Television Ratings for ESPN Friday Night Fights and HBO's Alexander-Kotelnik

Television Ratings for ESPN Friday Night Fights and HBO's Alexander-Kotelnik by John Chavez Aug 12, 2010 Ratings are a fairly good measuring stick as to the popularity of a television program. While the Nielsen Media company doesn't provide an exact number as to the amount of live viewers tuning into a broadcast, they give a solid rough estimate of the overall figure. This week The Boxing Truth releases some additional figures to the usual ratings numbers for the most recent ESPN Friday Night Fights and HBO's Boxing After Dark featuring a double-header between Devon Alexander-Andriy Kotelnik and Tarvoris Cloud-Glenn Johnson. We were able to snatch the ratings for shows prior to the Friday Night Fight show as well as the ratings for the show following the boxing broadcast. Here are the Nielsen Media television ratings for boxing's most recent programming: 8-6-2010 - ESPN2 - Tennis Men (US Open) - 153,000 live viewers 8-6-2010 - ESPN2 - Friday Night Fights - Breidis Prescott-Harrison Cuello - 523,000 live viewers 8-6-2010 - ESPN2 - Tennis Women (US Open) - 233,000 live viewers 8-7-2010 - HBO - Boxing After Dark - Devon Alexander-Andriy Kotelnik - 1.057 million live viewers The figures from ESPN2 are significant being that there is an obvious ****e in live viewers when the fisticuffs fly incomparison to that of tennis. It shows that boxing obviously has a significant following on the leading sports network incomparison to tennis but we'll be getting compiling more ratings from other programming on the various networks to get a better idea of how boxing fares compared to the rest. As for the Alexander-Kotelnik bout drawing 1.057 million live viewers... that is a good deal higher than the 897,000 live viewers that tuned into the Timothy Bradley-Carlos Abregu bout several weeks back on HBO. I have the slightest inkling that the fact that Alexander drew 9,000 people in a major metropolitan area such as St. Louis helped garner that elevated television viewership. If you have close to 10,000 people posting on their social networks or even offline that they're attending a boxing event, it translates to much more potential awareness for a boxing contest rather than sticking the event in some non-descript casino. So there you have it... Alexander drew more live viewers on HBO, more live viewers in attendance, and yet Timothy Bradley considers himself the star... go figure. That is The Boxing Truth... no lie. PS. If I was HBO, I'd tell Alfredo Angulo that the most he'll get to fight on the premium network from now on is $250,000 no matter the opponent. He needs to be made an example of RIGHT NOW. Turning down a $750,000 payday while having LOST to Kermit Cintron and not even having 20 professional bouts is asinine. Even worse is HBO even OFFERING 750k to the overrated brick-headed idiot. Somebody, anybody, please fire the idiot that offered that amount of money to a guy who can't draw flies to ****. http://theboxingtruth.com/article.php?id=1876 Looks like Alexander is the draw and he's the one pushing to fight Bradley, BTW Alexander already did a bigger number on B.A.D then Berto has done in 3 B.A.D's headlining. Alexander also did better then Dawson did on World Championship Boxing in his first two appearances.

Comments (20)

yeah it did b/c some people went to espn3.com while others just waited. Still 500K for boxing on Espn is nice considering the time slot and the fact that it's Bredis Prescott. Prescott vs Khan 2 would have probably higher television numbers on HBO or Showtime since Khan was blasted out the first time and Sky Sports would want to show it as well!! Sorry if I wasn't clear but I meant in terms of the numbers carrying over from tennis to boxing since the tennis was technically taking place during the boxing slot.

15y ago

El_Jesus

Tennis is a boring sport to watch, the people who watch that probably just left espn on by accident. Some of the ratings on tennis probably had to do with boxing fans waiting for boxing to come on. That cruddy sport delays boxing by 10-20 mins sometimes. Tennis is like golf, its fun to play but not fun to watch at all. a good competitive match of tennis between the top players is pretty exciting, speak for yourself.

