The UFC put on two shows on Friday and Saturday with both shows selling out in Atlantic City, New Jersey and Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
MMA Junkie reports the numbers for UFC 147. The attendance on Saturday night drew a reported 16,643 fans. According to Zuffa, its the best showing for the promotion in Brazil.
The bonuses for UFC 147 were $65,000 each and as follows:
Fight of the Night: Rich Franklin and Wanderlei Silva
Submission of the Night: Rodrigo Damm
KO of the Night: Marcos “Vina” Vinicius
A night before, UFC on FX 4 reported the following bonuses:
Fight of the Night: Sam Stout and Spencer Fisher
Submission of the Night: Dan Miller
KO of the Night: Cub Swanson
The fighters received $50,000 each.
Attendance for Friday night’s fight in Atlantic City, New Jersey was 4,652 which amounted to a sell out via Yahoo! Sports (through MMA Weekly).
That’s insane viewership so far in 2012 on Globe Rede. To put that in perspective. The 2012 Men’s National Basketball Championship drew about 14.7 million. The NBA Finals had one of their strongest performances in a long time and averaged around 16.8 million. Now don’t get me wrong at all. I’m not putting MMA in the prestige level of those sports. But it’s akin to Mexico’s boxing ratings a few times a year for mega fights. MMA is a niche sport. But it remains a pretty damn decent sized niche.
Pay-per-view numbers?