The Sergey Kovalev-Bernard Hopkins WBO light heavyweight title fight last Saturday averaged 1.328 million viewers on HBO for the live telecast, the "second most-viewed fight" in the U.S. in '14, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN.com. Only the super middleweight Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.-Bryan Vera rematch on March 1 "had more viewers," averaging 1.390 million. Kovalev-Hopkins peaked at 1.397 million viewers. HBO now has "televised the top 13 most-watched fights of the year" in the U.S. (ESPN.com, 11/11). MULTICHANNEL NEWS' R. Thomas Umstead notes HBO's Nov. 22 Manny Pacquiao-Chris Algieri fight from China "will complete what has been a relatively good year for the boxing category." Sources said that heading into the Pacquiao-Algieri fight, the category "is on pace to draw" about 3.8 million PPV buys and $242M in revenue. Also, every major N.Y. newspaper as well as "other prominent media outlets" including USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and ESPN "will have representatives in China during the week of the fight." Pacquiao's November '13 fight against Brandon Rios from China "drew approximately 475,000 buys." HBO VP/Sports Operations & PPV Mark Taffet said, "This fight will have media coverage that will be beamed back to the U.S. via television, newspaper and digitally beyond what existed a year ago in China" (MULTICHANNEL NEWS, 11/10 issue).
