CBS to Air Garcia-Thurman; Announcement at Press Conference

By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – The Danny Garcia-Keith Thurman fight will be made available to the largest possible television audience.

CBS will air their welterweight title unification fight on free television March 4 from Barclays Center in Brooklyn. An announcement will be made during a press conference Wednesday afternoon at Barclays Center, where the fight finally will be announced officially.

CBS hasn’t televised a live boxing event since Thurman beat Shawn Porter by unanimous decision in their entertaining 12-rounder June 25 at Barclays Center.

Thurman-Porter was considered one of the best action fights of 2016. Their back-and-forth fight drew an average audience of 3.1 million viewers and peaked at 3.94 million, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Executives at CBS, which owns Showtime, also considered airing the fight live on Showtime. By broadcasting it on CBS, though, at least three times as many viewers likely are to watch one of the best bouts on the 2017 boxing schedule.

Stephen Espinoza, executive vice president and general manager for Showtime Sports, acknowledged during an interview last week with BoxingScene.com that it would make more sense to televise this high-profile fight on CBS.

“Selfishly, I’d love to see it on Showtime,” Espinoza said. “But at the same time, it’s such a marquee fight and seems like a guaranteed barnburner, it would be a shame not to share it with the biggest audience possible. Which, of course, would be on CBS.”

Garcia and Thurman will fight for the WBC world 147-pound championship owned by Philadelphia’s Garcia (33-0, 19 KOs) and the WBA world welterweight title possessed by Thurman (27-0, 22 KOs), of Clearwater, Florida.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.