15y ago

2501

Who cares Alexander is a Class C fighter with Floyd and Pacquiao as class A Khan and Bradley Class B and Alexander is Class C Alexander only won by dodgy judging! Khan beat Kotelnik comprehensively, Kotelnik only won two rounds in his fight against Khan, even if u were biased for Kotelnik there is no argument for Kotelnik winning any more than four rounds. With Kotelnik Vs Alexander there are many toss up rounds but I felt at the end of the fight Kotelnik was taking most of the rounds I had him winning by three rounds. Alexander is all about the speed of his punches, where khan and bradley have many more skills. A lot of people on this forum overate Alexander, because of his fast punching and his high work rate, but skill wise he is a clearly a class below the best in his division. doesn't matter. numbers show that Alexander is the money maker.

15y ago

Devils_Advocate

The tennis match ran long, probably about 10 minutes into the FNF timeslot. I wonder if this accounted for? yeah it did b/c some people went to espn3.com while others just waited. Still 500K for boxing on Espn is nice considering the time slot and the fact that it's Bredis Prescott. Prescott vs Khan 2 would have probably higher television numbers on HBO or Showtime since Khan was blasted out the first time and Sky Sports would want to show it as well!!

15y ago

steeluv

http://theboxingtruth.com/article.php?id=1876 Looks like Alexander is the draw and he's the one pushing to fight Bradley, BTW Alexander already did a bigger number on B.A.D then Berto has done in 3 B.A.D's headlining. Alexander also did better then Dawson did on World Championship Boxing in his first two appearances. Who cares Alexander is a Class C fighter with Floyd and Pacquiao as class A Khan and Bradley Class B and Alexander is Class C Alexander only won by dodgy judging! Khan beat Kotelnik comprehensively, Kotelnik only won two rounds in his fight against Khan, even if u were biased for Kotelnik there is no argument for Kotelnik winning any more than four rounds. With Kotelnik Vs Alexander there are many toss up rounds but I felt at the end of the fight Kotelnik was taking most of the rounds I had him winning by three rounds. Alexander is all about the speed of his punches, where khan and bradley have many more skills. A lot of people on this forum overate Alexander, because of his fast punching and his high work rate, but skill wise he is a clearly a class below the best in his division.

15y ago

2501

Why don't we start a webpage to have people electronically sign calling for a stop the Haymon/HBO monopoly? SOMETHING has to be done to let the network know that what they're doing is hurting the sport.

15y ago

Steak

also, the ratings for low key ESPN fights are pretty big considering the unknowns that in them. Imagine if they had a big name live fight on Friday Night Fights. the ratings would probably be huge.

15y ago

It's ridiculous to see how boxing continually pulls in more viewers on free TV than other sports yet is still shunned. It's the exact same situation here in England. The only possible reason I can think of is that boxing costs too much money in comparison - so much that even those high viewing figures don't justify it's price tag.

15y ago

Steak

HBO's love of Berto irritates me. here he is fighting 140lbers over and over again, while HBO is cheaping out on the Klitschko brothers and other stupid choices.

15y ago

Hyperion

theres a reason steve kim calls HBO, the Haymon Boxing Organization...its crazy how easily he can scam them idiots from HBO....

