The UFC 196 Prelims drew an average of 1.843 million viewers on FS1 on Saturday night per Sports TV Ratings. It was the second-highest prelims on FS1 since December’s UFC 194.
In the last fight of the prelims on FS1, Siya Bahadurzada submitted Brandon Thatch. The event aired from 8-10pm ET and preceded the PPV. Notably, it drew 1.074M viewers in the A18-49 demo.
It was the second highest-rated prelims on FS1 to UFC 194 this past December which drew 1.9M viewers.
In addition, the pre-fight show (6:48pm-8:00pm ET) on FS1 drew 767,000 viewers. According to Sports TV Ratings, the UFC Prelims were the second-highest rated sports cable programming on Saturday night to the UNC-Duke game on ESPN (3.174 viewers from 6:30pm-8:37pm ET). Coming in third was the NASCAR XFINITY Series on FS1 which preceded the pre-fight show.
Other ratings from the UFC 196 weekend:
The live weigh-ins on Friday which aired on FS2 drew 145,000 viewers. The airing on FS2 was due to NASCAR programming on FS1. The programming that aired at the same time as the UFC weigh-ins on FS2 drew 460,000 viewers.
A replay of the weigh-ins on FS1 later that night (10-11pm ET) drew 358,000 viewers. The UFC Countdown show which preceded (9-10pm ET) the delayed weigh-ins on FS1 drew 320,000 viewers.
The post-fight show on FS1 drew 377,000 viewers despite the fact it started at 1:15 am ET.
Payout Perspective:
The ratings reflect the Conor McGregor effect as there was a lot of buzz for this fight despite the change of opponents. If we are to gather anything from the viewership numbers, it’s that the PPV buy rate should be huge. The pre-fight show also drew a huge rating which means that FS1 had a very big day in terms of viewership.
Better if new casual fan tuned in to see the hyped mcgregor…then lost right away hahaha….same as 14 female demo with moms for ronda…saw her throw a tantrum/rant dnb pre fight-got a beatdown and a ko.now talking about killing herself! hahaha
Very big numbers.
Also, another 1m ppv buy show likely after all of the casual interest. Everyone was talking about the fights before and after the ppv. 1m + likely.
Yup big numbers saw mcgregor getting beat 5th ranked 155lbs on 12 days notice…where does he rank in 155? he should just go back at 145 and be the giant hahaha..
He will drop back down to 145…….and have another 1m+ ppv. Hahahahaha.
Big numbers, of which Im sure exceeded expectations. Testament to the drawing power of not only McGregor but having Holm v Tate as well. One wonders how the next showing of either McGregor or Holm will turn out in terms of numbers.
Holly Holm won’t do much unless she faces Tate or Rousey again, Connor won’t really be hurt by this, his charisma and the fact the fight was two weight classes up will soften the blow.
If the biggest, greatest most hyped up UFC fighter draws only 1,8 million viewers, then the UFC is in trouble. Klitch drew over 9 million viewers only in Germany.
My predictions turned out to be true after all: McGregor got brutalized. He didn’t get more than 1 million in revenue and the ratings were rather unimpressive. I was expecting at least 2 million viewers given the hype, which would still have been unimpressive considering the ratings of the previous events. If Kimbo can draw over 2,5 million viewers with little to no publicity at all, I guess the UFC’s cashcows have been milked dry.
This is going to be a great year for MMA, but not for the UFC. The UFC has just run out of cashcows to milk. Get ready to see some desperate publicity stunts from the UFC.
Looks like the UFC is going to do at least three 1m buy ppvs this year. Not to mention several others hitting only slightly lower. Maybe that’s why Mayweather desperately wants to promote mma:
https://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/floyd-mayweather–i-m-interested-in-promoting-mma-fighters-235145691-boxing.html
There’s no money for him in boxing. Haha.
Hahahaha…mayweather saw how low they pay mma fighters,it wont cost him much hahaha. Its like manufacturing in china…they earn from cheap labor…ali act for MMA!
D, Mayweather is a smart businessman, i would say genius level businessman. One of his kids practices and trains in mma, he has long wanted to break into the mma business and he has the money and im sure could get the backing to do it. Mayweather promotions is doing well in boxing, I would love to see him break into mma and start promoting and managing. Onward for combat sports.
Mayweather is not a businessman. He hires businessmen to make him money. There is nothing genius about his business ability, he was just lucky to get connected with Haymon.
He is going to get into it….and fail. You have to be patient in this industry, and I can’t imagine him developing a 10 year plan like Bellator basically has.
Mayweather promotions doesn’t exist in boxing anymore, because he isn’t boxing. He has low level fighters, no big names.
“Hahahaha…mayweather saw how low they pay mma fighters,it wont cost him much hahaha. Its like manufacturing in china…they earn from cheap labor…ali act for MMA!”
HAHAHA!! Or in reality, he saw how boxing was sinking and huge ppv’s are going on in mma! He knows he can’t make money in boxing anymore. Just no money. He’s running from it like he did in his fights! HAHAHAHA!!!
Hmmm….he has one world champion right now, Badou JAck of Sweden. And he has promoted several PBC and Showtime cards, and will be promoting the Broner vs. Theophane fight on Spike next friday night. I think you might be a bit biased against him cousin.
Badou Jack…….thanks for proving my point.
PBC cards are just proxy promoters, Haymon owns those guys, not Mayweather. Which I will actually defend him a bit- that is a good thing. You wouldn’t want to be a PBC investor right now.
There is nothing going on big money wise right now in boxing other than GB with Canelo. That’s it. Not being biased. Bellator brings in much more money than Mayweather Promotions and they don’t even do ppv.