MMAPayout.com has learned that the Aldo vs. Faber Prelims on Spike TV that featured the very popular fight between Leonard Garcia and Chan Sung Jung garned a .8HH rating on an average audience of 1 million viewers. The show drew fairly well in the M18-34 and M18-49 demos with a .91 and .92, respectively.
The quarterly ratings were as follows: .62, .62, .82, and 1.01.
Payout Perspective:
The war that Garcia and Jung fought over the last 20 minutes is likely responsible for the 60+% increase in ratings the broadcast saw from start to finish. You also have to wonder how much that fight motivated fans to purchase the PPV afterward.
While the broadcast, overall, was the lowest rated prelim show that Spike has aired to date, it was for all intents and purposes a WEC event. The UFC typically draws anywhere between a .9 and 1.2 for its prelims (viewers ranging from 1.2 to 1.4 million), so it’s definitely a feather in the WEC’s cap to be in that ballpark.
Hi Kelsey,
This event was promoted as a UFC event. There was no mention of WEC anywhere to be seen, so we should really compare what we see with typical fight nights with an average name TUF fighter headlining. I really don’t see this as much as a success as a lot of people are claiming. Now if they went in with the WEC brand and WEC promotion, I’d say it was a home run. But most average fans wouldn’t know the difference between what they seen Saturday and what they usually see on a Saturday when the UFC puts on a PPV with preliminaries on Spike.
That’s just my 2 cents.
Guru,
I’m not sure I agree. The event may have used Dana for promo, but never did he mention the UFC in the promo, nor did markings for the event indicate the UFC.
It was a brandless WEC event that only hardcore MMA fans really knew about (i.e., WEC fans). The fact the quarterlies improved so much, tells me this show tapped into a bit of that moderate or even casual fan crowd.
KP
Totally agree. This was not a UFC event. The UFC brand is good for 300K PPV buys without even knowing who is fighting on the card. Without the UFC brand name on the product it dont get any benefit from the 300K fans of the brand. So its not a UFC event.
A can of Coke wont sell very well if the can only says Cola. Even if Coke was inside it.
This event was not an indicator of the power of the UFC or WEC brand. But WEC will benefit from the event because they own the fighters involved.