of fights?

For the typical hardcore fan, this was a pretty good fight on paper.

I could be wrong, but Showtime’s and ESPN’s viewership recent audience figures for boxing are relatively poor. So are DAZN’s, based purely on their small (but growing ) customer base.

I doubt that ESPN & Showtime are doing enough to push their boxing events.

Fox seems to be attracting massive audiences for their PBC shows. And we may see Zuffa Boxing launched later on this year.

2020 could prove to be a changing of the guard, in terms of major networks televising boxing.

ESPN viewership is declining. Only Crawford and Loma are doing over 1m views. That’s when they’re not on the app.

The figures they’re doing are just about above what GBP cards used to do on ESPN.

Majority of PBC boxers are now solely on Fox and only a select few are on Showtime.

Showtime also provide content for Salita.

PBC don’t use CBS and NBC anymore, but I think CBS owns Showtime?

DAZN only have what 800k subs on the US, but they always seem to release worldwide figures. The good HBO cards used to average around 800k viewers.

[Jeff_lacy_ko]

Fox is in every home

Espn is in 75 percent of homes

Showtime is in a very very small percentage

Its all relative

[Cent0089]

so, are these numbers good or not? :O

[Onetimeonly]

Theyre About average for the fight. Americans don't care about boxing. At that hour you're not getting big numbers without huge names. The main event was in the 4th Rd when the NFL playoff game ended. ESPN isn't going to be overly bothered here. If they lose a bundle on fury/wilder that may make waves. Not sure how that works now, the promoters were always the ones at risk on ppv in the past.

[Best Coast]

Although no mention of co-feature with Steve Nelson's impressive win over fellow unbeaten Cem Kilic, hopefully that bout got some overflow audience. Nelson looked sharp but at age 31 Top Rank should put "So Cold" on the fast track.