Crawford-Diaz sets the bar for HBO ratings this year

Saturday night’s shellacking of Felix Diaz by the hands of Terence Crawford was a ratings hit per Nielsen Media Research. The Madison Square Garden main event averaged 961,000 live viewers, topping at out 1,036,000 viewers. The opening bout of the televised broadcast, between Ray Beltran and Jonathan Maicelo averaged 687,000 viewers, peaking at 723,000.

Crawford’s numbers were good enough to make it HBO’s top-performing premium cable bout of the year, surpassing Vasyl Lomachenko’s April fight against Jason Sosa — a fight that averaged 832,000 viewers.

This number for Crawford represent a 19% increase from his previous HBO appearance last December, when he beat John Molina in a telecast that averaged 806,000 viewers.

HBO’s broadcast of Crawford-Diaz ran right on the heels of a four-fight Showtime broadcast which started at 6pm ET. The Showtime main event, headlined by Gary Russell Jr. defending his world title against Oscar Escandon averaged 481,000 viewers, peaking at 517,000. The co-feature between Andre Dirrell and Jose Uzcategui averaged 354,000 viewers, topping out at 459,000.

Meanwhile the Rances Barthelemy vs. Kiryl Relikh portion of the Showtime card averaged 267,000, peaking at 295,000, while Gervonta Davis’ successful title defense against Liam Walsh averaged 228,000, topping out at 253,000.