HOW MANY TV SETS IN AMERICA WATCH BOXING?
San Francisco, CA-In the world of numbers, I?ve always wondered how many television sets there are in the United States? I?m told that there are 111,400,000 televisions in total, and that ESPN is available in roughly 91,000,000. On an excellent night, I?m told they?ll do 800,000 homes for a live Friday night fight. HBO reaches about 25 million homes, while Showtime?s numbers hover around 13 million. HBO can max out at about 5,000,000. Showtime, although their numbers have improved on a level consistent with their fare, has far less people watching boxing because they are in roughly 55% of the homes that HBO is.
JUST OVER 300 MILLION AMERICANS AS OF 2006
We have 300,000,000 million people in the USA. For what will be called the fight of the ?new? century, Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather, set for May 5, 2007, the number of Pay Per View homes the fight will be beamed into is an estimated 1.3 million. The delayed broadcast and those watching in bars and the like, the maximum number of people that will watch this might top 4% of the U.S. populous. Worldwide, Del La Hoya-Mayweather, it?ll be miniscule, a stat that will pale in comparison to Ali Frazier I.
ALI?S S BEST NUMBERS & PERFORMANCE DIFFER!
Muhammad Ali defended his world heavyweight title for the sixth time today in 1966 on Wide World of Sports (ABC TV) against Cleveland Williams. Although Williams was shot-ski, the hand speed and combinations Ali threw 40-years ago today is unparalleled in heavyweight history. Back to the subject at hand, numbers, the big fight March 8, 1971, between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, their first of three, that was seen live by, are you ready for this, 300,000,000 worldwide.
PACQUIAO-MORALES III ONE WEEK REMOVED
When I watch replays of fights that I?ve already seen, I always look for things that I missed during the initial showing. The Manny Pacquiao blitzkrieg of Erik Morales last Saturday was such an abbreviated contest, there weren?t too many things I didn?t miss the first time.
SOME OF THOUGHT CLIFF WAS A BIT HARSH!
But, if you felt that Cliff Rold was wrong in saying, ?Erik more shot than Tupac,? rewind your ancient VHS, TIVO, DVR, or if you still got an archaic Beta machine, go back to the 1:30 mark of round two. Erik launches his once-vaunted left jab, it misses, and he nearly fell forward enough to the point that he nearly fell down. What?s that old saying, ?his legs were playing tricks on him,? Erik?s sure were.
FORD HAS HIS MERCHANT-LIKE TIME CAPSULE PHOTO
How about the look on the face of Duane Ford, as he was adjacent to a seated Erik Morales? The judge?s perplexed look was that of us all, would Erik get up? In the second Ali-Sonny Liston fight, the famous photo of Liston down, a shocked Larry Merchant, long before HBO, is photographed between the legs of Ali standing over Liston. Admittedly, Larry says that was his time capsule photo op, I guess this was Duane?s.
SPEAKING OF PACQUIAO-MORALES NUMBERS?
Nothing out of New York, at least that I?ve heard in regards to the Manny Pacquiao-Erik Morales rubber match. But get this, for the Pacquiao-Oscar Larios fight in July on ABS-CBN had a 67% share of the 50,000,000 homes in the Philippines. That fight was at night. Manny-Erik III came off at 10 AM on Sunday morning. I?m willing to bet that the initial broadcast went live into better than 90% of the 50,000,000 homes, and with the much ballyhooed primetime replay (8 PM), airing again at midnight, you have to think this fight was easily watched by over 150,000,000 people on ABS-CBN.
ANSWER TO SLUMPING U.S. FAN BASE IS?RACE
A while back, I teased with the thought of boxing needing a white heavyweight champion. In Part II, that will be available late Monday ET, I?ll expand on that and more here at www.RingTalk.com
