Tag: UFC ratings

UFC 257 prelims top Saturday cable ratings

Posted on by Paul Fontaine

Image: UFC

Saturday’s UFC 257 prelims, which aired on ESPN prior to the pay-per-view event, averaged 1.433 million viewers.

The prelims drew a 0.54 rating in the 18-49 demo, which topped all of cable television in that category. It also beat everything on network television for the day with the exception of ABC’s World News Tonight. 

The UFC 257 PPV was headlined by Dustin Poirier’s second-round knockout of Conor McGregor. Early reports are that the PPV did 1.2 million buys domestically and 1.6 million buys in total.

Saturday was the first time ESPN had aired a PPV prelims block since UFC 252 in August of last year. That show averaged 943,000 viewers leading into the PPV that was headlined by Stipe Miocic vs. Daniel Cormier, which did 500,000 PPV buys.

Here are the viewership totals for the other UFC PPV prelims that aired on ESPN in 2020:

  • UFC 251 — 1,000,000 viewers (July 11)
  • UFC 250 — 950,000 viewers (June 6)
  • UFC 249 — 1,470,000 viewers (May 9)
  • UFC 248 — 1,190,000 viewers (March 7)
  • UFC 247 — 1,480,000 viewers (February 8)
  • UFC 246 — 1,770,000 viewers (January 18)

The UFC 246 PPV was headlined by McGregor vs. Donald Cerrone and did just over 1.35 million buys on PPV. It’s unusual — but not unprecedented — that more people will buy the PPV than tune in for the prelims. UFC 257 did not have anything at all in terms of marquee value on the prelims, with the featured prelim being a fight that was put together the day before the show between Matt Frevola facing Arman Tsarukyan. 

A comparable event to this show would be UFC 202, headlined by the rematch between McGregor and Nate Diaz. That PPV reportedly drew a similar number of buys as UFC 257, and the prelims — which aired on FS1 at the time — averaged 1.3 million viewers. But that prelims show was headlined by Cody Garbrandt, who has way more name value than anyone who fought on this weekend’s prelims. 

UFC on ESPN: Overeem vs. Harris averages nearly 1.2 million viewers

Posted on by Paul Fontaine

UFC’s latest closed set show from Jacksonville averaged 1.198 million viewers for the three-hour main card on Saturday night. 

That almost doubled the previous ESPN Fight Night show in March from Brazil that averaged 672,000 viewers and was headlined by Kevin Lee and Charles Oliveira. That event, however, aired for the most part in the afternoon, so its numbers would be expected to be down. 

This time around it was former heavyweight title challenger Alistair Overeem squaring off with Walt Harris, fighting for the first time since the murder of his stepdaughter late last year. Harris’ comeback story was featured on ESPN SportsCenter on Friday night.

The prelims also aired on ESPN and averaged 690,000 viewers, still a good number for that station during the time slot. 

In the 18-49 demo, the main card was second for the night with a 0.50 rating, trailing only Live PD on A&E. The prelims were fifth in the demo with a 0.26. 

The last ESPN Fight Night to air in prime time, on December 7, was coincidentally also headlined by Overeem. His fight with Jairzinho Rozenstruik main evented a show that averaged 1.071 million viewers and did a 0.46 rating, so this event was up 11 percent in viewership and nine percent in the demo from that show.

WWE Raw and UFC ratings delayed due to holiday week

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

Due to this being a holiday week coming off the Fourth of July, no Raw or UFC ratings will be available today.

Raw, going against the Home Run Derby, was notable this week to see if the increase from last week carried over. Last Monday’s Raw averaged 2,496,000 viewers and was up nearly 10 percent from the previous week.

The UFC 239 prelims should be among the highest of the year since the show was the biggest UFC event since the December 29 Jon Jones vs. Alexander Gustafsson headlined pay-per-view. UFC 239 featured Jones defeating Thiago Santos and Amanda Nunes defeating Holly Holm in the top two fights.

The ratings for the UFC are expected to be out tomorrow morning.

The ratings for Raw are expected to be out tomorrow afternoon.

