Why boxing needs network TV to help spur the sport's revival

For the better part of the past four decades, professional boxing in the United States has been largely controlled and often dominated by those in charge at HBO Sports.

Seth Abraham, Lou DiBella, Ross Greenburg, Kery Davis, Mark Taffet and others built HBO’s boxing franchise into the equivalent of the New York Yankees, the biggest spenders on the block who were perennial contenders.

Under their watch, HBO was a great steward of the sweet science. Things, though, change, and as the final month of the first quarter of 2017 dawns, it’s clear HBO is now just a bit player in the sport.

On Saturday in Brooklyn, Keith Thurman and Danny Garcia will meet in a hotly anticipated welterweight title unification bout that HBO – with those three letters now seemingly standing for Half the Budget of Others – is sitting out.

For the second consecutive week, a major boxing match that, in the past, might have automatically gone onto HBO will be broadcast live on network television.

Fox had a solid tripleheader last week, topped by WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder’s fifth-round stoppage of surprisingly competitive contender Gerald Washington.

Wilder hasn’t fought great competition, and he’s got plenty of holes in his game, but he has two things that make him a threat to win any fight he takes: pulverizing punching power and exceptional hand speed.

Washington boxed Wilder well, but Wilder’s power overcame all the great work Washington put in during the first four rounds on Saturday in Birmingham, Ala. Washington was easily, and shockingly, outboxing Wilder until all of a sudden Wilder unloaded and, in an instant, the fight was over and the credits were rolling.

Big knockout punchers, particularly big heavyweight knockout punchers, tend to draw very well on television.

The Wilder-Washington card also included a sensational heavyweight battle between Dominic Breazeale and Izu Ugonoh. That was a poor man’s version of the epic 1976 heavyweight match between George Foreman and Ron Lyle in which the fighters were tumbling over like bowling pins succumbing to a 16-pound ball.

Breazeale and Ugonoh put on a show, and anyone who witnessed that match will unquestionably want to see them fight again.

The Thurman-Garcia match pits fighters who are a combined 60-0 with 44 KOs against each other and ranks up there with Canelo Alvarez-Gennady Golovkin as one of the finest bouts in boxing that could be put together.

CBS has this bout on Saturday in prime time, only its second prime-time boxing match in nearly half a century.

Yes, folks, Thurman-Garcia is that kind of a bout. It can be special.

There are many reasons for it, but boxing doesn’t get the kind of ratings that will get it a regular, or even semi-regular, place on network TV. It generally draws an older-than-wanted crowd and the sheer numbers are small.

According to Fox, the overnight ratings for the Wilder-Washington card drew a 1.3 rating and 3 share. It went head-to-head with an NBA game on ABC and an NHL game on NBC. The fight opened with a 1.1 rating and a 2 share at 8 p.m. ET, but peaked in the final quarter-hour with a 1.8 rating and a 3 share as Wilder was in the ring.

Those numbers are actually good for boxing, though. Showtime, which is clearly outpacing HBO in terms of commitment and quality of bouts presented, if not also viewership, averaged 779,000 fans for its main event of Adrien Broner versus Adrian Granados on Feb. 18 – its high viewership in 25 months.

HBO’s most-viewed fight in 2016 was Golovkin versus Dominic Wade, which drew 1.325 million. Only four bouts on HBO, and none on Showtime, surpassed one million viewers in 2016.

The Thurman-Garcia bout on CBS will get far more pre-fight media coverage than Wilder-Washington, and thus should attract more eyeballs to it.

But Fox and CBS are in more than 100 million homes, while HBO has 32 million. So while their sheer numbers are solid, as a percentage of potential audience, HBO generally does far better.

Unexpectedly action-packed fights like Breazeale-Ugonoh will help pull those network figures up if they continue to put on that type of match. Fox also had a super welterweight title bout Saturday between Jarrett Hurd and Tony Harrison that ended with an electrifying knockout by Hurd.

Wilder is slowly morphing into a star-caliber performer. There is momentum for a bout with unbeaten WBO champion Joseph Parker, though the WBC has already mandated that Wilder face Bermane Stiverne.

A Wilder-Parker bout for two of the four major belts on network TV figures to do very well.

And if Thurman and Garcia deliver the kind of fight that most boxing insiders expect, both of them will become money down the road.

There are positive signs, finally, in boxing, despite HBO’s seeming indifference toward it. Anthony Joshua will meet Wladimir Klitschko on April 29 in an important heavyweight title bout.

Kell Brook will face burgeoning star Errol Spence Jr. for a welterweight belt later this year. Golovkin will fight Daniel Jacobs in a middleweight title bout, though that is on HBO Pay-Per-view and not free.

It’s up to the promoters, though. To build on the momentum the sport is starting to gain, the promoters have to keep putting these kinds of competitive fights together and include as many of them as possible on network television and basic cable.

The old days – when there were 10 legitimately very good heavyweights in the world, and the TV numbers were always high – aren’t coming back.

But boxing can have somewhat of a revival by taking advantage of the many good matches that can be made and guaranteeing them the widest possible exposure.

If promoters do that, HBO’s declining interest in high-end boxing won’t have nearly as significant of a negative impact.