Manny Pacquiao, Top Rank Promotions? biggest star, was upset in a controversial decision by Jeff Horn last Saturday, and his career?as great as it?s been?is in peril. But for Top Rank and ESPN, Saturday?s event was a huge winner.
An average of 3.1 million people watched across the ESPN and ESPN Deportes networks last Saturday, and during the final 30 minutes of the fight, the broadcast peaked at 4.4 million viewers (ESPN, by itself, had an average of 2.8 million). It?s the highest-rated boxing broadcast on cable since 2006, and it was the most watched original cable show on Saturday among the 18-49 adult demographic.
Aside from the Keith Thurman-Danny Garcia fight, which was on free TV (CBS) and averaged 3.71 million with a 5.1 million peak earlier this year, the Horn-Pacquiao broadcast was boxing?s most-watched event in 13 months.
Overall, those numbers made Top Rank President Todd duBoef a happy man.
?It was everything I wanted to see with a plus,? duBoef told Forbes.
DuBoef thought ESPN?s overall coverage of the event?with extended pre-fight and post-fight discussions in a network studio?helped make the fight an even more special event for the fans. Sports goliaths like Kobe Bryant and Aaron Rodgers were tweeting about the results, which helped give the fight more starpower (even if some of the tweets weren?t, ahem, necessarily positive regarding the scorecards).
#PacquiaoHorn pic.twitter.com/i1oqnD74Q2
? Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) July 2, 2017
Boxing is a joke, and it proves it again tonight. Are you kidding me with those scorecards?#joke #rigged
? Aaron Rodgers (@AaronRodgers12) July 2, 2017
For Top Rank, getting dates on HBO and Showtime used to be imperative. But, duBoef said, if mainstream fans don?t know the fight is even happening, it?s not a positive for the promoters.
ESPN, duBoef said, helped penetrate the mind of the mainstream sports fan who likes boxing but maybe hasn?t watched it in a while. That?s why Top Rank hatched a plan to put its fights and its major fighters on ESPN; it was trying to upend the status quo of the sport.
DuBoef said Top Rank?s relationship with HBO remains ?very good? and that the network?s executives understand the promotional company?s decision. But HBO has had budgetary issues that many in the boxing world feel have dropped the network a notch below rival Showtime as the U.S.?s true network home for boxing, and Top Rank developed a plan to put its top fighters on ESPN so millions more fans more could see them.
We saw that with Pacquiao, and in August, Vasyl Lomachenko and Terence Crawford?who are No. 5 and No. 7, respectively on the Forbes Pound-For-Pound Moneymakers list and who have spent much of their careers with HBO?will fight on ESPN.
It?s unlikely that either Lomachenko or Crawford could attract the same numbers as Pacquiao?the Crawford-Felix Diaz fight on HBO in April received an average of 961,000 viewers, and Lomachenko?s last fight on HBO attracted 832,000 viewers?but Top Rank also isn?t expecting Pacquiao-type viewership.
?Could they creep up and do a share of that?? duBoef asked. ?Hopefully. But if we start the machine now and expose the audience to these guys and surround their events with [plenty of promotion], we have a chance to build significant audiences. That?s our objective. We want Lomachenko and Crawford and Oscar Valdez and Ray Beltran to be common names on the mainstream sports dial.?
Canelo vs. GGG sells out: If you want to watch the Sept. 16 Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin fight from inside T-Mobile Arena, you?re going to have to find tickets on the secondary market. That?s because, as of Friday, the fight was sold out in the arena that holds approximately 20,000.
“The boxing public fully understands that this is the biggest fight in many years, and everyone at T-Mobile Arena on September 16 is going to experience a once-in-a-lifetime thrill of watching the two biggest stars in the sport go toe-to-toe,? Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya said in a statement. “As we want as many people as possible in Las Vegas for Mexican Independence Day Weekend to experience this battle for the ages, we will soon announce venues showing the fight on closed circuit.”
As Golovkin promoter Tom Loeffler pointed out, Golovkin has sold out arenas in New York, Los Angeles, Monaco, London and, now, Las Vegas.
?It’s the biggest fan and media response we have ever seen and this event should be as exciting in the ring on fight night as it has been for the buildup leading to the fight,? Loeffler said.
Still, it will be interesting to see how many PPVs the fighters can sell, particularly since the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor bout will take place in the arena only three weeks before Alvarez vs. Golovkin.
Pacquiao camp discord: Since Pacquiao lost, he said he feels like he was set up by the judges. There has been talk that Pacquiao isn?t happy with Top Rank and its CEO Bob Arum. And there has been plenty of finger-pointing at trainer Freddie Roach.
It seems like the Pacquiao camp is in complete turmoil, but duBoef sees it differently.
?Things are fine with Pacquiao,? he said. ?Manny has to decide what he wants to do next in his career. He obviously has his primary occupation as a senator for the Philippines, and he has to see how much he can commit to boxing. These are the aftereffects of a fight that people thought was controversial. This is very common. When Manny decides what he wants to do?whether he wants a rematch or whether he wants to hang it up or if he wants to find somebody else?those are all soul-searching decisions.?
