The self proclaimed “Can Man” also known as Adrien “The Problem” Broner. One things for sure two things are for certain, he does ratings and he’s must watch TV.
This young man has received much praise as well as hatred. He gets a lot of backlash for his personality but I feel with all the false Floyd Mayweather comparisons he still is the only one leading the running to take over the position of Mayweather. He is a draw in his home town and as he’s proved it in different parts of the country. Broner has done well in NYC against Paulie Malignaggi and there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that he couldn’t have done very well in Atlantic City New Jersey or Washington DC.
Now is Broner the new face of boxing ? None of that matters because when it comes to African- American fighters no one really stands a chance. Terence Crawford has that opportunity but again Broner has some things that others don’t. Broner can sell a fight with his personality, his charm and sheer cockiness. Most people are turned off by his antics but they still want to see him on their television screens. People want to see him in exciting, compelling fights. Some tune in because they want to see him lose. They want to see someone shut him up and this is why he is a hot commodity and he’s must see television. The question is would this work on network television? This question was brought up to Adrien Broner’s trainer Mike Stafford.
“Something great, something big is going to happen for Adrien [Broner] it would be great for him to be on NBC, that’s where it all started from.”
Mike Stafford has a point. Network television is where it all started and where the greats of yester-year became popular by fighting on Saturday morning or Tuesday Night Fights on the USA Network.
On April 20th, Main Events hosted a card at the Theater at Madison Square Garden’s with heavyweights Tyson Fury and Steve Cunningham in the featured main event. The card, which aired at 4 p.m. Eastern Time on NBC, drew an average of 1.2 million viewers, peaking at 1.7 million, according to Nielsen ratings. Fury won the fight by knockout in the seventh round.
“We do not have anything to add to the information you obtained from Nielsen but we can say that everyone was very happy with the broadcast,” Main Events said in a recent press statement. “As far as we can tell from publicly released ratings, it appears we had the highest rated boxing program in the United States in 2012 and now the highest rated program so far in 2013, which feels pretty good!”
One may look at these numbers and say ‘Nes come on this isn’t much better then numbers we see on HBO or Showtime,’ and this might be true if you chose not look deeper and realize that Fury, while he’s on his way to being a star if he can keep winning that still was his first fight on American soil. Cunningham I love him but before this Main Events contract he had been a career cruiserweight fighting out of the country.
Broner is averaging a million views on premium television and would benefit tremendously from more exposure of network TV. Let’s face it this would open him up to millions and millions of households. Millions of minority households that aren’t privy to affording premium cable may relate and associate with Adrian Broner
We don’t know where Haymon boxing is headed. It could be straight off the cliff or it can be to a place where boxing is free and millions can tune in and help this sport grow and surpass the heights of the great old days when boxing was on Saturdays.
Please tell us your thoughts. Is Adrien Broner the right guy to put on free TV in front of millions? Tell us who would you prefer? Let us know in comments below.
