Showtime’s Gervonta Davis-Leo Santa Cruz pay-per-view boxing match highlights a sports weekend dominated by college and pro football telecasts.

The Halloween fight between three-time world champion Davis and four-division world champion Santa Cruz will retail at a suggested price of $74.99 and will feature a three-card undercard, according to Showtime.  

Related: PPV Fights Change Dates, States to Accommodate the Return of Fans 

College football continues to ramp up with a full slate of games across numerous channels. Top-ranked Clemson on Saturday will host Boston College on ABC without star quarterback Trevor Lawrence, who earlier this week tested positive for COVID-19.  Other high profile games include a primetime matchup between third-ranked Ohio State and Penn State (ABC.)

The NFL's week seven slate of games takes place Sunday afternoon, culminated by NBC's Sunday Night Football telecast between two struggling teams, the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles. 

In other sports, NBC and NBCSN on Saturday continue their Premier League coverage, while FS2 offers a live Liga MX game on Saturday. Golf Channel has EPGA Tour and PGA tour golf coverage on Saturday and Sunday. 

ESPNNews and ESPN2 will cover the Korean Baseball League (KBO) post-season beginning Nov. 1, and culminating with the Korean Series later in the month. 

As Major League Baseball, the NBA and NHL gear up for fall postseason runs, boxing is quietly putting together a robust lineup of pay-per-view events to run over the next four months.

Three PPV boxing cards combined from Showtime and Fox Sports, as well as the scheduled November return of former PPV boxing champ Mike Tyson to the squared ring, will look to put boxing on the TV sports map in the fourth quarter.

“It’s a crowded fall boxing line-up, which is great for sports-starved consumers,” Mark Boccardi, senior VP of programming for PPV event aggregator In Demand, said.

Showtime recently launched an ambitious eight-fight fall boxing schedule which includes two major PPV events: a Sept. 26 card featuring world champion brothers Jermall and Jermell Charlo fighting in separate bouts, and an Oct. 24  Gervonta Davis- Leo Santa Cruz championship unification event, said Showtime officials.

The Sept. 26 card would be the first major PPV event for the category since the Feb. 22 Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder II heavyweight championship fight, and the first being held amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Showtime is holding all of its fights with no fans at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn.

Fox Sports will step into the PPV boxing ring on Nov. 21 with the Errol Spence Jr.-Danny Garcia welterweight championship fight. It's the undefeated Spence's first fight in more than a year after suffering serious injuries in an Oct. 19 car crash. 

A week later, former heavyweight champion Tyson is expected to enter the ring for the first time in 15 years when he fights another former heavyweight champion Roy Jones Jr. in an eight-round PPV exhibition fight. The event, distributed by multi-media company Triller, is reportedly expected to also feature musical performances as part of the PPV event.

In the wings is a scheduled Dec. 19 Fury-Wilder trilogy fight, although reports say that the fight could be moved to 2021.

While it’s too early to predict whether boxing fans will support PPV events in today’s difficult economic environment, the industry has to be somewhat encouraged by PPV performance numbers from mixed martial arts outfit UFC’s recent PPV events. The UFC’s Aug. 15 UFC 252 event drew around 400,000 buys according to Sports Business Daily, the third best performance for a UFC PPV event since the pandemic began. The May 9 UFC 249 -- its first and top performing PPV event since the pandemic -- drew more than 700,000 buys, according to SBJ.

Boccardi is confident that boxing fans will gravitate to the upcoming PPV fights, especially given the number of high-profile fighters stepping into the ring. 

”This fall’s PPV boxing line-up is going to be major, probably the biggest and most exciting one in recent memory," he said. "Since a lot of traditional fall sports, including some of the biggest conferences in college football, have sadly been postponed, we’re happy to be able to offer PPV customers the opportunity to support this incredible boxing season."

Showtime is the latest network to jump back into the live sports arena during the coronavirus pandemic, announcing a schedule of eight boxing dates over the next five months beginning in August.

The fights, which will take place without fans from Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn., will feature eight world championship fights including such titleholders as Gervonta Davis, Jermall Charlo and Leo Santa Cruz.

The first fight of the series will debut Aug. 1 with the Stephen Fulton Jr.-Angelo Leo junior featherweight championship bout. The schedule also calls for two pay-per-view boxing events -- a Sept. 26 card featuring world champion brothers Jermall and Jermell Charlo in separate bouts and an Oct. 24 event featuring a Gervonta Davis-Leo Santa Cruz championship unification bout. 

“We are proud to announce the strongest and most comprehensive schedule of fights in all of boxing,” said Stephen Espinoza, president, Sports and Event Programming, Showtime Networks Inc in a statement. “Each bout on this schedule, our largest schedule announcement since 2018, carries high stakes and significant implications. We are thrilled to return to live boxing with this star-studded schedule of exciting, meaningful fights.”

The current Showtime/Premier Boxing Champions schedule of fights for 2020 is as follows:

August 1 -- (Showtime)

Main Event: Stephen Fulton Jr. (18-0, 8 KOs) vs. Angelo Leo (19-0, 9 KOs) – Vacant WBO Junior Featherweight World Championship

August 15 -- (Showtime)

Main Event: David Benavidez (22-0, 19 KOs) vs. Roamer Alexis Angulo (26-1, 22 KOs) – WBC Super Middleweight World Championship

September 19 -- (Showtime)

Main Event: Erickson Lubin (22-1, 16 KOs) vs. Terrell Gausha (21-1-1, 10 KOs) – WBC Super Welterweight Title Eliminator Bout

September 26 – (Showtime PPV)

Main Events: Jermall Charlo (30-0, 22 KOs) vs. Sergiy Derevyanchenko (13-2, 10 KOs) – WBC Middleweight World Championship

Jermell Charlo (33-1, 17 KOs) vs. Jeison Rosario (20-1-1, 14 KOs) – WBC, WBA and IBF 154-Pound Unification Bout

October 10 -- (Showtime)

Main Event: Sergey Lipinets (16-1, 12 KOs) vs. Kudratillo Abdukakhorov (15-0, 8 KOs) – IBF Welterweight Interim Title

October 24 – (Showtime PPV)

Main Event: Gervonta Davis (23-0, 22 KOs) vs. Leo Santa Cruz (37-1-1, 19 KOs) – WBA Super Featherweight World Championship/WBA Lightweight World Championship

November 28 -- (Showtime)

Main Event: Chris Colbert (14-0, 5 KOs) vs. Jaime Arboleda (16-1, 13 KOs) – WBA Super Featherweight Interim Title

December 12 -- (Showtime)

Main Event: Nordine Oubaali (17-0, 12 KOs) vs. Nonito Donaire (40-6, 26 KOs) – WBC Bantamweight World Championship