March 17 Top Rank Boxing On ESPN Card Draw Worst ESPN Boxing Viewership For 2018
Even an ESPN boxing card at Madison Square Garden with two title fights was not able to get the network a decent viewership.
One week after ESPN had its highest rated boxing card of 2018, the March 17 Top Rank Boxing on ESPN card had its worst viewership of the year. The event averaged 488,000 viewers, significantly down from the March 10 event, which averaged about 1.1 million viewers.
The biggest reason for the massive drop in viewership is that the boxing event had to compete with the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, which were being televised all day on CBS, TNT and TBS. Primetime NCAA Tournament games being televised on those channels typically draw at least a couple of million viewers and each of those games, Ohio State vs. Gonzaga on CBS, Florida vs. Texas A&M on TNT and Seton Hall vs. Kansas on TBS, drew at least 2.4 million viewers.
The boxing card featured an interim WBC light heavyweight title fight between Oleksnadr Gvozdyk and Mehdi Amar with Gvozdyk picking up the win by unanimous decision. The other title fight was Jose Ramirez vs. Amir Imam for the vacant WBC junior welterweight title. Ramirez defeated Imam, winning his first world title. Michael Conlan’s second-round TKO win over David Berne was technically the main event as it closed out the show.
Top Rank’s next boxing card on ESPN will actually be a live airing of the Ryota Murata vs. Emanuele Blandamura fight for the WBA “regular” middleweight title. Since the fight will be taking place in Japan, the fight will be televised at 8 a.m. EST on April 15 on the ESPN2 channel.
