Khan vs Algieri draws 1 million viewers for Spike TV and PBC

south asian maybe, british no chance. they had to give away tickets to his last fight and he was on bn on friday, few care any more.

pac rematch is still the earner, as sorry as that may seem.

 

I'm no Garcia or Khan fan. But Khan didn't look great his last time out either and there are an awful lot of Puerto Ricans living in the US and if we've learned anything from the history of PPV it's that national ties are far and away the #1 factor in driving PPV buys. Since the DLH fight Floyd has never failed to sell 1mil PPV when fighting a Mexican or Puerto Rican fighter. The only fights he's had that didn't hit 1mil PPV were Hatton and both Maidana fights. It's not a coincidence that there are 5 million Puerto Rican Americans and 35 million Mexican-Americans living in the states compared to less than 2 million British ex-pats and around 200,000 Argentine-Americans. Hatton and Maidana did less PPV buys than Robert Guerrero :huh And Hatton was much more of a star in the UK than Khan has ever been along with being much more highly touted at the time a Floyd fight was being discussed.

 

Ticket holders were having to call boxing apparel businesses to help sell tickets, as I've been told. They were really struggling to fill the seats.

 

Those are excellent numbers. And Spike is not a free channel, it's a cable channel.

 

Spike is on basic cable which pretty much everyone has unless you live out in the middle of nowhere.

 

Great numbers for a Friday night

 

:good

Manny-Floyd II is the mega money fight. And if Manny isn't fit for September then Cotto will probably be the call.

Of course, if Manny isn't fit for September and Cotto loses (or looks terrible) then Khan is back in the mix.

My guess is it will be Cotto II in September, then Manny II next year for Floyd's swansong (I know Floyd has regularly claimed that his next fight is his last, but if Manby isn't fit there's no way Mayweather leaves a Pacquiao rematch on the table).

 

Hatton had only had one fight at 147 (and he did not look good at all against Collazo) before he got the Floyd fight and he went back down to 140 for 2 more fights before stepping back up to 147 for Floyd. Garcia may not have had any fights at 147, but he's still technically had more bouts contested at WW than Hatton had before he fought Floyd. And unlike Hatton, Garcia's last 2 fights leading up to a Floyd fight would technically have been WW contests while Hatton's were both JWW fights. JMM's obviously a different case because he's a legend and an ATG but he had still never fought above 135 when he fought Floyd.

And no, the Khan/Algieri numbers weren't nonsense but they were only 200K higher on average than Garcia/Salka! That fight was supposed to be boycotted AND Danny was coming off the :-( Herrera performance while Khan was coming off dismantling Devon. And correct me if I'm wrong, Spike TV comes free with a basiccable package while Showtime is a premium channel with an extra cost attached. Correct? (My missus handles this, sorry for my ignorance). The viewers from the Peterson fight aren't fair to compare to anything Khan has done since it was the PBC debut and was on NBC but Garcia/Peterson still had a peak of 3.4 million viewers! That can't do bad things in terms of raising your profile with the casual public, most of whom can't tell if a fighter looks good or bad anyway.

I'm not arguing in the slightest about which fight is more likely to happen or who deserves the fight more based on his WW track record. I'm simply making the case that out of Floyd/Garcia and Floyd/Khan a Floyd/Garcia fight do bigger numbers. The proof is in the pudding when it comes to national ties driving PPV sales. And if history tells us anything it's that Mexican and Puerto Rican fighters have the best chance to drive PPV numbers.

 

It's still a cable channel. There's suprisingly a lot of people in the U.S without cable.

 

you have to compare apples to apples.

Spike first 3 cards have went from around 900K, to 600K and now this one doing over 1 million. The first card was the most watched boxing match on a Friday in years. So this card did pretty well.

The PBC cards that come on during Saturday afternoon have done from 1.6 million, to 1.4 million to 1.3 million.

Then the PBC cards that come on Saturday night was over 4 million and 3 million viewers both times.

 

For reference. 93 million homes in the US receive Spike TV, 27 million homes in the US receive Showtime.

 

So that's 93 million of 123 million total households that have access to Spike TV.

118 million of 123 million total households have access to NBC.

 

Khan/Alexander only had 726K views when showed free on Showtime in December.

 

Very true, but the PBC debut on Spike at 900K was for Josesito Lopez and Andre Berto, not even remotely on the radar of the casual fan... AND that card ran at the same time as the Duke - Notre Dame ACC conference tournament game that drew over 2.5mil viewers on average. The Khan-Algieri fight had some overlap with an NHL playoff game that was the biggest sports draw of the day, but that game drew less than 2 million viewers on average.