With an average of just 1.024 million viewers, the entertaining lightweight title bout utterly failed to reach anyone but the usual diehards?
Apparently, it?s a tough concept for old guard boxing fans to understand, but what worked as promotion in 1957 does not work for boxing in 2018. I mean, for fuck?s sake, it?s clearly not working when TV ratings lauded as phenomenal barely trump 5 AM ratings for George Lopez reruns on Nick-at-Nite.
For the longest time, boxing fans and media in denial could point to the limited reach of premium cable channels like HBO and Showtime as the culprit in limiting audience in the US. But, with a few exceptions here and there, boxing shows aired in recent years on major networks (like ESPN, NBC, CBS, and Fox, with access to 100 million viewers or more), have generated numbers similar to what they got on premium cable.
The Nielsen ratings for the May 12 ESPN Lomachenko-Linares main event once again bear out this reality. With an average of just 1.024 million viewers, the entertaining lightweight title bout, which saw Lomachenko become a three-division world champ in just his twelfth pro fight, utterly failed to reach anyone but the usual diehards.
To put it into perspective, only a few thousand more people saw the outstanding Lomanchenko-Linares bout than the 1,000th airing of the 16-year-old ?George Lopez? rerun where Max accidentally lets Mr. Needles chew up George?s autographed baseball.
Spare me the spin issued from Top Rank and ESPN about it being this ?historic? event and the highest-rated cable boxing show of the year?we?re still only talking about a million viewers. That?s definitely ?No Bueno.?
What these numbers tell you (along with the numbers generated by other boxing companies trying to tap the mainstream sports market) is that boxing, when showcased on mainstream channels, is not really bringing in any new fans. The same 600K to 1.4 million fans who tune into any and all boxing on TV, are merely changing channels to find the sport they love.
When it comes specifically to the May 12 ?blockbuster,? one of the most highly-anticipated bouts of the year only managed to draw in a tiny fraction of ESPN?s 91 million+ potential households. A BluBlockers sunglasses infomercial may have brought in a similarly-sized fragment of the full audience.
Unless the goal is to turn American boxing into a private club for old and jaded men, the sport is on the wrong path (although it seems, at times, that many fans WOULD like to make the sport a private club).
But if growth is what you want and long-term commercial viability for boxing is, indeed, the key to the sport being able to put on more shows and better shows for more people, then change is needed.
Eddie Hearn, Al Haymon, or anyone else who brings new ideas and new ways of doing business to boxing should be embraced or, at the very least, heard out.
New ways to promote the sport are also needed. A few press releases issued to media is NOT promotion and loading up a fighter?s hometown bingo parlor with friends and family is only one small way to build a fan base. In this new age of social media and tech-savvy fans who, literally, have the world at their fingertips, boxing?s curmudgeonly way of building and promoting is clearly not yielding results.
It would be to our benefit as boxing people if, instead of attacking uppity newcomers in the game and clutching desperately at the old guard dinosaurs, we actually supported those with new ideas and fresh approaches to the business.
Here?s to the success of anyone willing to dive into the mess of a sport that is boxing with hopes of expansion?and here?s hoping that those unwilling to embrace change can at least stay out of the way of those who do.
