ESPN Nets Nearly 1 Million Viewers For Crawford
According to Nielsen Media Research, an average of 965,000 viewers tuned to ESPN Saturday night that featured Terence Crawford’s decisive victory over the once unbeaten, Julius Indongo.
Crawford knocked out Indongo in the third round in Crawford’s home state of Nebraska at the Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln.
Crawford’s impressive performance made him boxing’s first fully unified world champion in any weight class since Jermain Taylor beat Bernard Hopkins by split decision in July 2005 to win the IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO middleweight titles. Crawford defended his WBC and WBO 140-pound titles and walked out of Lincoln with the IBF and WBA championships.
Crawford’s fight, a one sided 10-round TKO over Felix Diaz on HBO from Madison Square Garden in May of this year, averaged 961,000 viewers and with peak viewership landing at 1,036,000.
While the numbers on ESPN were impressive, ESPN is available in almost 87 million homes in the United States, and HBO only reaches just a hair over 55 million, due to HBO being a premium channel.
The Crawford-Indongo ratings were, however, markedly higher than Top Rank’s last ESPN showing, WBO super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko’s seven-round domination of Miguel Marriaga. The August 5 telecast drew an average audience of 728,000.
That number may reflect the fact that the Pro Football Hall of Fame induction on ESPN ran late causing ESPN2 to carry the under card, and the Lomachenko-Marriaga match didn’t begin until roughly 12:20 a.m. ET.
Original Story: Boxing Scene