MMA Junkie reports that Bellator 53 bottomed out with an average of 103,000 viewers Saturday night. The numbers reflect the lowest ratings on MTV2 since it began broadcasting on the network.
Via MMA Junkie:
The latest ratings continue the organization’s wildly inconsistent season-five numbers; two events have scored at least 235,000 viewers, and three have drawn 158,000 or fewer. Bellator 53 faced stiff competition from UFC 135 (sic actually UFC 136) and a full slate of NCAA football games, which likely had a major effect on the ratings.
A rerun of Bellator 53 received more viewers (120,000) than the live viewing.
Payout Perspective:
The most telling number from Bellator 53 is that its replay outdrew the live event. Obviously a low rating was expected considering going up against UFC 136. But, the replay shows that there are viewers out there that would watch its product. Should Bellator move to another time slot or another day? Will moving to Spike TV help its ratings?
I think if you tried to run a regression to predict Bellator ratings your computer would melt down.
Bellator would probably pull 400k to 800k viewers on spike. Which means it will be dead on arrival.
Maybe they shouldn’t put it on MTV, Don’t even put it in the same time slot or days as UFC. UFC will when those viewers, it’s like the Green Hornet competing with Batman, gues whose show got DX.