Comments Thread For: Crawford-Benavidez ESPN Show Averaged 2.245 Million Viewers

[CocoonOfHorror]

Man we’re in trouble if boxing can’t draw at least 5 million of ESPN subscribers.

Why? The lead in college football game in primetime featuring the #1 team had under 4 million viewers and college football is a hugely successful multi-billion dollar business and cultural phenomenon.
There's nothing magical about market share or fraction of subscribers who tune in to an event. As long as there are enough sustainable income streams from an event (network rights fees, subscription fees, advertising, corporate sponsorship, tickets, etc.; plus international TV and streaming income that is becoming increasingly important), and in the absence of a better alternative, you have business incentives that will supply boxing to the public. ESPN has a huge incentive to make boxing work as they are trying to fill over 100 hours per day of sports programming across their networks. I guarantee they were happy with 2 million+ viewers.

[True That]

I don't like ESPN's set up for boxing. I don't like the production. I definitely have Showtime and DAZN as better set ups and production for their boxing platforms.

I know ESPN gets way more viewers because it's part of cable TV and not a premium channel. But just production and set up wise, I much prefer the way Showtime and DAZN do their boxing shows.

[CocoonOfHorror]

Interesting. I would assume he would be on PPV from then on and build on that.

First, Crawford-Postol PPV was a massive flop - 50-60k buys. Arum actually came out and said that he lost money.

Second, just because a boxer's biggest fight to date was on PPV doesn't mean that every fight will be. Just because Wilder-Fury is PPV doesn't mean Wilder-Brezeale will be.

[teamindividual]

That's an amazing number of viewers ESPN has but bad viewer numbers for a boxing match.

For comparison ..
Hughie vs Sam Sexton for the British championship did 3 million. The UK population is way less than 82 million and only a fraction of them are sports fan. So that's with little fanfair an unpopular fighter fought some one 99.9% of people had never heard off for a belt few people cared about and that did more than a pound per pound champ.

brits might need to find more hobbies

[Removed Now]

Why? The lead in college football game in primetime featuring the #1 team had under 4 million viewers and college football is a hugely successful multi-billion dollar business and cultural phenomenon.
There's nothing magical about market share or fraction of subscribers who tune in to an event. As long as there are enough sustainable income streams from an event (network rights fees, subscription fees, advertising, corporate sponsorship, tickets, etc.; plus international TV and streaming income that is becoming increasingly important), and in the absence of a better alternative, you have business incentives that will supply boxing to the public. ESPN has a huge incentive to make boxing work as they are trying to fill over 100 hours per day of sports programming across their networks. I guarantee they were happy with 2 million+ viewers.

He sounded crazy. 5 million is a lot. The only way it could reach that for a boxing match in America is Mayweather vs a MMA guy or Pacquiao / Canelo rematch. Or if the heavyweight had a undisputed American champion that's it.

[kej718]

Can't wait to see the amount of viewers on Fox when they start airing fights. I think that will help all the other networks if they put on great cards.

[Jab jab boom]

I wonder if ESPN would do better #s if they stopped airing main events at midnight eastern time. That's an even later start time than most ppv main events.

[Drew Bundini Br]

Time for top stank to stop slow walking the No. 1 P4P Champ CRAWFORD and push him with better marketing and promotion. Congtats to CRAWFORD,These ESPN no.s are phenomenal!!!

[Boksfan]

Lmao at Muricans, they watch some collage football instead of boxing

[killakali]

That's like saying Victor Ortiz vs Devon Alexander on FOX is blowing SHO out of the waters because they did over a million in ratings.........Without mentioning the difference in subscribers lol.

Yeah bro exposing it to them. Spence and Wilder aren’t moving the needle enough to beef up those SHO subscriptions to get better ratings.