MMA Junkie reports that Bellator 68 ratings were up to an average of 169,000 viewers. The ratings show an uptick in the ratings for the season on MTV2.
The ratings up the season 6 average to 152,500 from 150,500.
Bellator 67: 165,000 viewers
Bellator 66: 109,000 viewers
Bellator 65: 163,000 viewers
Bellator 64: 175,00 viewers
Bellator 63: 140,000 viewers
Bellator 62: 175,000 viewers
Bellator 61: 108,000 viewers
Bellator 60: 169,000 viewers
Payout Perspective:
A nice two show streak of ratings for Bellator as 68 was the third highest for the season. It will be interesting to see if the ratings sustain for the final two weeks of the season as it features the semifinal and final rounds of its tournaments. A stream of 160K plus viewers to end the season should be seen as a sign of improvement although the overall season average may not be better than prior seasons.
Bellator is still way off from some of their event ratings from last year. They had gotten 300K and a few in the 260K range. They are consistant now but they are not getting the interest they were. I blame their Tournament model they are pushing. If all you have to offer is a tournament then once the fans have seen one they have seen them all. The only difference between one and another is the skills and the personalities of the fighters which Bellator doesnt promote. The ratings for their summer series was much higher with 2 of the 3 events breaking 200K. Season 5 had 3 events that broke 220K range. Season 4 had 6 events over 200K. This season has zero to break 180K. Whats worse is Bellator has basically the same roster of fighters and champs as their big ratings. So that tells me that the fans didnt get connected to those fighters because Bellator didnt sell the fighters properly and over the course of this time Bellator has killed the credibility of their own belts with the handling of their title fights and match ups. Bellator has lost 40% of its audience. If they dont change when they go to Spike they will blow their golden opportunity. They will get 500-1 million viewers handed to them by Spike and the absence of the UFC and they will run them all off 1 at a time with this format.
You have a small-mind
Judign by your intelegent response i see im not the only one. I tried to abbreviate the numbers so you could understand. Witout the ability to post pictures i dont know how else to educate you.
BS,
I disagree. Bellator know that all of their top fighters will eventually be poached by the UFC. They are the CFL to the UFC’s NFL. Fighters join Bellator with an eye towards getting into the UFC – especially now that SF and Japanese MMA are essentially out of the picture. Add to that the difficulty of building stars in the first place – the UFC is struggling with the same thing. The tournament format allows Bellator to make compelling matchups without having the need for big stars.
As for the ratings – we’ve seen ratings come down for the UFC, I’m not surprised that Bellator is struggling.
In short, there’s only so much they can do, and they are doing the best they can. Will it be enough in the long run? We’ll see.
Jason,
Two in a row is not much of a streak. And as I recall, they generally have higher ratings farther into the season anyway. Let them put three or four good results together and then let’s talk.
You guys should be able to tell that at this point, the ratings for such a scarcely watched show are just so inaccurate it’s not worth discussing.
I understand that Diego. But you cant use that as an excuse to not be successful. If people are nt watching you cant keep running the same model. Last time Payout posted contracts from SF, UFC, and i believe Bellator they all has Champion clauses. IF Bellator doesnt they need to use them. They can create stars and keep them for a long time. They sure ddnt mind signing a name like King Mo. But their current model will only waste him. They can have the best of both worlds. Tournaments have their place. But BFC over uses them and puts the wrong fighters in them. They can market their tournaments and promote their stars and champions without using the tournaments to kill their divisions. Tournaments should be creating names and talent for the divisons not killing them by getting contenders, champions, and well known fighters beat buy unknown and unpopular fighters. There is a middle ground to be reach that BFC can make the most of their product. There will always be fighters who leave. I can run off dozens of fighters who have left the UFC. Even they have to deal with it. But you dont adopt a limited and dead end business model because you dont want to deal with some of the head aches of being successful.
In the end BFC will do what every other Promotion is doing. The only question is how much time they will waste trying to make people care about a meaningless tournament? So tourny winners go on to fight the champion for a belt that BFC has made meaningless with no division structure and poor match making.
They’re tournaments would be an effective way to generate a continuous stream of title fights if they had a more consistent TV presence and actually managed the things effectively. A couple of their tournaments aren’t even going to finish this season. How did that happen?
They have about a one month gap after next week’s card and then they have one card a month during the summer, which pretty much accomplishes nothing.
I really think the best thing they could do would be to switch to a schedule where they have a card once every two weeks, year-round. Develop a rhythm, keep loading the pipeline with tournaments and churning out tournament champs who will keep the belt holders relatively busy defending their titles.
Rebney has said that Spike is likely to give them three hours rather than two. That means they can run at least five tournament fights plus a title fight on almost every card. If they went to an every-two-weeks schedule, with 26 cards per year, their champs could defend titles three times a year and they could cycle all the weight classes through almost three times per year as well. Do the math, it works. If you factor in injuries, they would probably be able to average 2.5 title fights per weight class per year (some would have 2, some would have 3).
* “Their” not “They’re…” in first line oops….
I just dont see why they would put any of their top 5-10 guys per division in a tournament. Put the guys just outside that list in a tourny and stock pile contenders and contender fights. Winning a tournament of any size gives instant credibility. Why put guys in who already have credibility? This guys are used to strengthen the belt and give the champ meaning with contender fights. The champ looks like a bum if the contenders have no staying power. You cant shuffle them out every fight. Putting them all back in tournaments only piles loss’ on everyones record making them appear to be sub par talent. It doenst help having a chqamp with a good record if everyone on his list has a .500 record.
Using the UFC WW divison as an example. I would allow anyone in their top 10 to be in a tourny. Everyone else would be fair game. The winner would be in a position like Jim Miller was. He ran off like 7 wins in a row in the UFC but never beat a real top 10 fighter. Yes he had lots of people clamoring for him to get a title shot. This wins made him an instant contender by beat guys that would be the same level he would fave in a tournament. Bellator could use it like their own TUF talent developement system. But instead they use it to shoot themselves in the foot because their good guys are losing in them or tied up in them and thei champs are standing there will nothing meaningful to look forward to.