Heavy.com is reporting that ION Television will run the prelims for UFC 140 on December 10th. Spike TV will carry the prelims for UFC 141 on December 30th in what will be the last UFC live televised event on the network.
The UFC aired its prelims for UFC 125 and 127 in January and February 2011 respectively. The prelims on ION had the lowest viewership out of all of the UFC Prelims. The prelims, airing on Spike TV, for UFC 136, 137 and 139 have suffered from low ratings.
Payout Perspective:
Its a little odd to move the prelims for UFC 140 to ION and then back to Spike TV for UFC 141. Its not clear if there was a programming conflict or by choice but it creates an issue for the casual fan. Of course, fans will need to check their local listings when the prelims for UFC 142 airs on FX or Fuel TV. With the switch to Fox in 2012, UFC Prelims will air on three different networks for three straight cards. Certainly, UFC will hope that the programming will stabilize once it moves to the Fox family.
UPDATE: It looks like that Spike TV will be airing the Video Game Awards on December 10th which is the reason for the UFC’s move to ION.
Per MMA Weekly: There are four bouts featured on the telecast that includes
Igor Pokrajac vs. Krzysztof Soszynski,
Jared Hamman vs. Constantinos Philippou,
John Makdessi vs. Dennis Hallman,
Yves Jabouin vs. Walel Watson.
Not an exciting list of fights, but I will watch for free (I am buying the card). I do appreciate 4 fights instead of the normal 2. Big ups to ION as they will not be getting any more UFC action, my guess is they did not have to pay much for the fights or even a perhaps a straight sharing of ad revenue. Also some good faith building with Fox possible. Thanks ION.
Unless you’re a hardcore fan,you won’t know the the fights are on ION.