"Friday Night Fights" Sees Lowest Season Audience Since Inception In '98

[DoktorSleepless]

ESPN2 averaged 409,000 viewers for its 26 “Friday Night Fights” telecasts this season, marking the series’ least-viewed season since its creation in ’98. The audience this season was down 25% from last season. This season’s schedule also saw increased competition from additional Friday night NBA games, as well as the London Games. In addition, the ’12 figure is down 19% from the audience two years ago. “FNF” peaked in ’06 with just over 600,000 viewers. From ’02-07, the series averaged between 450,000-550,000 viewers. The “FNF” telecast on April 13 was the most-viewed episode this year for a junior welterweight bout featuring Albert Mensah-Michael Katsidis (11:25pm ET start, latest all season). Below are the top five “FNF” telecasts from this past season.

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2012/08/30/Research-and-Ratings/FNF.aspx

[-DSG-]

thanks for the great news

[chiguy91]

This season’s schedule also saw increased competition from additional Friday night NBA games, as well as the London Games

that def bumped down their ratings. sucks to hear this though, hopefully their ratings do better next season.

[The Gambler1981]

It was kind of a weak season anyways.

[BattleAxePurist]

That's not good news ESPN could now be more reluctant to spend extra money to make competitive fights.

[Mayweather41-0]

those are weak numbers. i watched nba a good bit last year but watched a lot of friday night fight shows as well

[warp1432]

It was kind of a weak season anyways.

This. The match ups werent that great this year.

It's weird because the previous season was the exact opposite.