Showtime's latest boxing telecast fared a little better with no direct HBO competition.
The June 3 of Showtime Championship Boxing, which featured light heavyweight world champion Adonis Stevenson knocking out Andrzej Fonfara in a rematch, averaged 553,000, according to Nielsen Media Research. The Bell Centre fight in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, peaked at 610,000 viewers. This is the third highest viewership average for a Showtime boxing telecast in 2017 after Adrien Broner vs. Adrian Granados (779,000) and Anthony Joshua vs. Wladimir Klitschko (659,000)
The opening fight of the telecast saw Eleider Alvarez defeat former light heavyweight world champion Jean Pascal via majority decision. That fight averaged 373,000 viewers with a peak of 446,000 viewers for that fight. The win solidified Alvarez's position as the mandatory challenger to Stevenson's WBC light heavyweight title.
This is an improvement over Showtime's last Championship boxing telecast, which had to deal with HBO's boxing telecast which featured Terence Crawford vs. Felix Diaz in a telecast that peaked at more than a million viewers on May 20. Showtime's main event for the May 20 telecast was Gary Russell Jr. vs. Oscar Escandon. That fight saw Russell knock out Escandon in the seventh round, and drew an average of 481,000 viewers and peaked at 517,000 viewers.
Showtime will have two more telecasts featuring up-and-coming prospects in their Shobox: The New Generation series before their next major televised fight. That fight will be a battle between current lightweight champion Mikey Garcia vs. four-division champion Adrien Broner in a light welterweight bout. Garcia vs. Broner will be on July 29, but there is still no venue for the fight as of this writing.
