Magdaleno-Vicente low-rated Thursday Night

The ratings came out for the Top Rank Boxing Boxing broadcast, which was headlined by Jessie Magdaleno getting a disqualification victory over Yenifel Vicente Thursday night. And, like the offering on Tuesday on ESPN, it has been met with a low number.

The second live boxing show held by Top Rank at “The Bubble” inside the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada this week, averaged 311,000 viewers throughout the three-hour show, according to Nielsen Media Research.

The telecast peaked at 392,000 viewers, which was fewer than the viewership average for Tuesday’s card, which saw unbeaten featherweight WBO champ Shakur Stevenson make his 130-pound debut in a one-sided knockout win over Felix Caraballo. That main event had an averaged 397,000 viewers and peaking at 609,000 viewers.

While Thursday’s card was a lot better as a whole in the ring, the ratings didn’t reflect as much.

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It is worth noting that the ESPN programming as a whole was down on Thursday as NBA’s The Jump on ESPN averaged just 203,000 viewers, while the Scott Van Pelt 11:00 pm ET edition of ESPN’s SportsCenter averaged 180,000 viewers on the night.

The obvious explanation of this is that the NBA is still trying to figure out if they’re going to play at all this season and why stay up late for the scores when there aren’t sports? This glaringly apparent when the top-rated shows on cable Thursday night are news programs but concerning as it is the only live sport on at a time nothing else is in opposition.

The second explanation of this is: just like what we wrote here on Tuesday with the Shakur Stevenson card, as these shows are that the names aren’t big enough to tune into. That seems to be the plan for these shows as Blow-by-blow man Joe Tessitore mentioned on Tuesday’s broadcast that this would be an opportunity for those usually not on television to be seen in front of a national audience.

After the numbers of these last two boxing cards, that statement can be argued. As the country slowly gets back to being “normal,” more will have the ability to check out these cards throughout the summer.