The peak audience for Saturday's SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING ON CBS broadcast of Thurman vs. Garcia reached 5.1 million viewers, the largest audience for a primetime boxing broadcast since 1998 and up 30 percent over last June's SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING ON CBS primetime broadcast of Thurman vs. Porter. Last Saturday's peak audience came during the final round of the 12-round main event bout.
The peak audience was the second highest for boxing on broadcast television since 1998 (including non-primetime), behind only August 2016's Premier Boxing Champions Errol Spence Jr. vs. Leonard Bundu event on NBC which aired immediately following coverage of the men's gold medal basketball game at the Rio Olympics. The peak audience for that boxing program came in the opening minutes of the broadcast.
The average viewership for the main event of Saturday's SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING ON CBS broadcast was 3.74 million viewers, up 19 percent over June's Thurman vs. Porter main event average.
The average viewership for Saturday's entire broadcast (from 9p – 11:15p ET), which included the co-feature of Erickson Lubin vs. Jorge Coda, was 3.1 million viewers, ranking as the third most watched live boxing event on broadcast television since 1998. The broadcast average was 83 percent higher than Saturday's NBA Primetime Game on ABC (L.A. Clippers vs. Chicago Bulls; 1.7 million). The only boxing broadcasts with higher average viewership were the Aug. 2016 Spence Jr. vs. Bundu broadcast and the anticipated debut of Premier Boxing Champions, Thurman vs. Guerrero in 2015.
Additional Metrics:
- Thurman vs. Garcia was the No. 1 most talked about broadcast television event on social media platforms throughout the day on Saturday, according to Nielsen Social Guide which pulls from Facebook and Twitter.
- The event earned more than 20 million impressions across social media platforms throughout fight week.
- The #ThurmanGarcia hashtag was used 22K times on Saturday night and trended No. 1 on Twitter during the broadcast.
- The host arena for the event, Brooklyn's Barclays Center set an arena record for a boxing event with 16,533 people in attendance. Barclays Center has now hosted 21 world championship boxing events since it opened in 2012.