Last weekend’s show headlined by Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford was expected to be huge for several reasons.
It was a fight between the undisputed super middleweight champion in Canelo against Crawford, who was coming up two weight classes for the challenge.
It was an event on the traditional big boxing weekend closest to Mexican Independence Day, headlined by Canelo, one of the biggest superstars in the sport.
And it was available for free to Netflix subscribers, coming at a fraction of the cost that would typically be asked for a pay-per-view.
Now the streaming service has announced just how big the audience was: 41 million global viewers.
Netflix said it was “the most-viewed men’s championship boxing match this century.”
That distinction comes because Netflix was also the home for last November’s match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul, which was definitely not for a world title, but which had 108 million viewers worldwide.
Those 108 million viewers came from 60 million households. The title fight underneath Tyson-Paul featuring Katie Taylor-Amanda Serrano II also had a massive audience, averaging 74 million global viewers in 50 million households watching live.
David Greisman, who has covered boxing since 2004, is on Twitter @FightingWords2. David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” is available on Amazon.
