NBC pleased with ratings for Las Vegas card
Make of the numbers what you will, but the folks at NBC were pleased with the number of viewers who tuned in Saturday for its Premier Boxing Champions debut telecast from the MGM Grand Garden.
According to figures released from The Nielsen Company, the PBC card averaged 3.4 million viewers. The telecast peaked at 4.2 viewers during the second half of the Keith Thurman-Robert Guerrero fight for the World Boxing Association welterweight title, which Thurman won by unanimous decision, retaining his title.
“The return of prime-time boxing to NBC for the first time in three decades got off to a strong start last weekend with Saturday’s PBC on NBC debut,” Jon Miller, president of programming for NBC Sports, said in a statement released by the network. “With our next telecast on Saturday, April 11, we look forward to building on the momentum that this first event clearly established.”
A spokesman for Al Haymon, whose organization is partnering on the project with NBC, referred all comment on the ratings to the network.
The telecast also did well with adults 18 to 49, producing a 1.08 rating in that demographic, tops among the networks in that time slot.
According to NBC, Saturday’s fight card was the most-watched professional boxing broadcast in 17 years since Oscar De La Hoya did a 5.9 rating on Fox on March 23, 1998.
By comparison, the week before in the same time slot when NBC showed an NHL game between the New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers, that event did just a 1.0 rating nationally.
The PBC on NBC card for April 11 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., will feature junior welterweight champion Danny Garcia against Lamont Peterson and middleweight champion Andy Lee against Peter “Kid Chocolate” Quillin.
Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913. follow him on Twitter: @stevecarprj
