Comments Thread For: DeGale-Jack Drew an Average of 454,000 Viewers on Showtime

[Thutch2412]

It's a combination of things, the boxing events on Showtime/HBO in the last little bit have been piss poor, no one wants to pay for subscriptions to watch that junk anymore when everyone has capable sites to live stream them anyway.

Cable Companies will not pick up boxing, Haymon's had to pay out the a** just to put boxing on Cable TV, and here is my other big point to that........we've gotten more FREE Boxing on Cable TV than in the last 30 years, and all boxing fans have done in the interim is COMPLAIN..........out of all professional sports, boxing fans complain the absolute most unfortunately. And it sucks for people who actually enjoy the sport because you all are a huge part of bringing it down at the same time.

Hell, MMA fans stick together better than boxing fans, and that's a shame, because our sport SHOULD be more intelligent than theirs.

Anyway, enough of what grinds my gears. Maybe if fans stopped *****ing about EVERYTHING, we could get more boxing in our lives, but you all don't understand that if you're a fan you're already more knowledgeable than the average casual viewer, who actually depends on your criticism in regards to watching more boxing......but when all anyone does is talk ****, you truly are hurting our sport more than elevating it.

[jjsmyth87]

They need to do something. Because now they have some good fights coming, it's a shame no one is watching. It could spiral into refusing to put on good fights.



Holy shiiit dude get your blood pressure checked. Great, they have some good cards. But thus post is about their numbers. Why the **** you hear acting like guys stuck it in your mother?



Ratings only mattern when it's GGG fighting.



Actually, with the quality of the fights being so good, one should ask what the **** is Espinoza doing that is leading to a shrinking audience. GGG v Wade did over 1m. GGG v Brook did 800k in the states in early afternoon in a U.K. Fight.

It's fair to ask what's going on. Especially since low numbers all but ensures that fights like these happen less often. Who the **** is going to fight these guys if fights like Charlo v J-Rock and Degale v Jack don't even break 500k.

At some point the rating have to catch up with the Haymon purse.

What do you mean? Haymon has been cutting his purses back dramatically already. Just google some of the purses for the last few spike tv cards youll be surprised how low they are. Plus all of haymons fighters includinf the top names only fought once or less right now. Haymon has a tremendous lawsuit on his hands and he cant afford to fritter away the last millions he has out of 800 million dollars of investors money on time buys for fights that nobody watches. I cant stress it enough haymon is the worst thing to ever happen to boxing.

[HeroBando]

lol, I get red ked k for facts.

That's lame, great info as usual. So I wasn't far off, it was sub average 5 years ago. Likely top 4 in 12-14, did it beat seasons best? Any idea on the purses for this Foreman card?

[1hourRun]

how is Chocolatito a midget? does saying that make you feel better about yourself? humans come in all sizes dummy

You dumbass! I'm #1. chocolatito fan on this board! you did not understand my post.

[Nicoya415]

You dumbass! I'm #1. chocolatito fan on this board! you did not understand my post.

i see my mistake

[ShoulderRoll]

Losing all those fighters in 2015 either to HBO or to PBC networks crippled Showtime. Long stretches with no fights killed their brand. Now they are too dependent on Haymon who can move a fighter from one network to another. If you subscribe to HBO you watch the same fighters career arch. If you like a specific fighter you know where to find him, you know his next fight will be on a Sat on the same HBO channel. If you like a fighter on Showtime his next fight might be on tues, friday, sat, ect and no telling what channel it will be. If by some odd reason you are a fan of Lara who fought early in the year on Showtime his last fight was this Friday on SpikeTV which does NOTHING for Showtime boxing.

They spend years building up Leo Santa Cruz and his biggest fight with Mares was on ESPN. By the time he came back to Showtime after a year without airing Santa Cruz fights he flops with his fight with Frampton. You don't think if he fought consistently ONLY on Showtime and if the Mares showdown was on Showtime that his fight with Frampton doesn't draw bigger ratings? Of course it does. Same thing happened with Jacobs who they built but then Haymon sent to PBC fights not on showtime for about a year he comes back for a fight with Quillin that bombed then leaves showtime for rematch with Mora on Spike. And now he is fighting GGG on HBO. So what benefit was the Quillin fight for Showtime? There is no momentum a network can build by doing this.

Great post.

That's the problem with the PBC model. People don't know where and when they can tune in to watch their favorite fighter.

People like regularity.

[1hourRun]

i see my mistake

I play to much! I'm sorry my Nica. We good. -_^

[Eastcoast]

I post ratings for informational purposes. When a **** fight does bad ratings, I'll laugh at it. If this thread was about the Lara-Foreman ratings, have at it. I just don't get why you have bad things to say when Showtime is not only putting up great fights on paper, but fights that are delivering in the ring. That should be celebrated, even if the ratings are low.

I'm not questioning the quality of the fight, I'm questioning the man who took a network that was neck/neck with HBO and lost half their viewers by changing the format of what Jay Larkin had put together - Showtime's old motto "Great fights, no rights".

[Eastcoast]

Because Showtime doesn't care about the public numbers, they care about their internal numbers. Espinoza's job is very very safe. He doesn't have to try to artificially inflate the numbers like they do over at HBO because the boxing heads are always so afraid of getting canned.

I'll give you a few examples of why there is such a disparity between HBO & Showtime boxing numbers, beyond the obvious (which is the fact that HBO is in more homes than Showtime).

#1 - Showtime allows subscribers to watch their fights live on "Showtime Anytime," which artificially lowers the Nielson numbers, but is in the best interest of their subscribers. HBO does not allow subscribers to watch their fights live on "HBO GO," because they do not want to take any viewers away from the Nielson number.

#2 - Showtime aggressively replays their events throughout the evening and rest of the weekend on various channels. Making their fights as easy and convenient to watch as possible, but to the detriment of that live Nielson number. HBO on the other hand will have that Sunday morning replay, but makes sure if you want to watch Saturday, you have to watch that one airing, refusing to replay in the middle of the night in hopes of beefing up that first Nielson number.

#3 - To make watching fights on HBO GO as undesirable as possible, HBO often waits until TUESDAY to begin uploading their fights, whereas Showtime will quickly get the fights up on Showtime Anytime. Again, HBO's approach inflates that Nielson number, while Showtime's approach reduces it. But showtime is putting the fan first by giving them so many options and making it as convenient as possible to watch whenever and however you want.

#4 - HBO clips their broadcasts and only makes the fight itself, bell to bell, available VOD, whereas Showtime will allow subscribers to watch the entire event from start to finish. Doing this makes it very undesirable to watch HBO boxing any way other than live on traditional cable, whereas Showtime's approach makes it very convenient to watch any time, anywhere, without missing any of the broadcast.

For those reasons and more, the Showtime & HBO boxing numbers can be deceiving. Showtime is doing what is best for their subscribers while HBO is doing what is best for keeping up appearances.

It sounds like you're suggesting Showtime's getting 300-500k viewers on their "Showtime Anytime" platform.
I'll need some evidence to be convinced of that....

[Pigeons]

I'm not questioning the quality of the fight, I'm questioning the man who took a network that was neck/neck with HBO and lost half their viewers by changing the format of what Jay Larkin had put together - Showtime's old motto "Great fights, no rights".

Jay Larkin? Stephen Espinoza is the one that brought Showtime neck and neck with HBO. Showtime had never seen the ratings that they experienced from 2013-2015 before. That was solely due to Espinoza signing Mayweather.

Showtime's new motto: Great fights, f#ck the ratings.