The UFC 193 Prelims drew its second best rating this year averaging 1,394,000 viewers on FS1 Saturday night per Sports TV Ratings. In addition, the pre-show and post-fight show on FS1 drew big ratings.
The UFC pre-fight show from 4:35pm-5:00pm PT drew 576,000 viewers on FS1. It was the second-highest pre-fight show rating on FS1. The post-fight show started late on FS1 due to a double OT Pac 12 game. Still, it pulled off the highest rating for a post-fight show on FS1 with 490,000 viewers.
UFC Prelim ratings when Ronda Rousey is in main event
UFC 157 – 1,267,000
UFC 170 – 936,000
UFC 168 – 1,500,000* (co-main with Chris Weidman)
UFC 175 – 1,000,000* (co-main with Chris Weidman)
UFC 184 – 1,205,000
UFC 190 – 1,322,000
UFC 193 – 1,394,000
The UFC Prelim average for 2015 thus far is 998,000 viewers. Notably, if you were to take out the 3 PPVs in which Rousey fought, it would drop down to 885,000 viewers.
UPDATED: The UFC 193 prelims drew 885,000 viewers in the Adult 18-49 demographic, the most-ever for a UFC Prelim on the network. The prelims peaked at 1,776,000 viewers in the last quarter hour (6:30pm-6:45pm PT)
The UFC 193 weigh-ins drew 161,000 viewers per Sports TV Ratings.
Payout Perspective:
The post-fight show also did well although I am trying to confirm the viewership rating. Will keep you updated.
The post-fight show’s ratings were high due to the news of the upset. Still, the overrun by the college football game may have detracted more viewers from tuning in. The post-fight show did start on FS2.
One can probably deduce that the reason for the strong ratings are due to Ronda Rousey being in the main event of the PPV. In fact, televised UFC Prelims in which Rousey has been in the main event have drawn an average of 1.225M viewers (not counting UFC 168 and 175). Including the events where she was the co-main event with Chris Weidman it goes up slightly to 1.232M viewers. Notably, only once has a PPV prelim drawn less than 1 million viewers.
It’s clear that Ronda Rousey is a huge draw for the UFC. Even on televised UFC Prelims where she is not fighting, the ratings go up. It will be interesting to see if Holly Holm will be able to draw this much attention.
Good news turned to bad news…….if there were many viewers who tuned in specially the rousey demo then e everybody saw her got dominated really bad…and ko’d….majority of that demo tuned in for the first time in her correia fight spread the word to fellow 14 yr old females about the” once ever ” female athlete(better than serena williams espn etc….) and they got all duped by DW and joe rogan hahahaha….after correia fight rogan cried being in that moment then the next fight he is overjoyed with holly holm lol…..
I have had a hard time understanding the Rousey hype train. Santos has been laying people out for about a decade and never hit that level of hype. Rousey being called the most dominant athlete is a slap in the face to Cyborg and a guy some of you may have heard of called Klitschko who has also been laying people out for the past 10 years.
Good for the UFC to be able to generate and profit from it, but now it’s over. Rousey will actually have to earn her spot as most dominant athlete, rather than having it handed to her.
Forgetting the hilarious outclassing of Rousey for a moment, the event itself will do some huge ppv numbers. It has to be over 1mil and bigger than ufc 100 would not surprise me.
Gil, how do you think the rematch does? I think Rousey was so uncompetitive that it makes it hard to build it up.
The rematch will be big, cant wait to see how they market Rousey. My guess is they will have a laundry list of excuses. Thats the only way to advertise it because she got smoked so bad. She does not deserve a rematch based on skill or a competitive first fight, but for what she has done for WMMA.
Again, not sure where her head will be at. Anyone see the TMZ photos of her at the airport? Thats a walk of shame. HH will have a huge skill and psychological advantage. I think it would be a bad idea to throw her in with HH right away but UFC will push for it. If fight goes same way will be the end for RR.
Rondas legacy is already set as the pioneering figure and first dominant champ for WMMa.
Diego, i’d say the rematch does just as well or better. The ufc will have a redemption and rivalry story to sell to the casuals in a rematch. Excuses like mmatruth says will help as well. If they are smart they will add it to ufc 200 which virtually guarantees a bigger buy rate.
Steroid allegations are already coming up on Holm. The NY Post just wrote an article about it.
This fight was huge. This likely did well over 1m buys. The rematch will be massive.
“Anyone see the TMZ photos of her at the airport? Thats a walk of shame. ”
I agree. Mike Tyson didn’t hide his head behind a pillow coming back from Tokyo after Buster Douglas knocked him out. I’ve lost a lot of respect for Rousey by the way she’s handled this loss. Mind you, I didn’t have much respect for her after he way she handled her wins.
http://nypost.com/2015/11/17/questions-surface-over-holly-holms-ties-to-steroid-pushers/
Looks like more good news for the UFC:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-17/rousey-knockout-by-holm-helps-lift-credit-outlook-for-ufc-parent?cmpid=yhoo.headline
Ronda losing is bad for the UFC. She brought a lot of people who only tune in to her fights. Most aren’t coming back.
She lost to a boxer.
A boxer became a UFC champ ending the debate. Boxing wins.
No need to ever pay attention to her again. Holm destructively destroyed her.
Brutally beat her with straight left hands all day.
They might need to ban boxers from MMA since they are so dangerous.
The Greatest isn’t very well aware of how idiotic what he is saying is. This is customary from him seeing how he is a nutjob. Holly Holm is a mma fighter, not a boxer. How was that straight left hand that ended the fight? Haha.
James Toney showed us how dangerous boxers are in mma.
“destructively destroyed her”
Hahaha. You destructively destroy yourself every time you post.
Rousey hid her face because it was all busted up. There was no reason to show everyone so they can make meme’s and other comments. If I was her I would have not flown into LA. I would have landed else where and drove in and avoided the press.
People don’t realize the lighting at a ufc event hides a lot of the swelling and discoloration. Most fighters who have taken some hits look like shit after the fight back stage.
PPV estimates at 1.2-1.3 million buys, huge.
Rematch at UFC 200 will be massive.
Damn, that’s nuts for two women. 194 is going to be even bigger.
So it probably did 900k. I remember you guys said the exact same thing about her last one, and that ended up being under 1m.
Conors fight does worse. UFC lost alot of steam because of this. Alot of fans aren’t coming back, since they were only there for Rousey.
Holm vs any other women does low ppv numbers and i don’t see a rematch at all. Youll be lucky if Rousey even comes back.
Na, it probably did 1.2-1.3m like Chris said.
McGregor’s fight is going to be bigger everyone knows it. Boxing fans are desperate.
The fans that aren’t coming back are the boxing fans that watched Mayweather-Pacquaio.
The rematch is going to be at UFC 200 and will go over 2m buys.
Last one estimates were around a million, it did 925k. This one they are saying 1.2 and one estimate is 1.3 so it probably will settle in around 1.1.
Lorenzo already said its number 3 all time and when final numbers come in it will be number 2 which would put it around 1.1 mill or more.
And about PPV numbers we all know they are estimates, some could be higher or lower but they dont include online PPV buys from UFC.tv or other countries who buy PPV like Australia.
UFC isnt selling a ton of PPV outside US cause not many markets have fights on PPV but every PPV estimate that comes out the numbers are higher cause online/other country buys arent counted.
So if they say 190 did estimated 925k buys it could have done 1 mill.