SmackDown ratings, not as interesting this week because there was no increase last Tuesday and no PPV this week to give it a bump, are also expected out tomorrow, but a few hours later than usual.

UFC 235 prelims draw big ratings number on ESPN

Posted on by Paul Fontaine

Saturday night’s UFC 235 prelims averaged 1.48 million viewers on ESPN.

That’s the highest number for a pay-per-view prelims show since UFC drew 1.51 million viewers on FS1 for the UFC 207 prelims in December 2016, and that PPV was headlined by Ronda Rousey’s last MMA fight.

The number was up 10 percent from the UFC 234 prelims, which had the benefit of a giant lead-in from a Duke vs. Virginia college basketball game.

This weekend’s show also had a college basketball game airing before it — but with about half the audience, so the strong number this weekend was more due to interest in the UFC PPV itself. That is corroborated by UFC 235 being Google’s most searched for item in North America on Saturday.

The UFC 235 prelims finished first in the important 18-49 demo with a 0.63 rating and were 12th for the day in terms of total cable TV viewers. The 0.63 rating was also higher than any show on network TV during prime time — so, for that demo, UFC was the most watched of any TV show.

All of this would lead one to believe that the PPV, headlined by Jon Jones’ successful light heavyweight title defense against Anthony Smith, did a stronger-than-usual number. Dave Meltzer had predicted around 575,000 buys before the show, while my own numbers at MMADraws.com suggested a number in the 450,000-500,000 range.

UFC returns to ESPN+ this coming weekend with a show from Wichita, with the next ESPN card coming Saturday, March 30 for an event headlined by Edson Barboza vs. Justin Gaethje from Philadelphia.

UFC averages nearly two million viewers for first ESPN prelims

Posted on by Paul Fontaine

The prelims for Saturday night’s UFC on ESPN+ debut show from Brooklyn, which aired on ESPN and were headlined by Donald Cerrone’s second round TKO win over Alexander Hernandez, averaged 1.956 million viewers.

That number is higher than any Fight Night prelims show or pay-per-view prelims during the FOX/FS1 era. It’s the highest prelims audience total since the prelims for UFC 126 in February 2011 did two million viewers on Spike TV.

The UFC 126 prelims were also headlined by Cerrone, who defeated Paul Kelly.

In fact, only two main cards on FS1 beat this number, with Conor McGregor’s January 2015 fight with Dennis Siver at 2.751 million viewers and TJ Dillashaw’s January 2016 fight with Dominick Cruz doing 2.288 million.

The show did have a strong lead-in with the Virginia/Duke NCAA basketball game that immediately preceded it doing an average of 3.764 million viewers.

While streaming numbers for the main card are not available, UFC and ESPN have claimed 568,000 people signed up in the two days before the show and that it was the highest streamed event ever on ESPN+.

UFC on FOX 29 draws disappointing fast nationals ratings number

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

The promise of a potential fight of the year did not lead to strong ratings last night for UFC.

Dustin Poirier vs. Justin Gaethje, on paper, was as close to a sure thing for an outstanding fight as UFC has presented since, well, the last time Gaethje fought. The fight delivered, making Gaethje three-for-three in match of the year contenders, but only 1-2 as far as his UFC record goes, since Poirier won via fourth round stoppage.

Based on the fast nationals, which wouldn’t have included most of the main event, the show did 1,780,000 viewers. That would be the fourth lowest in the nearly seven year history of the series. FOX also would have finished fourth among the four networks last night, although it did finish second to the Toronto vs. Boston NHL playoff game in the key demos, 18-34 and 18-49. The NHL game did 2,180,000 on the fast nationals.

The final number, which comes out Tuesday, will be higher, probably by a good margin. The fast nationals only measures FOX stations from 8-10 p.m.. Eastern, 7-9 p.m. Central, 6-8 p.m. Mountain, and 8-10 p.m. Pacific. So for the West Coast, which the show aired from 5-7:30 p.m., it counted local programming and not the show.

