Rios-Alvarado 3 draws 1.315 million viewers on HBO

By Boxing News - 01/27/2015 - Comments

rios444443By Dan Ambrose: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum has got to be pretty happy right now with the news that his Top Rank card from last Saturday night bringing in good rating on HBO despite the fact the main event on the card was a poor mismatch at the 1stBank Center, in Broomfield, Colorado, USA.

The Brandon Rios (33-2-1, 23 KOs) vs. Mike Alvarado (34-4, 23 KOs) trilogy fight in the main event brought in an average of 1.252 million viewers on HBO with a peak of 1.315, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN.

The high ratings could possibly lead to Arum thinking pay-per-view in the future for the 28-year-old Rios, because if he can continually draw large ratings for his fights, Arum might think the next jump is pay-per-view for the slugger. Arum has already mentioned Tim Bradley, Miguel Cotto, and Ruslan Provodnikov as potential opponents for Rios. There’s also Ruslan Provodnikov and Jessie Vargas.

”Per Nielsen, Rios-Alvarado 3 drew average audience on HBO boxing of 1.252M viewers for live 1st-time airing. Peaked at 1.315M,” Dan Rafael said on his twitter. ”Rios-Alvarado 3 was most-watched fight of series. 1st fight (undercard) averaged 816k viewers. 2nd had 1.182M viewers on @HBOboxing. The @HBOboxing opener on Rios-Alvarado 3 card — Ramirez vs. Vlasov — averaged 820k viewers, peaked at 946k. #boxing.”

Whatever Arum does, he needs to take advantage of Rios’ momentary popularity while he can, because it’s likely to be fleeting for the easy to hit fighter. Yes, Rios looked good against Alvarado, but he was in with a guy that didn’t look like he’d prepared mentally or physically for the fight. To be honest, Alvarado hasn’t looked like the same fighter since his win over Rios in March of 2013. Since that fight, Alvarado has lost his last three fights. HBO bought the Rios-Alvarado 3 fight last Saturday night knowing it would probably bring in good ratings, but they should have known that it would be a stinker given Alvarado’s two recent performances against Juan Manuel Marquez and Provodnikov.

Arum is going to need to match Rios against the best fighter possible because he’ll likely lose that fight, and along with it his popularity. Whatever Arum does, he needs to keep Rios far away from Diego Chaves, because Rios was exposed by Chaves last year. Chaves has Rios’ number, as he showed that he can do everything that Rios does but better. He’s a bigger puncher and a better inside fighter than Rios.

Cotto or Bradley would be great for Rios, but Arum will have to come up with a lot of money to pay those guys to take a fight against Rios. It would probably have to be pay-per-view for there to be enough money to pay everybody. After the way Rios looked against Chaves and Manny Pacquiao, it’s hard to imagine paying to see Rios fight on PPV.



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