MMA Payout has learned that UFC Fight Night 38 received an average viewership of according to industry sources. The show peaked at 1.25 million viewers during the main event between Dan Henderson and Shogun Rua.
UFC Fight Nights since August 2013
UFC Fight Night 26 1,780,000
UFC Fight Night 27 824,000
UFC Fight Night 28 539,000
UFC Fight Night 29 638,000
UFC Fight Night 30 122,000
UFC Fight Night 31 641,000
UFC Fight Night 32 722,000
UFC Fight Night 33 755,000
UFC Fight Night 34 Fight Pass
UFC Fight Night 35 629,000
UFC Fight Night 36 1,400,000
UFC Fight Night 37 Fight Pass
UFC Fight Night 38 936,000 viewers
The 1.25 million viewer peak occurred during the last quarter hour of the event. It was the third-most watched UFC Fight Night on FS1. In addition, UFC Fight Night 38 scored 485,000 viewers for the M18-49 demo.
According to sources, it was FS1’s second-most watched Sunday (measured from 6:00am-3:00 am) since its launch this past August as it averaged 270,000 viewers. In addition, the UFC Post-Fight coverage which ran immediately after UFC Fight Night received an average viewership of 356,000 viewers.
Payout Perspective:
The ratings are impressive considering it was Sunday opposite the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. It’s the second big rating for a Fight Night from Brazil as UFC FN 36 (Machida-Mousasi) scored 1.4M viewers on Saturday, February 15th. With the good ratings for Sunday despite strong opposition, one would have to wonder if FS1 would consider more Sunday night fights in the future.
Nice numbers considering there were tons of NCAA basketball games going on at the time.
Shows that plenty of people only watch the main event. So if the peak was 1,25 million and the average was 930k the low viewing number would be 744k So almost half the viewers only watched the hendo fight. Too many fights to hold the average persons attention. Not what I would call a good formula for gaining mainstream sports fans.