Showtime yesterday said that its Adrien Broner-Paulie Malignaggi welterweight championship boxing match last Saturday "drew 1.3 million viewers, the network’s second biggest audience for a fight telecast." MULTICHANNEL NEWS' R. Thomas Umstead noted the bout "fell just short of the record 1.4 million viewers garnered by Showtime's Dec. 2012 Miguel Cotto-Austin Trout fight, the most watched bout since Showtime began tracking individual fights in 2009." The three-fight card overall "drew 900,000 viewers, the second highest average audience" (MULTICHANNEL.com, 6/26).
GOODELL'S HARD-KNOCK LIFE: NFL.com's Dan Hanzus wrote if NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell "has his way, more teams will be involved" with HBO's "Hard Knocks" going forward. Goodell last week said, "We're talking about some kind of formal rotation where teams participate in the show on a more regular basis. Not necessarily more frequently, but on a regular basis so that it is a shared obligation and it would give more teams an opportunity to have this." Seahawks GM John Schneider said that his team was "approached, but Seattle was not interested" (NFL.com, 6/26).
FINEBAUM FINDING HIS WAY BACK TO WJOX: In Birmingham, Bob Carlton reported local sports talk radio station ESPN 97.3 The Zone is "going off the air less than two years after the station launched in August 2011, clearing the way for Paul Finebaum's new ESPN radio show to return" to WJOX-FM. Sources said that The Zone's last day on the air "will be Friday." The "demise of The Zone all but assures that Finebaum's show will return to WJOX, although ESPN has yet to announce that" (AL.com, 6/25).
