MMA Junkie reports that UFC Prelims for 136 received a Spike TV low 1 million viewers. The two prelim fights featured Anthony Pettis and Demian Maia getting wins via decision.
Via MMA Junkie:
Of the 23 “UFC Prelims” specials Spike TV has aired to date, UFC 136’s ranked last. The event opened with 920,000 viewers and concluded with 1,043,000 in the special’s final quarter hour. It scored a 1.0 rating among men 18-49 and a 1.24 among men 18-34.
Payout Perpsective:
Really surprising that the prelims did so poorly considering Pettis and Maia were featured in main events only a year ago. These weren’t first tier fighters on the prelim show. I’m not clear on how to read the low ratings. UFC 136 was one of the best cards of the year yet the ratings do not reflect it. Bellator ratings were poor as well. It could be a mix of college football and baseball playoffs that could have contributed to the low ratings. But, it is possible that the casual MMA fan is experiencing fatigue from all of the shows lately.
Bellator go hammered as well. It’s tough to say what is going on. Certainly there was competition from college football, but we’ve seen that before without such extreme effects on MMA shows.
I think it’s a combination of fatigue and lack of star power in the main event. I had this water cooler conversation on Monday:
“Wasn’t there a UFC fight this weekend?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I didn’t get the PPV, it wasn’t anyone good. At least not anyone I had heard of.”
Will Spike be running UFC Prelims shows through the end of the year?
The paper view numbers will probley suck to. I think its starting to get a little stale to people. Not every show is worth 60 bucks, but untill the ppv numbers start really droping the UFC wont change.
Unfortunately this turned out to be the best card of the year and a lot of people missed it. I think Dana may be overreaching by wanting to do two shows on the same day.
@MV – Yes, I believe that the prelims will be on Spike through 141.
“UFC 136 was one of the best cards of the year yet the ratings do not reflect it.”
Say what?
It’s too bad people can’t go back in time to pump the prelims’ ratings after having watched the awesome UFC 136 PPV. Yep, that makes sense.
I think when you look at the match-ups, you could argue it was one of the best cards the UFC had from top to bottom.