NBC Sports Fight Night: Series Doomed To Fail Without Big Names

The newly-launched NBC Sports Network is set to air the first in a series of boxing cards called NBC Sports Network Fight Night on Saturday, but without pay-per-view quality fights, it won't garner much interest.

The first event will take place at Philadelphia's Asylum Arena with a heavyweight main event of Eddie Chambers and Sergei Liakhovich. While both Chambers and Liakhovich are solid heavyweights, that isn't the type of matchup that is going to draw great viewership.

NBC Sports Network is attempting to build its brand since changing its name from Versus on Jan. 2. While the new name helps link it to NBC, that alone won't be enough to compete with the likes of ESPN. Saturday boxing events are a good idea, but they need to be done on a larger scale.

ESPN has been airing Friday Night Fights for quite some time, and while it could be considered a success, it hasn't exactly gained great notoriety. There are often exciting young fighters featured, but without star power it is difficult to get the general public to care.

Perhaps the best example of what NBC Sports Network should be aiming for is what the UFC has been doing with FOX. UFC's first event on FOX featured a main event of Cain Velasquez vs. Junior Dos Santos. Because of the big-name fighters involved, the event got excellent television ratings.

That will likely be the case once again as the next UFC on FOX card will have a main event of Rashad Evans vs. Phil Davis. I'm not saying that NBC Sports Network needs to reel in the likes of Floyd Mayweather or Manny Pacquiao, but they need recognizable names and faces.

Bringing in name fighters may not always necessarily produced the highest quality matches, but the key is to get people interested in the product first. NBC Sports Network couldn't have done a worse job of that as no casual boxing fan is going to go out of their way to see Chambers vs. Liakhovich.

Even if the intention is to have mid-level talent for the majority of the cards, NBC Sports Network should have at least led off the series with an intriguing fight. As it currently stands, perhaps Fight Night could reach the same level of success as ESPN's Friday Night Fights, but I don't see it doing much better than that.

If NBC Sports Network was simply looking for something to fill some time on Saturday nights then Fight Night will do the trick. If they were looking for a network-defining show, however, this simply isn't it.