By Jake Donovan

Terence Crawford capped a banner year—one many will argue is worthy of Fighter of the Year honors—with a 12-round virtuoso performance versus Raymundo Beltran on Nov. 29 at home in Omaha, Nebraska.

The win netted Crawford (25-0, 17KOs) the vacant World lineal lightweight championship—as recognized by BoxingScene.com—in addition to scoring his 3 rd consecutive victory over a top-rated lightweight. It also strengthened his standing as a rising box-office attraction, drawing a crowd of 11,127 at CenturyLink Center, with his two appearances at the venue on the year pulling in more than 22,000 in paid attendance.

Where Crawford fell indefensible, however, was in having to fight deep into the night and going up against the most watched college football game of 2014.

A peak average of 836,000 viewers tuned in for the lightweight championship, on a televised tripleheader that actually saw viewership decline as the night went on. The bout peaked at 936,000 viewers, with both ratings serving as the lowest for any of Crawford’s five appearances on HBO.

The evening’s co-feature attraction between featherweights Evgeny Gradovich and Jayson Velez delivered plenty of action, producing a highly entertaining 12-round split decision draw. Many fans felt Gradovich deserved the nod, while some argued that Velez did enough to fight on even terms or even win the fight (this writer had the fight 114-114, for the record).

Given the sustained action on its placement on the show, both fighters came out better for the night. A peak average of 865,000 viewers remained locked in for the bout, which is part of an ongoing unofficial featherweight tournament staged by Top Rank, which has three of the four major titlists in the division (including Gradovich).

In outperforming the main event, the featherweight bout topped out at 1.033 million viewers, managing to retaining a large portion of the audience who tuned in for the Pacquiao-Algieri rebroadcast, which racked up 1.122 million viewers to kick off the tripleheader.

Several factors went into the dip in ratings for Crawford’s latest appearance:

- The main event did not begin until midnight East Coast time, with the broadcast ending shortly after 1AM ET;

- The overall card, which began with the exclusive rebroadcast of Manny Pacquiao’s 12-round shutout over Chris Algieri in their Nov. 22 PPV main event, went head to head with the 2014 Iron Bowl classic between Alabama and Auburn, a game that—with more than 13 million viewers tuning in—ranked as the most watched college football game in the history of ESPN

- Crawford essentially carried the live broadcast, as none of the supporting fighters came in as recognized draws.

Crawford made his HBO debut last March, scoring a 10-round decision over Breidis Prescott, in a bout he accepted at the last minute and which came in chief support to the rematch between Mike Alvarado and Brandon Rios. The co-feature bout registered a peak average of 845,000 viewers, with each of his subsequent network appearances increasing in ratings prior to Saturday.

Following three straight co-feature slots, Crawford made his debut as an HBO headliner in June, rallying to score 9 th round knockout of Yuriorkis Gamboa in a fantastic war that still ranks among the year’s best. The show registered a peak average of 1.208 million viewers, good for the highest rated Boxing After Dark telecast of 2014 and also among the Top 5 most live watched fights of the year.

HBO scored big on the same weekend a year ago, when Adonis Stevenson and Sergey Kovalev appeared in separate legs of a live doubleheader . That show also featured the exclusive rebroadcast of a Pacquiao-headlined PPV fight, with the broadcast beginning with his 12-round win over Brandon Rios in his first fight following the shocking knockout loss to Juan Manuel Marquez 11 months prior.

The appeal of last year’s Thanksgiving edition of boxing came with the allure of Stevenson and Kovalev potentially facing each other down the road in a mouthwatering light heavyweight clash. Of course, the fight never happened, though unbeknownst to fans at the time. Stevenson’s 6 th round stoppage of Tony Bellew in the headliner drew 1.3 million viewers in the main event, while Kovalev’s two-round blitzing of Ismayl Sillah racked up 1.25 million viewers in the brief co-feature.

Not only was Crawford without a notable draw (beyond the sport’s hardcore fan base), but also without a supporting bout suggesting a future opponent, as was the case with Stevenson and Kovalev at the time.

The closest you can come to the argument is that Crawford is now being groomed as a possible candidate to land a Pacquiao showdown in 2015, as he plans to move up in weight while the Filipino superstar has flirted with the idea of dropping back down to the 140 lb. division.

Still, boxing WAY after dark and going up against the most watched college football game of 2014—and the most watched in ESPN history—proved to be the only areas Terence Crawford couldn't conquer in a breakout 2014 campaign.

All ratings data above is provided by Nielsen Media Research .

Jake Donovan is the Managing Editor of Boxingscene.com, as well as a member of Transnational Boxing Ratings Board and the Boxing Writers Association of America. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox