MMA Junkie reports that Bellator’s original show, “Bellator 360” scored an average of 350,000 viewers for its two hour block of programming on Thursday.
The first episode on January 10th aired at 10 p.m. ET and received an average of 397,000 viewers. The second episode aired at 11 p.m. ET and received just 303,000 viewers.
January 3rd 487,000 viewer average
January 10th 350,000 viewer average
Payout Perspective:
In only its second episode, we see a big decrease from its debut. The first hour took a look at welterweights and the second hour looked at featherweights. Not sure if Bellator should be worried about the dip considering its live product has not been on the network yet. Still, the ratings are much higher than it did on MTV2.
The bottom line is that this programming is doing much heavier views than anything UFC has on FuelTV. That’s a fact not an opinion.
Who knows how many times this program gets replayed on Spike to increase aggregate views…
Spike has 3 times as much reach as FuelTV.
That’s what you obviously don’t get. The truth of the matter is that the amount of people tuning in on Spike at a minimum is DOUBLE what is watching on FuelTV.
How hard is this to comprehend…. more people watching the product means more people being exposed to brand means a true competitor is born.
You’re small-minded for sure Michael
Sampson you are not very smart. comparing fuel to spike is like comparing taco time to real mexican food dump ass.
If you’re talking about the total amount of viewers being exposed to each product, then you should take all of Zuffa’s TV platforms into account.
If aggregate viewership is the deciding factor, one would need to keep in mind the fact that each of the UFC on FUEL events get replayed many, many times throughout the year on a variety of FOX Sports regional networks. For instance, the card from Macau could be seen in replay on FOX Sports South, etc… For more of an apples to apples comparison like Sampson is describing you’d have to have all the data on the viewership of all the replays. Switching gears a bit, from my perspective, if Bellator’s live event tonight can average 750,000 viewers then I’ll deem it a pretty good success for them.
One thing that is certain is that none of us can figure out exact figures for aggregates across all the channels for each MMA program.
However we can point out the limiting factors.
UFC on FOX is distributed to 115 million homes and shown once, live on the channel.
Bellator on Spike is distributed to 99 million homes live and is replayed X amount times.
UFC on FX is distributed to 90 million homes live and is replayed on Fueltv.
UFC on FuelTv is distributed to 28 million homes and are replayed X amount of times.
So if you are talking about building fighter franchises, UFC is at a HUGE disadvantage when showcasing guys on FuelTV compared to.Bellator who will build their guys on Spike as well as other Viacom platforms. Did you guys not notice Viacom including Bellator fighters in other non MMA related events?
Its only just begun.
LOL Samson you are really reaching hahah. Its nice Spike is in a lot of homes and they show replays. BUt if no one is watching the replays then they are worthless. It is also worthless if the netowrk doesnt have many other draws to get people sitting on that network. They have a good chance to reach TNA fans. Thats it. The UFC has the ability to go after sports fans. Nascar, NFL, MLB, etc. Not to mention people who are into dramas and other tv shows like SOA. Fact is to get new fans for either promotion they are going to have to put fight out there people care about and those fight have to be Wars. Now if there is a Bonnar vs Griffen War like that on TUF 1 finale who is going to get more viewers? The few people watching or know who and where spike is? Or Fox or FX which not only already has more people watching it but people already know more about the network and where to find it. Its growth potential is better and its reach is better. The UFC is able to reach many new fans and emographcs while at the same time reach their PPV buying base with FX and Fuel. Bellator has the ability to reach people the UFC has already tapped.
BTw i woulldnt let you run a Lemonade stand Samson. Your business sense sucks. hahaha!
You’re a pure idiot.
The majority of the UFC’s CRAP is on PPV and FuelTV. That is the most limiting aspect of that brand.
Fox is 4 times a year showed ONCE live. Commercials don’t make fans Dana… product does. 4 times a year is nothing especially with the shitty ratings so far.
FX is ok but doesn’t have the amount of product that Spike does on Bellator.
Final verdict… you is dumb. And Michael is your wife.
mr sampson please use logic did ufc shove a pillow up your butt one night?
Bellator should be happy then. They can reach a fraction of the UFC fanbase. The UFC has already got any Spike TV viewer who has any interest in MMA. They are already UFC fans and likely already made up their mind on wether they care about Bellator or not. So how is Bellator going to reach people who havent already made their mind up about the sport? They cant. They can only hope some of the UFC fans tune in to watch. But the UFC with their new network have a chance to reach many new people while keeping all the old followers from Spike.
BTW did you see your brilliant tournament format tonight? A new propect beat Seth Petrazelli and Mikhail Zayats beat Babalu. Both are in the tournament with Kingo Mo. So either Mo loses and becomes a big waste of money. Or they lose their prospects before they ever made a name for theselves. Either way Bellator kills off all their potential except for 1 fighter. Another couple wins and these guys could be highly respect and have some credibility. But instead Mo will get beat by a no body or he beats no bodies. They have no chance to create any names but 1 or two in each division. Even that will be hard because their champs dont hold belts that long.
Fraction of the UFC fan base? What’s that the 200,000 buyers who pay for the dwindling PPV figures?