In addition, the four round main event started at 10 p.m. Eastern, meaning that none of the main event figured into the rating, and the match going four rounds, and being such an exciting fight, meant it had a lot of time to build the number.

UFC on FOX 28 gets a moral victory in fast national ratings

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

Last night’s Jeremy Stephens win over Josh Emmett, while doing lower numbers than usual for a FOX special, has to be considered almost a moral win with 1,826,000 viewers and a 0.55 rating in the key 18-49 demo based on the fast nationals.

Given the competition of the Olympics on NBC and the Golden State Warriors vs. Oklahoma City Thunder on ABC, and Emmett’s relative unknown status, the show was widely expected to be in the record-low level of the January 27th event headlined by Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza vs. Derek Brunson, two fighters who have had far more exposure over the past several years. Instead, it beat that 1,593,000 number by 15 percent.

It also beat FOX’s programming against similar competition last Saturday, the Victor Ortiz vs. Devon Alexander boxing match, by 73 percent.

It was still among the lower rated shows in the history of the series.

It also won’t benefit as much from the usual factors which lead to increases in the final ratings. The fast nationals measure what is on FOX from 8-10 p.m. Eastern, 7-9 p.m. Central, 6-8 p.m. Mountain time and 8-10 p.m. Pacific time, based on the usual network programming staggers.

Because major network sports usually airs live, the Olympics being the exception, fast nationals don’t measure either the West Coast viewers, who watch from 5 p.m., or anything after 10 p.m., because FOX’s prime time programming doesn’t run in the 10-11 p.m. time slot. On FOX MMA shows, the period after 10 p.m., since it’s the main event, is always the most widely-viewed.

In this case, Stephens’ second-round win over Emmett ended at 10:06 p.m., so the increase will be less than usual. Also hurting the rating is that KTVU-TV in San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose aired a Chinese New Year celebration.

The key factor to look for Tuesday is the streaming numbers for the show. If the streaming numbers show a sizable increase, it would indicate Northern California viewers who would have watched on television, still watched, switching to FSGo or FOX Now. If those numbers come up at usual levels, it shows that usual television viewers on the UFC in the Bay Area didn’t watch through streaming if they couldn’t get it on regular television.

UFC on FOX 26 does lowest December ratings in series history

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

Last night’s UFC on FOX show headlined by Rafael dos Anjos’ win over Robbie Lawler, with a welterweight title shot at stake, did 1.78 million viewers on the fast nationals, which would be the lowest December rating in the history of the series and third lowest ever.

The Winnipeg show was down 34 percent from last year’s unusually high fast nationals number for a card featuring Michelle Waterson vs. Paige VanZant and Urijah Faber’s retirement fight against Brad Pickett.

While that’s not a fair comparison, it was down 21-22 percent from the first reported figure for the 2013 to 2015 shows at the same time of the year.

Lawler in particular is a well known fighter, a former welterweight champion who has been pushed as a star since he was a teenager in UFC, Strikeforce, and Elite XC, winning UFC and Elite XC titles. He’s also won an unprecedented three straight matches of the year, with his 2014 fight with Johny Hendricks, his 2015 fight with Rory MacDonald, and his 2016 fight with Carlos Condit. Dos Anjos is a former lightweight champion who is unbeaten as a welterweight.

Dos Anjos won a five-round decision to make him the top contender for Tyron Woodley’s belt.

The fast nationals only measure 8-10 p.m. for FOX, and also don’t measure the West Coast since it covers prime time and the fight airing live on the West Coast was out of what is considered prime time. The final three rounds of the main event aired after 10 p.m. so the final number should grow to closer to 2 million.

UFC on FOX 24 posts lowest overnight ratings in show history

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

Even though Demetrious Johnson was going for his record-tying 10th consecutive title defense, and Michelle Waterson was coming off winning a main event that did big numbers, last night’s UFC on FOX show did the lowest numbers on the overnights in history.

Johnson’s third round win over Wilson Reis did 1.74 million viewers on the overnights, down 18 percent from last April’s Glover Teixeira vs. Rashad Evans main event, and down 28 percent from the numbers Luke Rockhold vs. Lyoto Machida pulled two years ago.

