26 million viewers for boxing in Japan

Koki Kameda vs Hugo Ruiz pulled a 20% ratings meaning 26 million people watched.

The week prior 11% watched a pre fight special accounting for 15-16 million.

It was the third most watched show in Japan that week after figure skating and the news.


Below are the top boxing matches in Japanese history. Kameda's recent fight officially makes boxing one of Japan's most watched sports ever granting the sport it's own ratings section on the TV ratings website alongside: baseball, soccer, running and golf.
No question who the king of Japanese boxing was but keep in mind there were less stations back in Harada's day.

Percentage of the population that watched. Population is 128 million.

1. Harada vs Jofre 64%
2. Harada vs Rudkin 60%
3. Harada vs Karaboro 57%
4. Harada vs Jofre 54%
5. Harada vs Joe Medal 53%
6. Harada vs Rose 53%
7. Gushiken vs Rios 43%
8. Koki vs Naito 43%
9. Koki vs Randaeta 42%
10. Golden Dragon High-hyun vs Gushiken 41%
11. Tatsuyoshi vs Yakushiji 39 million%
12. Tyson vs Douglas 38 million%
13. Gushiken vs Vargas 38 million%
14. Flores vs Gushiken 36 million%
15. All Kameda bros card 33 million%
16. Barukasu vs Gushiken 32 million%

 

I added up the ratings a bit wrong there actually. I just translated each percentage point into a million when in actuality it represents the percentage of the population. So that 64 million is actually 64% of whatever the population was at the time. Same for all the others I accidentally listed as million when it should be percent. So for example Kameda vs Naito is 43% not 43 million so it's actually 43% of the population 129 million which gives us an audience of 55 million.

 

Seeing as Harada was fighting since the 60s and Tyson-Douglas happened in the 90s it doesn't seem to have influenced it much.

 

No boxing's TV ratings reflect the new number of TV stations which have popped up since then. Kameda's ratings are really quite mind boggling considering there are so many extra cable channels around today. The further back in the past you go the higher the TV ratings are in pretty much every country. The more channels you have then the less people you have watching one particular channel. It's no different to how back in 2003 6 million on Primetime TV in the US was considered bad but in 2012 that same number is considered good. The more outlets people have to watch things then the more segregated TV ratings become. You think streaming on the PC might cut into TV ratings in the US? Well in Japan the PC is dead and replaced with some hand held gimmick 90% of the people probably have in their pocket already.