Boxing: Pacquiao-Horn

Manny Pacquiao’s defense of the WBO welterweight title against Jeff Horn will be televised live by ESPN on Saturday night from Brisbane, Australia. A crowd of nearly 60,000 is expected to attend their scheduled 12-round fight at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Horn’s hometown.

Airing Pacquiao-Horn on ESPN will expose Pacquiao to a larger audience than usual, though, because the basic-cable channel is available in millions more homes than HBO and the fight won’t cost $65-$75 to watch in HD via pay-per-view. The Pacquiao-Horn fight will headline a telecast set to start at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT and will kick off a new television partnership between Arum’s promotional company, Top Rank Inc., and ESPN.

Arum had difficulty finding an American television partner for the Pacquiao-Horn bout, which Pacquiao (59-6-2, 38 KOs) is heavily favored to win. The 29-year-old Horn (16-0-1, 11 KOs) is the WBO’s No. 1-ranked contender at 147 pounds, but the 2012 Olympian hasn’t beaten a legitimate welterweight contender since he turned pro in March 2013 and is completely unknown among American boxing fans.

“This is the first fight that Manny’s had that’s been on free-to-air television, thanks to ESPN,” Arum said during a recent episode of ESPN’s “First Take” series. “He hasn’t had a fight in 11 years that people hadn’t paid for. His last fight was on HBO 11 years ago. So this is an opportunity for the public to get reacquainted with Manny Pacquiao. And they’ll have a tremendous, tremendous audience on July 1st. And he’s fighting a really good, tough kid in Jeff Horn.”