FOX drew the least amount of viewers in prime time last night of the four major networks last night. But they tied the NHL playoff game with the Chicago Blackhawks vs. Nashville Predators for second place in the 18-49 demo, with a 0.6.

The audience number will increase when the final ratings come out Monday or Tuesday. The 1.74 million measures what is on during the 8-10 p.m. slot on the West Coast, which was local programming. It also doesn’t measure the period after 10 p.m., when most of the main event took place, and is almost always the most-watched portion of the show.

It was Johnson’s fourth time to headline on FOX, and his prior numbers on the overnights ranged from 2.04 million to 3.77 million. Waterson’s last fight, a win over Paige VanZant in December, drew the best UFC on FOX numbers for a live show in several years.

WWE & UFC ratings delayed due to power failure at Nielsen

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

Due to a power failure at Nielsen’s data center in Florida while going through an upgrade, all ratings have been delayed and there is no set time when they will be available.

At this point ratings are only available through Friday, so even the weekend numbers haven’t come out.

Nielsen sent an e-mail to its clients yesterday saying, “Nielsen continues to work with the local electric company and our technology team to resolve issues caused by…the power outage. At this time we do not have any additional details to share regarding application availability or data delivery schedules for the services impacted.”

This has caused a delay in all broadcast ratings, cable ratings, and even overnights and fast nationals.

Besides Raw last night, this has also delayed the ratings of the UFC show on Saturday night with Vitor Belfort vs. Kelvin Gastelum headlining. Most likely SmackDown ratings would also be delayed since it will take time for Nielsen to catch up.

WWE & MMA ratings delayed due to President’s Day

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

Due to President’s Day, all of the ratings are delayed.

Ratings for Raw last night, UFC on Sunday, and Bellator on Saturday should all be available tomorrow.

Raw was coming off the lowest rated episode in more than 20 years that wasn’t on either a holiday or against a major sporting event. The show was built around Braun Strowman vs. Big Show in the main event, which got over well with the live crowd, as well as controversy regarding the Women’s title.

UFC had Derrick Lewis vs. Travis Browne and Johny Hendricks vs. Hector Lombard. UFC has done well in the past on Sunday nights. It was also on one hour earlier than usual, which should be a plus for the main card since the main event ended at around midnight instead of after 1 a.m., as is often the case on Saturdays.

Bellator ran Saturday instead of Friday, because the company feels if they run a West Coast date, that TV going on the air at 6 p.m. on a Friday Pacific time and the show starting a few hours earlier with prelims, that it’s tougher to sell on Fridays. It also had competition from boxing, which it doesn’t have with its Friday night shows. But the most recent Saturday night show, headlined by Chael Sonnen vs. Tito Ortiz, did the third largest numbers in company history.

Bellator was from San Jose and was expecting a strong rating due to Fedor Emelianenko fighting in the main event. But with the last minute pullout, that will no doubt hurt the numbers.

UFC 207 prelims draw an impressive number on FS1

Posted on by Paul Fontaine

Headlined by Neil Magny scoring a three-round decision win over Johny Hendricks, the UFC 207 prelims on Friday night did 1.511 million viewers for the two-hour show on FS1.

That number was down from the 1.801 million for the UFC 205 prelims, which was the company’s Madison Square Garden debut and the most stacked lineup in UFC history. It was, however, up eight percent from the UFC 193 prelims, which was the last PPV headlined by Ronda Rousey.

This impressive number came despite huge competition from the Orange Bowl on ESPN, which did over 11 million viewers opposite the prelim show.

Friday’s show was the fifth highest audience for a PPV prelims since FS1 started airing them, trailing the last three shows headlined by Conor McGregor as well as the UFC 200 prelims this past July.

The prelims number is usually, but not always, an indication of how well the show did on PPV. Another sign that UFC 207 might have done well is that Google searches were over 10 million on Ronda Rousey, among the highest in company history.

