Coming off of last week’s highest rated showing on MTV2, Bellator 45 scored a strong 264,000 viewers this past Saturday. The show received season-high ratings in Men 18-34 (0.4) and Men 18-49 (0.33) according to an email received by MMA Payout from MTV2.
According to the email from MTV2, the telecast peaked at 360,000 viewers at 9:30 p.m.
Payout Perspective:
A nice ratings roll for Bellator as the season ends. This past weekend saw Christian M’Pumbu KO Richard Hale to win the inaugural Light Heavyweight Championship and Patrick Freire win the Featherweight tournament and earn a shot at Joe Warren.
MTV2 indicated that Bellator’s debut season on the network averaged 215,000 viewers, a 16-percent increase for the timeslot. The last two weeks definitely helped boost the average. Also, the fact that there were no UFC events helped. While ratings for Bellator were up and down, the end of season four shows promise for the future of Bellator on MTV2.
Why are they doing another featherweight tournament so soon? To get Joe Warren more fights?
Michael,
Marlon Sandro is now the highest ranked fighter on the Bellator roster (along with Alvarez). The timing for his signing was akward–right as the FW tournament was bout to begin, making it impossible for him to join, but meaning he would have to potentially wait one year to join the tournament and then who knows how long before getting a title shot. Warren vs. Sandro would be the most high profile fight (outside of Alvarez vs. Huerta) that Bellator would have ever put on. There was no way they could wait that long for that fight.
Freire could ruin those plans.