Top Rank’s first boxing card on ESPN for 2018 yielded low viewership numbers. The second card somehow did even worse.
According to Showbuzz Daily, the February 16 Top Rank Boxing on ESPN card with a main event of Raymundo Beltran vs. Paulus Moses for the vacant WBO lightweight title averaged 703,000 viewers, making it the least-viewed Top Rank Boxing on ESPN card in primetime since the relationship between Top Rank and ESPN began last summer.
The 703,000 viewers for the February 16 card down from the 741,000 viewers the February 3 Top Rank Boxing on ESPN card drew. The main event for that card was Gilberto Ramirez defending his WBO super middleweight title against Habib Ahmed.
The network was hurt by Winter Olympics coverage, but did provide coverage of the NBA Celebrity All-Star game, which went on before Top Rank Boxing. The Celebrity All-Star game, which feature Top Rank boxer Terence Crawford, did 1.689 million viewers, which means more than 50 percent of viewers tuned away from boxing when NBA coverage ended. That's more than a 50 percent drop from the Celebrity All-Star game to the boxing telecast.
Beltran defeated Moses by unanimous decision to win his first world title in four attempts. In the co-main event of the live telecast, Egidijus Kavaliauskas defeated David Avanesyan via TKO in the sixth round to retain the NABF welterweight title. Top Rank's next ESPN card is the March 10 card from Carson, California, headlined by Oscar Valdez vs. Scott Quigg for the WBO featherweight world title.
