MMAPayout.com has learned that Wednesday night’s episode of UFC Primetime: GSP vs. Hardy drew an average audience of 506,000 viewers, good for a .43 HH rating.
Payout Perspective:
The debut episode of the GSP vs. Hardy series scored big, but this follow-up has to be a little bit of a disappointment as it drops 50%. GSP vs. Penn only lost about 10% between its debut and follow up. Below is a summary of the ratings history of the entire UFC Primetime series:
January 14th, 2009 — Primetime: GSP vs. Penn E1 (880,000)
January 21st, 2009 — Primetime: GSP vs. Penn E2 (825,000)
January 28th, 2009 — Primetime: GSP vs. Penn E3 (662,000)
March 10th, 2010 — Primetime: GSP vs. Hardy E1 (1,000,000)
March 17th, 2010 — Primetime: GSP vs. Hardy E2 (506,000)
The show has done a good job of making Hardy look like a credible opponent – playing up his heavy hands and muay thai prowess – but I’m not convinced that was or should have been the main objective for the series. Primetime is an effective promotional tool when it develops a story that can evoke emotion in the viewer. One of the best ways to evoke emotion and charge the situation would have been to better exploit Hardy’s trash-talking skills.
I also think Spike has missed the mark on promoting episodes. Not only have they aired advertisements for GSP vs. Penn on more than one occasion (the astute observation of MMAPayout.com’s Adam Swift), but the manner in which they preview the next episode really doesn’t leave the viewer anticipating the next episode. Normally, this is something they do very well; especially with the TUF series where they had people believing for 3 months that Kimbo would fight again.
Nonetheless, the production of these shows is still very high. While the cost is quite high (estimated to be $1.7 million by Dana White last year), the ROI the UFC receives is quite substantial. If they could find a way to get this on ESPN, it would sell like gangbusters.
Note: The drop in ratings isn’t totally a reflection of the difference between GSP-Hardy and GSP-Penn, either. Scheduling the show late on St. Patrick’s day, when many of MMA’s target M18-34 year-old demographic was having a drink at the pub, didn’t help!
Oh no! This precipitous drop in viewership can only mean one thing: 75,000 PPV buys TOPS for this card.
I’m still not sold on how dangerous Dan Hardy will be. His strength coach saying that Dan is stronger than the 250 lb NFL players he trains was a too much of a stretch for me. They seem desperate to make this fight appear competitive.
But it’s been a while since we’ve had a UFC card this good, so I expect that it will do well on the PPV. I won’t be watching the PPV because I will be watching it LIVE.
And why no focus on Frank and Shane? I bet they can get some goo trash talking on both sides of that fight.
I watched the first episode but not the second one, so I guess i’m part of that stat. I just wasn’t convinced that Hardy was doing anything to show he can beat GSP. This fight is going to be a wash. I was expecting to see Hardy in training against top notch wrestlers instead of just punching and kicking.
i think it’s about adaptability through adversity here GSP has shown championship adaptability when in trouble(groin pull/tear) against thiago alves who is a stronger thai fighter than hardy.
hardy is good at the middle of an exchange, but we havent seen him up against
a high level threat, like alves, and jon fitch, koscheck, anthony robinson jon howard,
but we shall see a good fight where i think GSP’s ring generalship and use of the jab can answer that
Watch the Hardy VS Davis fight. Look at Hardy’s take-down defense and his groundwork. This was MARCUS DAVIS tooling him on the ground. Also, I hope it was just the editing that made it look like Serra was showing Hardy VERY basic moves to get back to the feet (and this 3 weeks out from the fight). If any of this is a sign of what Hardy can offer other than a killer counter left hook and elbows in the pocket, St Pierre may beat Mir to causing the first Octagon fatality. The only rebuttal I have heard to this so far is “puncher chance”. I guess I have a chance too!
Letibleu, well put. Even I have a punchers chance, it’s just not enough anymore against a guy like GSP.