The Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand reports that the overnight ratings have UFC Fight Night 81 on FS1 with a 1.4 rating which projects to be the second highest-rated UFC event ever on the network.
The event, which is the second year in which it was held in Boston on a Sunday night featured a bantamweight title fight between T.J. Dillashaw and Dominick Cruz. Cruz won the title via a split decision.
Overnights: UFC Fight Night on FS1 pulled in a 1.4 rating, which projects to be the 2nd highest-rated UFC event ever on the network.
— John Ourand (@Ourand_SBJ) January 18, 2016
There are no estimates of viewership numbers at this point but MMA Payout will provide these numbers once they become available.
Payout Perspective:
Last year’s UFC 59 from Boston which featured Conor McGregor drew the highest FS1 rating with a 1.7 overnight rating. Last night’s UFC Fight Night 81 was helped by promotion during the NFL broadcasts including last week’s Wildcard weekend. It’s clear that this Sunday night in January event works and the UFC will continue. The main event, featuring bantamweights, reflects the fact that audiences are tuning in more to lighter weight divisions and/or whatever live event is on.
d says
Wow! Big ratings for UFC on FS1. Higher rating than anything PBC has put out on cable. Another big year coming for mma!!
The Greatest says
Barclays Center set to host 10 boxing cards this year.
Looks like they are making a major push to compete against MSG for the home of boxing in NYC.
How many mma shows has Barclays and MSG hosted?
d says
Sounds like more money down the drain for boxing then. Hahaha!
John says
Boxing -vs- “MMA” can’t get into a “sport” where tapping, or “quitting” is a routine part of the game. And as far as it being “MMA” haven’t seen a great deal of true martial arts in very many of these “bouts”.. More Wrastling until you can bend the dudes arm backwards – yawn.. Put these dudes on their feet with bare knockles and a true boxer, their finished. I love the matches where they actually fight don’t get me wrong, but all that rollin around on the mat with another dude – pass.
The Greatest says
Tyson Fury will be getting over $21M for his rematch with Klitschko.
BJ Saunders offered $3M to fight GGG and ppv shares (which wouldnt be alot anyway). He turned it down.
Point is that BJ Saunders couldve made more money than any UFC fighter right now.
victor says
Not more $$ then McGregor, rousey ,Jones good ratings for ufc on fs1
d says
Tyson Fury will not be getting 21m for his rematch with Klitschko, not even close. Not to mention of course the bout hasn’t even been scheduled, let alone signed.
If BJ Saunders fought GGG and made 3m- the promoters would have lost money because the ppv would probably do around 100k buys. The math doesn’t add up.
BJ Saunders doesn’t make anywhere near the top UFC fighters who are making in the 5-6m range these days.
Boxing is bad business these days. They have nothing on the horizon, their gates and ppvs are in the gutter, their tv ratings are lower than dirt, PBC will be going under within the year unless they want to continue to lose hundreds of millions of dollars. Just bad news across the board.
d says
It is very funny how you just grab numbers out of thin air and act like they are facts. Haha.
Diego says
Anyone who pays Tyson Fury $21M to rematch with Klitschko is an idiot. The first fight was one of the top 5 worst fights I have ever seen. But maybe The Greatest can let us know his source and prove us wrong.
d says
John is living in the pre ’93 days where the “Foot Fist Way” was king. He also prefers when men caress in the clinch. Also, your theory has been debunked because every time a big named boxer tries kickboxing- they fail miserably.