Or the geeks who watch FuelTV that averages around 150,000 viewers?
As long as Bellator averages 500,000 viewers or more for their program they will be on-par with the UFC “fanbase”. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
You are going to try and go with the lowest PPV buys of the worst event and think that represents the UFC fan base? Maybe 200,000 that can afford every single PPV. But that doesn’t represent their fanbase. And you have to be stupid to compare tv ratings to PPV buys. Up to 4.5 million different people see the UFC. No Bellator event will ever reach that many different people at once.
the geeks that watch fuel tv? you seem to know alot maybe you shouldnt talk about geeks. ufc reach is far more bigger then bellator no matter what numbers and theory/logic you think you have.
Fun fact: x number of PPV “buys” does not equal the same number of viewers. VERY few people order and watch UFC events alone, and sports bars, where over 100 viewers may be watching the PPV, still count as 1 buy. The UFC pulls FAR more than 500k viewers for their FX and Fox events, and only 6 of their 30+ annual events are broadcast through FUEL TV.
You ladies make me laugh LOL
Very impressed with Bellator’s ratings! 938,000 viewers! Hope they can maintain going forward. Congrats to all the fighters.
What did I tell you shit heads?
It’s only just begun… UFC has a real competitor in the mix. Bellator just outdid the highest Strikeforce rating ever at anytime.
Guess how many times they will replay the show after the live viewing and how many they will get as a total watching that particular event?
I’m guessing 8 replays that total 4 million.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, we have no idea what the trend will be for the next several shows.
As far as what the history of replayed MMA events have shown us, your estimate is quite a stretch: that would be 8 replays that on average maintain over 50% of the original live viewership.
I mean 8 replays = 3 million + 1million live = 4 million
so 350-400k is VERY realistic for replays on Spike
According to SPIKE TV’s official TV schedule, they will be replaying this event a total of one time (tonight) between now and next week’s show. Sorry Sampson.
Sorry what? Did I say that it will be the replay over the course of one week? NOPE.
What about the week after, the month after, the 6 months after?
Are you that simple minded… YES!
They don’t have room in their schedule to replay old events (older than one week) when there’s a fresh one each week. It’s just a logistical reality. They might be able to find some empty days to do Bellator marathons here and there though.
They really ought to come up with an “Unleashed” style 1 hour program to showcase select past fights instead of replaying recent events. They could probably use Bellator’s entire back-catalog for that.
You don’t think they plan to use the same exact formula that made the UFC what it is today and even IMPROVE upon that?
Of course they will replay these shows at nauseum at some point. 8 replays is very conservative if you take into account the calendar year.
The week after they’ll replay next week’s event, and so on. Looks like they’ve got the live events Thursdays with a Friday replay, which seems sensible. Running too many replays risks confusing viewers as to what Bellator’s official timeslot is.
With Bellator’s “seasons”, they might replay old events in the off-season. However, Rebney did say that the company will have less downtime going forward in order to try and keep their champions more active.
Unfortunately MMA fighters tend to get hurt alot more than boxers so he might run into some snags.
Machiel there is no use arguing with this idiot. He doesnt understand the UFC did one show every month on Spike. Not every week. There is no way they show each event 8 times. Not only that. There is no proof anyone new watches it. I ussually watch UFC events a second time and sometimes do Bellator events too. But replay numbers are extremely low and few of them are different people.
Also sampson everyone knew this event would do the numbers it did. Spike got 800K with TUF replays during a UFC event on FOX. Plus they have a good programs to keep people on the network. Being the first show it was going to do well. But even still all they did was match what the UFC did on Spike with Unleashed shows. Plus Bellator will go down from here. There every week shows with no talent and no fighter marketing causes HUGE fluxuations in ratings as we have seen on MTV. I will be an even bigger rollercoaster ride on Spike. People will not tune in every single week for fighters they dont know and a brand they dont care about and skill level they see as second rate.
sampson if bmma gets the clout of ufc ill shoot my cat. also have you ever been laid?
@Sampson – You cannot express your opinion without resorting to personal abuse——this makes you weak–and any arguments you put forward weak.
I will address my opinion to the non-Sampson contributors to the discussion.
Perhaps I missed it, but I have not seen much mention of the quality and depth of the UFC product and how that influences the distribution going forward.
The reach of Fuel TV is dramatically less than the current Spike offering–however, non-casual fans know the difference between the UFC offering and Bellator–and generally perceive the UFC to be a much superior product–even in their second tier level of fighters.
The fact that the UFC can get large numbers of fans to shell out 60 bucks for a PPV displays a solid core of fans. In addition, as I have said before–many more fans globablly see UFC fights than is represented in official PPV numbers.
Spike TV grew its subscriber base on the back of the UFC, but I am not sure that substituting Bellator will convince the majority of fans that Bellator is an equivalent product to the UFC.
I see Fuel TV expanding its subscriber base over the next few years and nullifying much of Spike’s/Bellator subscriber advantage.
The Fox and FX prrogramming, while less frequent than Spike’s, encourages viewership of Fuel–and the quality of the product, and the ‘name’ brands of the UFC fighters will be the difference.