Spike TV has announced that the UFC 111 Prelims featuring Matt Brown vs. Ricardo Almeida and Nate Diaz vs. Rory Markham generated a 0.9 rating for an average audience of 1.2 million. The broadcast scored fairly well in the 18-34 and 18-49 demos, as usual, with a 1.1 and 1.2 respectively.
Payout Perspective:
Unfortunately for Spike and the UFC, this broadcast was the lowest rated prelim show yet:
| Event | HH | 18-34 | 18-49 | Viewers |
| 103 | 1 | 1.5 | 1.3 | 1,400,000 |
| 104 | 1.1 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1,400,000 |
| 106 | 1 | 1.2 | 1.1 | 1,300,000 |
| 108 | 1 | 1.4 | 1.3 | 1,500,000 |
| 109 | 1.2 | 1.6 | 1.6 | 1,700,000 |
| 111 | 0.9 | 1.1 | 1.2 | 1,200,000 |
But, if you look at the ratings and compare them to the PPV buyrates of the corresponding event, there’s really no correlation. UFC 109 did approximately 285,000 buys, but a series high 1.7 million viewers. UFC 111 is likely to have the highest buyrate with the lowest average.
Many people went to the cinema theater.
Would basketball have any affect?
Why is there no correlation? It doesn’t make sense to me that there wouldn’t be, but the numbers don’t lie. Just guessing now, but are the prelims on Spike watched mainly by channel surfers who are not particularly interested in MMA? If so then the low number could be explained by the basketball game as mmaguru suggests. A lot of channel surfers in Spike’s key demo would probably be watching hoops.
What does that say for MMA on Spike? UFN shows and The Ultimate Fighter aren’t really growing the sport’s base of hardcore fans, they just pull young males who have nothing better to watch. That’s disappointing if it’s correct. I hope it’s not.
I don’t think it matters if the ratings fluctuate by a few hundred thousand people each time. It’s a gift for the hardcore fanbase and the ratings are not a big sign of anything in my view.
I do think that this card was slightly overrated in terms of drawing power, not nearly as big as 100-101 or other cards that did over 700k like GSP Penn. I imagine it did about 500k. Mir v Carwin and the scratched Alves v Fitch were not huge match-ups to casual fans. I was actually more excitied for 110.
Also with the number of cards increasing the average buy rate will likely be lower in 2010 than in 2009.
i don’t know if anybody watched spike all day …but they did an awful job leading up to the prelims by running repeats of the lowly rated “ufc primetime” into old epsiodes of unleashed as a lead in to the prelims…i would bet that their ratings were down all day (against NCAA) and that had a big impact on the prelims ratings…
Diego
“Why is there no correlation?”
Just like Countdown numbers are not accurate indicators of PPV draws. Just because someone will watch a show for Free dont mean they are going to pay $50 for the PPV. There are many reasons for this but it realy is that simple. The Theatre could have played a role too. These are PPV buyers who would have been home watching watching the prelims before the PPV started. Wether these people got to see the fights i dont know but either way Spike didnt get the rating.
Marty.
I dont like the fact that Spike runs TUF reruns all day. It confusing for noobs who dont know whats going on and when they see the real new episode they think its the same rerun deal and skip it. But to be honest there is really nothing they could have done to counter the NCAAs. Spike dont have any program that is going to pull people away from basketball and work as a better lead in that what they had. They should have skipped the TUF marathon and went with a unleashed show or two and then the prelims. Anyone new fan who spent all day watching the entire season of TUF and the unleashed and the prelims are going to be to burned out to pay 50 for the PPV. If they even last to the prelims.