PVZ, Sage & Urijah lead UFC on FOX to best ratings in nearly three years

Posted on by Paul Fontaine

The final numbers are in for Saturday’s UFC on FOX 22 broadcast, headlined by Michelle Waterson’s first round submission win over Paige VanZant and also featuring Sage Northcutt and Urijah Faber on the undercard.

The show did 3,178,000 viewers for the four-fight main card, which was the best number since 3.2 million tuned in to UFC on FOX 10 in January 2014.

It’s notable that this was the second straight televised fight for Northcutt on a show that did impressive TV ratings. His UFC 200 prelim fight with Enrique Marin set a record for viewership on FS2 with 582,000 viewers.

The only other two times that a VanZant fight has aired on television have both been FOX shows and the ratings for those fights were nothing out of the ordinary. In fact the last fight, with Bec Rawlings, was on one of only two UFC on FOX shows that failed to break two million viewers.

Faber’s final fight of his career may have helped Saturday’s rating as well, although none of his recent televised fights have done numbers that were particularly notable. Outside of Conor McGregor, he has consistently been the biggest draw in UFC of anyone below 155 lbs since debuting in 2012, though.

The prelims for Saturday’s show, which aired on FS1, did 679,000 viewers. The last time the prelims for a FOX show aired on FS1, they did 702,000 but the average over the last three years has been about 648,000.

*****

In other MMA ratings news, Friday’s Bellator 169 on Spike TV did 643,000 viewers, their best number since September. This was for a taped show from Dublin with no star power outside of the main event of King Mo vs. Satoshi Ishii.

There has been virtually no ratings difference when Bellator runs either live or on tape delay with the international shows they’ve run of late.

UFC on FOX 22 ratings teach an important marketing lesson

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

Last night’s UFC on FOX show told a marketing lesson that can’t be ignored.

A show headlined by Paige VanZant vs. Michelle Waterson and Mickey Gall vs. Sage Northcutt did 2.69 million viewers on the fast nationals.

The number is 17 to 20 percent above what the December shows have done the past three years with championship fights headlining in 2013 and 2015 and a top heavyweight fight of Junior Dos Santos vs. Stipe Miocic as the 2014 main event.

Urijah Faber’s retirement fight may have also played heavily into the number. In the arena, it was clearly the real main event at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento.

The fast nationals measure the first two hours of the show everywhere but the West Coast, which is not figured in because it measures 8-10 p.m. Pacific, and the show aired from 5-7:15 p.m.

That means the VanZant vs. Waterson fight, which started after 10 p.m. is not figured into the average, and with Faber and VanZant being West Coast fighters, that should help the growth when that is figured in.

A card promoted around VanZant vs. Waterson doing so well, coming on the heels of Holly Holm vs. Valentina Shevchenko doing the best summer numbers in years, shows that audiences for women’s main events are strong on FOX.

The UFC show was the least-watched show on the four networks last night, but in the 18-49 demo, which is what FOX gears the show toward, it was second only to SNL Christmas on NBC.

UFC Fight Night Portland averages just 652,000 viewers

Posted on by Paul Fontaine

Last Saturday UFC show on FS1 saw a 37% viewership drop from the previous weekend, bringing in an average of 652,000 viewers for the four fight main card, headlined by John Lineker’s split decision win over John Dodson in a bantamweight contender’s tilt.

This was the second lowest non-daytime rating of the year for an FS 1 main card, trailing only the July 13th show’s 609,000. The week prior was a ratings bonanza for all involved with a Brazilian show headlined by Cyborg Justino.

The show’s 11 PM EST start time was later than usual, but with only four fights, it ended around the usual time that traditional Fight Nights on the network do.

The prelims aired on FS 2 and averaged just 294,000, down 20% from the last time Fight Night prelims aired on the secondary network. It was the 3rd highest number for a Fight Night prelims show on FS 2 since the UFC’s move to the Fox family.

The UFC will look to rebound for this Saturday’s UFC 204 prelims airing at 8 PM EST on FS1, part of a big day of sports programming on the network.