By Keith Idec
“Sugar” Ray Leonard began building his brand on network television even before he made his pro boxing debut.
When the 1976 Summer Olympics aired on free TV from Montreal, Leonard captivated American sports fans on his way to winning a light welterweight gold medal. Six months later, CBS televised Leonard’s first professional fight, a unanimous-decision win against Luis Vega in February 1977, from Baltimore.
Leonard fought numerous times on network television thereafter and those experiences helped develop the eventual five-division champion into one of the biggest stars in boxing history. The sport obviously doesn’t occupy the same space on today’s sports landscape in the United States, but if it is to reconnect with mainstream American sports fans Leonard is certain boxing must be broadcast on free TV regularly again.
“Without question, that is indeed the answer and the solution, as far as I’m concerned on network television,” Leonard said during a conference call this week to promote the Danny Garcia-Keith Thurman fight Saturday night at Barclays Center. “A lot of times there are fights on pay-per-view that are not pay-per-view material. These two young men, these two champions, these two fighters, undefeated fighters, they fit the mold. And I talk to people all the time about what fights they wanna see. And this is a fight that has star quality to it.”
The 60-year-old Leonard, an International Boxing Hall of Famer, will serve as an analyst for CBS’ broadcast of Garcia-Thurman (9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT). Their welterweight championship unification fight will be just the second main event CBS will televise in prime time since Leon Spinks upset Muhammad Ali to win the lineal heavyweight championship in February 1978.
CBS executives don’t have another date set aside to televise boxing in prime time this year. If Garcia-Thurman is an aesthetic and ratings success, however, another prime-time card on CBS could become an option.
“I think it’s [about] the quality of the fight and the viewership,” said Stephen Espinoza, executive vice president and general manager for Showtime Sports (owned by CBS). “If it’s entertaining programming and it does good numbers and good demos, then I believe I can go in [to CBS executives] and make the case for more. Certainly, that’s up to my colleagues at CBS to determine the appetite for more. But it certainly would give me ammunition to look into it.”
Thurman (27-0, 22 KOs, 1 NC) delivered plenty of entertainment in his CBS main event against Shawn Porter (26-2-1, 16 KOs) on June 25 at Barclays Center. Their 12-round fight for Thurman’s WBA world welterweight title, which Thurman won by unanimous decision, was one of the best action fights of 2016 and peaked at 3.94 million viewers.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
