Last Saturday night HBO Boxing presented a spilt-site twin bill of bouts that thrilled fights fans from coast-to-coast. And delivered major box office numbers.
In the opening bout of the telecast, 2014 BWAA “Fighter of the year” Terence Crawford secured a title belt in his first fight at 140 pounds. The Crawford-Dulorme matchup delivered on average 1,004,000 viewers for the live, first time airing. Terence’s KO win peaked at 1,084,000 viewers.
The thrilling Matthysse-Provodnikov matchup from Verona, NY delivered as expected with both fighters providing an extraordinary effort in the 12-round slugfest won by Lucas. The 140-pound tilt delivered an average viewership of 1,243,000 viewers. The hard-fought battle peaked at 1,380,000 viewers.
The entire HBO telecast on April 18 averaged 1,037,000 viewers.
The HBO advantage over SHOWTIME’S competing boxing program (average 437,000 viewers) on Saturday was 137%The SHO first fight of the night averaged 346,000 viewers, peaking at 427,000 viewers. The HBO audience advantage for the opening bouts on Saturday was 190%.The SHO main event from Carson, CA delivered 618,000 viewers, peaking at 836,000 viewers. The HBO main event audience advantage was 101%.
Julio Cesar Chavez Jr’s audience performance declined 56% from his last bout – which was on HBO in 2014.
