Sure, it had a lead-in of the Olympic basketball gold medal game between the USA and Serbia.
But even so, Errol Spence Jr.?s sixth-round knockout of Leonard Bundu on Sunday afternoon delivered impressive numbers for the NBC and the Premier Boxing Champions.
More than 6 million viewers watched the Spence-Bundu fight, which began at 5 p.m. ET, according to Nielsen. The fight posted a peak audience of 6.34 million viewers and averaged 4.8 million viewers for the entire hour. It is the highest-rated PBC fight to date and the largest television audience for boxing in more than 18 years.
?I knew this would be the most important fight of my career and the goal was to not just win, but to put on a spectacular one-sided performance,? said Spence. ?It felt good to go out there and give everyone watching a great show and to do it in front of such a large television audience makes it even better. Thanks to everyone who tuned in and I promise you?ll be seeing more of me soon. My time is now and this is just the beginning.?
With the win in the title eliminator, Spence becomes the mandatory challenger for England?s IBF welterweight champ Kell Brook. Brook moved up to middleweight to fight Gennady Golovkin for the title in London on Sept. 10.
Spence has plenty of opponents to pick from in the stacked welterweight division, including Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia, Manny Pacquiao, Adrien Broner and Brook, who did not vacate his title to fight Golovkin.
