The debut of ESPN’s new Premier Boxing Champions on ESPN featuring Keith “One-Time” Thurman vs. Luis Collazo and Willie Nelson vs. Tony Harrison—on Saturday, July 11, peaked with nearly 1.2 million viewers according to Nielsen. The main event (10:15-11 p.m. ET) delivered an average of nearly one million viewers. The two-hour telecast (9-11 p.m.) was seen by an average of nearly 800,000 viewers—about double of 2015’s Friday Night Fights telecasts, which averaged 381,000 viewers. 

It is also important to remember that the telecast went head to head with the biggest UFC PPV card in the last 3-4 years as well as lacked really appetizing match-ups to drive interest from a paper standpoint. The next telecast on ESPN will be on August 1st in Brooklyn, NY headlined by Danny Garcia vs. Paulie Malignaggi.