Here’s a data release provided by Spike TV that compares the average Ultimate Fighter season 10 episode with last Saturday’s Strikeforce on CBS:
TUF 10 (season-to-date = 8 episodes )
Men 18-34 — 3.52 rating
Men 18-49 — 2.9 rating
Men 18-24 – 3.7 rating
Persons 18-34 – 2.4 rating
Strikeforce/ CBS 11/6
Men 18-34 — 2.3 rating
Men 18-49 — 2.5 rating
Men 18-24 – 1.7 rating
Persons 18-34 – 1.8 rating
Payout Perspective:
Three things to keep in mind:
1.) Ratings don’t always tell the entire story.
2.) Kimbo Slice has been the real star this year for TUF 10. If you were to compare Season 9’s ratings against that of Strikeforce on CBS, things might look much different.
3.) To Spike’s advantage, it’s a cable network (95+ million reach) competing against a major terrestrial network in CBS (115 million reach). It’s essentially the reverse of what we’ve seen in previous data releases from Spike whereby they were comparing themselves to a smaller network like Showtime (15-20 million reach).
It’ll be interesting to see the numbers from the UFC Main Event programming, and how they stacked up against the CBS offering. Spike choosing to compare their TUF series against CBS likely indicates that CBS outperformed Spike’s counter-programming offer (which, quite frankly, is to be expected).
One more thing to keep in mind: They’re comparing two completely different days of the week. Is it even remotely valid to make this comparison when such a glaring variable is out there?
Dan, even though its a different day it is valid to compare it due to it being fight vs fight. It isnt even fight vs fight its TUF “one fight” vs a full card (Strikeforce) I think that says alot about rating comparisons.
Yea, i’m not sold on this comparison. I think comparing the cbs card to tonights UFC 105 would be the best comparison.
people might not agree but i would love to see him fight jones, or at least back in the ufc. i don’t think he suhlod fight at mw anymore though. i don’t see him getting 800k from the ufc but he does deserve to be paid good hopefully they can meet in the middle and make it happen. hendo is on a good roll would hate to see him layed off for too long or fighting in japan or elsewhere to finish his career.