The debut of the Premier Boxing Champions series topped every UFC telecast on FOX in more than two years.
NBC earned a 2.5 overnight rating for the inaugural Premier Boxing Champions telecast Saturday night, the highest for a fight telecast on broadcast television since a January 2013 edition of the UFC on FOX (2.6).
The 2.5 easily tops the most recent fight telecast on NBC, an afternoon NBC Sports Fight Night telecast in September (0.7). NBC averaged a 0.9 overnight for Fight Night telecasts from 2012-14.
Compared to the UFC on FOX, the only other fighting series on primetime network television, Saturday’s PBC debut topped 10 of the 14 telecasts. The only UFC on FOX telecasts to earn a higher overnight were the inaugural edition in November 2011 (3.5), coverage in January (2.7) and December (2.8) of 2012, and the previously mentioned January 2013 window.
The telecast earned a 2.7 overnight from 9-11 PM ET, which according to NBC was the highest for any sporting event during the time period. Keep in mind that two-hour window also included the Duke/North Carolina college basketball game on ESPN. The overnight peaked at a 3.0 from 10:30-11 PM.
Compared to other recent Saturday night sporting events on broadcast, the PBC sailed ahead of an NHL regular season game on NBC the previous week (1.0), but trailed NASCAR’s Sprint Unlimited on FOX three weeks earlier (3.2).
(Sat. numbers from NBC)
