ESPN's latest boxing telecast nearly reached a million viewers despite a midnight start on the east coast.
The November 16 Top Rank on ESPN telecast, which only featured the WBO junior welterweight title fight between Maurice Hooker and Alex Saucedo, averaged 950,000 viewers and drew a 0.36 rating in the 18-49 demographic. According to Showbuzz Daily, the 18-49 rating was good for seventh on cable for November 16. The fight aired after an NBA game between the Milwaukee Bulls and Chicago Bulls, which drew more than 1.7 millions viewers.
Although 950,000 viewers is usually more than the average viewership of HBO and Showtime boxing cards, that number was significantly down from the viewership for ESPN's last Top Rank telecast. The October 13 telecast, which saw Terence Crawford defeat Jose Benavidez Jr., averaged 2.245 million viewers on ESPN, which was the highest viewership for a boxing card.
This means that the November 16 fight saw a 57 percent decrease in viewership compared to the yearly-high from October 13. Despite this, it was the fourth-highest viewership for a Top Rank card on ESPN for 2018.
Hooker defeated Saucedo by seventh-round TKO to successfully retain the title. The fight landed on ESPN after Top Rank won a purse bid for the fight. ESPN's next Top Rank card is the December 8 card from Madison Square Garden that is being headlined by Vasiliy Lomachenko vs. Jose Pedraza for the unified WBA and WBO lightweight titles.
