MMA Payout has learned that the UFC 171 Prelims on Fox Sports 2 received an average viewership of 305,000. The prelims were moved to FS2 to compensate for the Pac 12 and Big East tournament Finals which were held during the same time as the event.
The prelims on Saturdays received a 0.56 rating in the adult 18-49 rating and 0.90 in the male 18-49 demo.
UFC PPV Prelims on FS1 or FS2
UFC 164 809,000
UFC 165 722,000
UFC 166 628,000
UFC 167 998,000
UFC 168 1,554,000
UFC 169 933,000
UFC 170 936,000
UFC 171 305,000
Notably, the Big East tournament final featuring Providence and Creighton was the highest rated college basketball game on FS1 averaging 702,000 viewers and the Pac 12 tournament final featuring Arizona and UCLA become the second highest viewed college game on the network with 680,000 viewers. The Pac 12 tournament preceded the Big East tournament on FS1 although both games were on at the same time as the UFC 171 Prelims.
Fox Sports 2 is roughly in 37 million homes as opposed to the 85 million homes that have Fox Sports 1.
Payout Perspective:
Unfortunately one of the better prelim cards in recent memory was seen by approximately 1/3 less of the potential audience. Certainly more people would have seen the prelims on FS1 which featured one of the better fights on the card as Kevin Gastelum defeated Rick Story. The ratings for the basketball games which were aired instead of the UFC Prelims did not fair substantially better than if the UFC took that spot.
Since UFC 171 was a PPV card, it does hurt them when the prelims don’t receive that much exposure, especially when it was such a great Prelim event that would have translated into PPV buys later on the Main Card.
yikes!
Spike wins
How does that number compare to other FS2/Fuel shows?
I can’t recall exactly, but 300K seems like a huge number to pull on FS2, where it is not unheard of for ratings to drop below 100K.
Global…..lol
FS2 absolutely sucks. I think they should re-brand it as a racing channel and call it “Diesel”.
How do you think the Superbowl would do on FS2? It wouldn’t matter now would it. So basically MMA fans watch a particular channel? If that is true then MMA marketing should gear itself to complete useless morons who cant navigate a remote, cant read a schedule and don’t understand simple life choices. MY take, UFC 171 was a dud and that’s it. Hard core fans only, which is good but not what the UFC needs to carry the boat, their own fault, the ppv numbers will tell more. Still waiting for ppv numbers from the last Rousey fight, Why the wait????
Your take is wrong. If you read the article it clearly explains why you’re wrong. The Superbowl of FS2 would absolutely suck because it would only be seen in a max of 37M homes. On FS1 it would be seen in a max of 85M homes. That’s the difference. FS2 is also not HD, and a lot of casual fans can’t be bothered to watch non-HD channels. What we have seen time and time again is that for a card to do well, you need some casual fans. The hardcore fans know how to work a remote, but FS2, a non-HD channel that is available in relatively few households, is not going to draw casual fans. Or hardcore fans who don’t get the channel.
Let me simplify it for you:
FS1>FS2