PBC on Fox Saturday night ratings off to struggling start

Saturday night in Los Angeles, Premier Boxing Champions fight series returned on Fox Sports for the first time in five months. And, while they have several significant fight cards coming in the next few months, the initial ratings have to be a disappointment for both.

First, Minneapolis Welterweight Jamal “Shango” James did as expected with an impressive 12 round unanimous decision win on Fox defeating Thomas Dulorme in the main event at the Microsoft Theater without fans.

However, the overnight TV numbers show the PBC on Fox struggled in prime time including against other Sports Programming on network TV. Showbuzzdaily.com had the info:

ShowbuzzDaily Saturday #TVRatings: #PGAChampionship #NHL #PBC https://t.co/AcbdqSaaJr

— Mitch Metcalf/Salem (@ShowBuzzDaily) August 9, 2020

The initial overnight ratings showed an average audience of around 750,000 viewers with the main event drawing just over 830,000 watching.

Those numbers could go up slightly, when more full major market ratings are in on Monday.

For comparison, it was beaten decisively by CBS’ coverage of the PGA Championship, a golf major, in Primetime from San Francisco, CA, which had an average of 2.8 million viewers between 8 – 10 p.m. Eastern Time. And, The NHL Stanley Cup hockey game between the Philadelphia Flyers and the Tampa Bay Lightning nationally on NBC Sports averaged 1.2 million fans between 8 – 11:00 Eastern Time.

A couple of other reference points in terms of the audience:

The Fox number was expected to be much larger (and it was) than PBC’s return to Showtime premium Cable for the first time since March, last Saturday night. That main event fight between Junior Featherweights Angelo Leo and Tramaine Williams drew a main event average of just over 200,000 fans. However, Showtime is a separate additional paid premium subscription service for cable subscribers that many do not have.

That is not the case with network TV options, which every American television viewer has available to them and traditionally, have much greater audience.

Last January, “PBC on Fox” saw an audience of over 2 million for it’s Jeison Rodriguez 5th round TKO upset of Julian “J Rock” Williams broadcast. So, Saturday would be more than 50% lower than that.

Another reference point is ESPN averaging in the neighborhood of 500,000 fans for its June and July “Bubble” Series of fights from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on Tuesday and Thursday nights. The difference, again, is the ESPN, as popular as it is, is a cable offering and not an over-the-air network.

And, then there is the situation in the U.K., where last weekend Eddie Hearn and Matchroom Boxing debuted their first in their “Fight Camp” series on regular cable with Sky Sports. Still, after Hearn had massive free media publicity for weeks and had made fun of Top Rank’s ratings, his first main event had a tepid 200,000 fans watch on British TV last Saturday.

Obviously, all of the boxing promotions know that, as they have better fighters fighting upcoming, there will be more interest with viewers in the future. For example, PBC and Showtime will roll out WBC Super Middleweight champion David Benavidez defending his title this coming Saturday and it should give them an audience bump.

Showtime is also pointing to a World Championship split doubleheader Pay-per-view on Saturday September 19th when both Jermall and Jermell Charlo will defend their titles on the premium network will increase audience and interest. They also have a huge interest fight looming, also on PPV, with unbeaten two division World Champ, Gervonta Davis, battling three division World Champ, veteran Leo Santa Cruz in late October.

Top Rank is hoping to score audience with an upcoming Teofimo Lopez-Vasiliy Lomachenko World Unification lightweight title fight in October. It will likely be offered on ESPN+ PPV.

Hearn has a Heavyweight main event showdown between England’s number one WBC Contender, Dillian Whyte and former IBF World Champ, Russian Alexander Povetkin coming August 22nd that will be offered on Sky Sports PPV.

Now, we wait to see if the audience will rise for some or all.