ESPN's "Friday Night Fights" Sees Lowest Season Audience Since Inception In '98

ESPN2 averaged 409,000 viewers for its 26 “Friday Night Fights” telecasts this season, marking the series’ least-viewed season since its creation in ’98. The audience this season was down 25% from last season. This season’s schedule also saw increased competition from additional Friday night NBA games, as well as the London Games. In addition, the ’12 figure is down 19% from the audience two years ago. “FNF” peaked in ’06 with just over 600,000 viewers. From ’02-07, the series averaged between 450,000-550,000 viewers. The “FNF” telecast on April 13 was the most-viewed episode this year for a junior welterweight bout featuring Albert Mensah-Michael Katsidis (11:25pm ET start, latest all season). Below are the top five “FNF” telecasts from this past season.

MOST-VIEWED ESPN2 "FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS" TELECASTS IN '12
DATE	START (ET)	FEATURED BOUT(S)	LOCATION	VIEWERS (000)
4/13	11:25pm	Albert Mensah-Michael Katsidis	Las Vegas	669
1/27	9:00pm	Ruslan Provodnikov-David Torres/ Ji-Hoon Kim-Yakuba Amida	Airway Heights, Wash.	594
2/24	9:13pm	Juan Carlos Burgos-Cristobal Cruz	Dover, Del.	547
1/13	9:00pm	Chris Martin-Teon Kennedy	Las Vegas	534
6/8	10:22pm	Kelly Pavlik-Scott Sigmon	Las Vegas	527