Monstrous ratings for boxing in Russia

[croz]

It's easy to say Russia had 7 million viewers for a fight when:

-PPV doesn't exist there.

-Premium cable channels that cost $7- $10 a month don't exist there.

It's a lot easier to get people to watch something when it's on free tv.

Almost 9 million average not including peak numbers actually.

And in no way it is it easy. Russian sports tend to average around 1 million viewers. 2 million is very good and then only the biggest of the big go over that. The world cup qualifier pulled 7 million with a 16% share of all TV viewers. Wlad vs Povetkin pulled almost 9 million with a 33% share. Do you have any idea how big world cup qualifiers are in these countries? It's a major achievement to beat that.

[croz]

Its too damn easy to say "boxing is dying", if you live in the US.. whenever I see the numbers from foreign places they are magnificent.

The numbers in the US aren't so bad either.

2.3 million PPV buys for Canelo-Mayweather ... probably more than 30 million viewers.
Adamek vs Cunningham pulling 4 million viewers in a timeslot that averages 500k viewers on NBC
Bradley vs JMM likely did around 400k buys based on trends
A low level fly weight on CBS pulled the highest viewers for that timeslot in the year, just beating basketball. Otherwise Showtime is booming and HBO is stable.