15y ago

Heru

It's crazy man. Berto vs Quintana sold 972 tickets and did under 1 million live viewers on HBO, yet JMM's consistently selling good crowds and bringing big ratings ain't guaranteed $hit. And it's not like they are building him up to fight Floyd because that's never going to happen, Haymon fighters don't fight each other. Even Maidana vs Ortiz did 1.1 million viewers live and 8k at the gate, I doubt either guy made over 100k for that fight. If HBO invested that 1 million for Ortiz vs Maidana II they would do big numbers on TV and another good gate, it would cost less then a Berto card against another jr Welter. With that 1 million u could pay both fighters and probably have a little left over for a decent under card fight. That would be a smart thing to do though, HBO wouldn't do that. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4100/4873153155_4b1c9ebc40_z.jpg http://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/article/65987 Knowing a few of the salaries of a few fighters, I could make some good-great fights for what they pay Berto. Do you know how many fighters haven't even made half a mil yet for their career, let alone a fight? They paid Berto 1.3-4 or 5 million for the Quintana fight. HBO could've probably bought Calderon-Segura for less than 300K, have money left over to buy Angulo-Quintana/Collazo and another solid fight (they made Cloud-Johnson for less than 300K and Ortiz-Campbell less than 200K), drawn a better attendance and done a better rating than Berto-Quintana easy. That wasn't really the US Open on ESPN2: Legg Mason Classic is just part of the US Open Series, the hardcourt events leading into the major. The actual US Open won't start til the 30th. Good thing it was, because if a regular FNF can double and quadruple 1 of the top 2 tennis tournaments and still be treated the way it is by ESPN, I was about to think the fix was in. I still think the FNF card is eclipsing some of the past Stanley Cup ratings and hockey still gets priority over boxing. And I think some of the HBO telecasts eclipsed Stanley Cup ratings even when it got back on major channels. And they're doing it while on premium cable with a 3rd of the viewers.

15y ago

jmah

15y ago

mrpain81

15y ago

Slyboots

It's such a shame that Alexander garnered such high ratings yet gave a below average performance.

15y ago

Heru

I think Al Haymon has naked pictures of Ross Greenburg and a male escort, I don't see any other way he can get away with the bull$hit he gets away with. None of his fighters fight each other, they all get dates and a lot of time against weak opponents. No doubt about it that HBO are like the US government when it comes to spending, they piss their money away on dog $hit instead of paying the guys by how many asses they can get in the seats and what type of ratings they get. :lol1: That really must be one of the few explanations that make sense. Berto has faced... (opens tab, goes to boxrec, checks mental Rolodex for confirmation) Carlos Quintana Juan Urango Luis Collazo Steve Forbes Miguel Angel Rodriguez Michel Trabant David Estrada Norberto Bravo Miguel Figueroa All on HBO, not ESPN2, Shobox, a PPV undercard, but prime time HBO. 3-4 of them being a main event... Why? Berto gets a million dollars from HBO for these **** fights. JMM had to go to PPV because they wouldn't give him a million from the budget. Berto doesn't bring in attendance, he doesn't bring in ratings, or anything else associated with success for a premium cable channel. I might send this post to HBO and threaten a boycott, if they waste money on a Kotelnik or Bundrage fight. Fight Mike Jones, Cotto, Mosley, or Williams, if not keep his ass off.

15y ago

Mayweather410

John Chavez get's the ratings from a hook up he has at nielsen, he's the only boxing scribe that puts them out on a consistent basis. You might sometimes find ratings put out by HBO or a Promoter but that's usually a press release they send out when the show did good like Cotto vs. Foreman. http://www.theboxingtruth.com/ That's the site where Chavez posts the ratings. Also twitter. http://twitter.com/boxingtruth Cool thanks a lot man.

15y ago

mrpain81

15y ago

mrpain81

15y ago

Mayweather410

Yo at mrpain 81 how do you find these ratings I have tried researching and I never really come across anything only the amount of ppv buys an event has. Thanks

15y ago

Heru

FNF doubling, tripling, quadrupling up 1 of the 4 top tennis tournaments in the World and 1 0f the 2 top tennis tourney's in the US tells for both sexes is the **** that makes me think there's a conspiracy against Boxing. They give tennis more airtime than boxing on everything. Even when you go to espn.com they have tennis over boxing in their little drop down menu. All you need is good ability and Al Haymon as your advisor/manager and you will have all the dates possible on HBO... How else would Berto get all the dates he's had on the network? I mean investing in Floyd eventually paid off, but Floyd has exceptional ability and a controversial personality that translated into PPV buys. Berto has the speed, but falls short everywhere else. HBO is run by idiots and they don't care if they can get more bang for their buck. They just like to make bad decisions.

15y ago