Television By Numbers reports that UFC on FX 3 garnered 1.086 million viewers and a 0.5 rating for adults 18-49. In addition, MMA Junkie reported the UFC Prelims on Fuel scored 84,000 viewers.
MMA Junkie reported UFC on FX 3 had 1.1 million viewers but its likely the official numbers were rounded up.
MMA Junkie reports the bonuses for UFC on FX 3 held last Friday. Each fighter received $40,000 each.
Fight of the Night: Eddie Wineland and Scott Jorgensen
Submission of the Night: Erick Silva
KO of the Night: Mike Pyle
In addition, attendance and gate for UFC on FX 3 held in Sunrise, Florida earned $329,110 with attendance of 6,635. Dana White stated that the attendance “sucked” although he was encouraged by the media coverage for the event.
UPDATE: 6/12/12 MMA Junkie reports the salaries for the event.
Demetrious Johnson: $40,000 (includes $20,000 win bonus)
def. Ian McCall: $9,000
Erick Silva: $16,000 (includes $8,000 win bonus)
def. Charlie Brenneman: $18,000
Mike Pyle: $66,000 (includes $33,000 win bonus)
def. Josh Neer: $14,000
Eddie Wineland: $20,000 (includes $10,000 win bonus)
def. Scott Jorgensen: $20,500
Mike Pierce: $40,000 (includes $20,000 win bonus)
def. Carlos Eduardo Rocha: $8,000
Seth Baczynski: $20,000 (includes $10,000 win bonus)
def. Lance Benoist: $8,000
Matt Grice: $12,000 (includes $6,000 win bonus)
def. Leonard Garcia: $20,000
Dustin Pague: $16,000 (includes $8,000 win bonus)
def. Jared Papazian: $6,000
Tim Means: $16,000 (includes $8,000 win bonus)
def. Justin Salas: $8,000
Buddy Roberts: $12,000 (includes $6,000 win bonus)
def. Caio Magalhaes: $8,000
Henry Martinez: $12,000 (includes $6,000 win bonus)
def. Bernardo Magalhaes: $6,000
Sean Pierson: $20,000 (includes $10,000 win bonus)
def. Jake Hecht: $8,000
Payout Perspective:
An overall bad night for ratings, attendance and gate for the UFC on FX 3 show despite a decent night of fights. The third set of live fights was the lowest ranked out of the first 3. Not sure if it’s a statement on the main event of Johnson/Uncle Creepy or the fact it was a Friday night before a big sports Saturday (Belmont, NHL, NBA, Pacquiao/Bradley). It’s early, but it appears that the Friday night live slot is not catching on as one would hope.
It was a good night of fights. I don’t want to jinx him but Erick Silva reminds me of a young Vitor Belfort – confident in every aspect of the game and absolutely deadly on the feet.
I actually had Uncle Creepy winning the fight, but I’m probably in the minority since UC himself looked like he knew he lost before the cards were read. I just felt he was landing harder shots. Three round fights just aren’t long enough for fighters of that caliber, for some reason I thought it was going to be a 5 rounder. I was disappointed to see it only be three.
As for the ratings, it’s more of the same for the UFC this year. They are not managing to increase viewership, and Friday nights are just not working out for them. If the goal of being on Fox is to increase the fan base in order to drive PPV revenue, then so far it hasn’t worked.
I’m curious to know how FNF did since they had Kelly Pavlik on, they didn’t seem to crack the top 100 on TVbythenumbers.com. Pacquiao-Bradley probably took most of the boxing bandwidth this weekend.
Another weekend, another poor TV-rating for the UFC. This seven year deal with Fox will get cancelled if the the viewing numbers don’t drastically pick up soon. No way will Fox continue to spend $90 mill. a year on programming that doesn’t deliver better viewship than the UFC slots are currently doing.
The fact that everything around the UFC is dropping I contribute to the fact that many people have gone off MMA. We used to be 7-8 dudes who would get together watch every PPV. Now we’re down to 2, sometimes 3. It’s a sad decline to witness.
UFC was smart to make the deal with Fox just as interest in MMA has plateaued and started to decline somewhat.
The main problem is UFC over-saturated the market. Same thing happened to WWE.
It’s hard to tell when you have oversaturated until after the fact.
UFC will probably just have to ride out this plateau in the US and hope interest rekindles over the next several years. In the meantime they are smart to focus on international expansion.
Felix,
Not everything is dropping, they are coming off of two successful PPVs and while Diaz/Miller did poor numbers, the first and second UFC on Fox cards did well.
It is also worth noting that if this is a drop in the popularity of MMA, it has happened in a matter of months since the numbers were solid on Spike.
I think Friday nights alone is costing them around 20%. They also need to work harder to establish themselves with the FX audience. I loved seeing many of these guys fight, but they need to put more established names on FX (Sanchez would be a good example) to draw folks.
Apparently the next season of TUF will stay on Fridays, but the network has agreed to move it in 2013 if next season does not see an incease in ratings.
Its def on the decline I would say, and being written of as a passing fad. Not to say that it can’t swing back, but who knows…