By Keith Idec
NEW YORK – The last time Keith Thurman fought on CBS, nearly four million viewers watched his battle with Shawn Porter at one point.
Thurman hopes he and Danny Garcia can draw twice as many viewers for their welterweight championship unification fight March 4 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The Thurman-Garcia fight is one of the most highly anticipated fights on the 2017 boxing calendar, yet different from the rest in that it won’t even cost a premium-cable subscription to watch it.
“It’s a blessing,” Thurman said Wednesday after a press conference at Barclays Center to officially announce the fight. “I wanna be seen by the American public. I wanna be seen by the fight fans. I want the fight fans to get these high-caliber fights without having to come out of pocket. They’re accustomed to it, and they don’t really mind paying for the best fights.
“But you do get more viewership by not asking people to buy. [The viewership] was amazing with Shawn. I’m hoping to beat six million [viewers]. And it would be tremendous if we could double [the Thurman-Porter rating] and hit eight million. I really wanna show the world that boxing still is highly appreciated amongst the American sports fans.”
According to Nielsen Media Research, a peak audience of 3.94 viewers watched Thurman-Porter, a compelling battle Thurman (27-0, 22 KOs) won by unanimous decision June 25 at Barclays Center. Their highly competitive fight drew an average audience of 3.1 million viewers, an enormous audience in comparison to typical viewership for fights broadcast by HBO and Showtime, which is owned by CBS.
The Thurman-Garcia fight will air one week after Miguel Cotto (40-5, 33 KOs) and James Kirkland (32-2, 28 KOs) meet in an HBO Pay-Per-View main event February 25 in Frisco, Texas. It also will take place two weeks before another HBO Pay-Per-View show headlined by middleweight champions Gennady Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) and Daniel Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) on March 18 at Madison Square Garden.
“Some people think somehow that pay-per-view’s a good thing and that the fans should be happy to reach in their pockets and pay $70 for, unfortunately, what too often isn’t a stacked card,” said Lou DiBella, the promoter of record for the Thurman-Garcia card. “That a fight of this magnitude is on broadcast television and that these two champions will have an opportunity to do their thing potentially in front of five or six or seven or eight million people, which I think is a realistic expectation, that’s great for boxing. That’s great for our business, but that’s great for our sport and the athletes in it. That a fight of this quality will be available to so many people on broadcast TV is a wonderful thing.”
The last time Philadelphia’s Garcia (33-0, 19 KOs) fought on free TV, an average of about 2.5 million viewers watched FOX’s telecast of his unanimous-decision defeat of Robert Guerrero (33-5-1, 18 KOs, 2 NC) last January 23 in Los Angeles.
The highest rating for boxing on free TV since Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions series began airing on CBS, FOX and NBC in March 2015 was the approximate six million viewers that watched former American Olympian Errol Spence Jr. (21-0, 18 KOs) knock out unknown Leonard Bundu (33-2-2, 12 KOs) on August 21. That spike in viewership was partially attributable, though, to the fight immediately following the live telecast of the United States’ gold-medal men’s basketball victory over Serbia during the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.