Ratings for this past weekend’s UFC on FOX 6: Johnson vs Dodson prelims were on par with UFC on FOX 5 and tied for 7th all time for all FX televised prelims.
UFC on FOX 6 was televised on Saturday night from Chicago’s United Center from 5PM to 8PM on FX. The broadcast averaged 1.2 million viewers (0.50 HH) according to Nielsen, which ties it for seventh all-time for total average viewers. The FX prelims portion featured T.J Grant defeating Matt Wiman via KO, Clay Guida defeating Hatsu Hioki by split decision, and Ryan Bader scoring what was labeled as “the fastest submission victory in the history of the LHW division” over Vladmimir Matyushenko.
Most Watched FX Prelim Events:
– UFC 148: Silva vs. Sonnen II – 1.8M
– UFC 145: Jones vs. Evans – 1.6M
– UFC 144: Edgar vs. Henderson – 1.5M
– UFC 155: JDS vs. Velasquez – 1.4M
– UFC 143: Condit vs. Diaz – 1.4M
– UFC 146: JDS vs Mir – 1.3M
– UFC on FOX 5: Henderson vs Diaz – 1.2M
– UFC on FOX 6: Johnson vs. Dodson – 1.2M
– UFC 153: Silva vs. Bonnar – 1.0M
– UFC 149: Faber vs. Barao – 1.0M
– UFC 154: GSP vs. Condit – 980,000
– UFC 150: Henderson vs. Edgar II – 974,000
– UFC 147: W. Silva vs. Franklin II – 969,000
– UFC 152: Jones vs. Belfort – 955,000
– UFC 142: Aldo vs. Mendes – 880,000
Ratings Note: Yahoo Sport’s Kevin Iole reports that the TUF Episode 1 replay, which aired on Saturday night at 11PM a few hours after UFC on FOX, drew 1.179M viewers. The live airing of TUF Episode 1 drew 1.5M viewers on FX and TUF Episode 2 this week drew 1.27M viewers.
Wow! Thats a lot of viewers for a 2 hour replay. To bad it didnt reflect so much in the second episode.
Sampson Simpson, we hardly knew ye. Bellator ratings average 705,000 nationwide. In all seriousness, I said from the beginning that if Bellator can average around 750,000 I’d consider it a success (and that SPIKE may well also). But Sampson is a man of his word. I know he’ll honor his bet.
Funny how Sampson said Bellator would average all these viewers and tons of viewers on replays and UFC would get no replays. Yet the UFC does almost 1.2 million with a TUF replay.
I do believe Bellator will go even lower. They are still new and still havent settled in. Lots of new people are still checking them out. I believe they will be around the 500k mark with their non star headlined events. But their big name events will fluxuate between 700k-1 million viewers. Maybe that will change in a year or so if they can use the big names to bring in fans and that will also raise the weak cards as the brand gets more of a following. But thats a big IF and easier said than done. The historic UFC brand is the 800 lb gorilla in the room. The jury is still out on if it is even possible to be successful with any other brand even if you do everything right. Which almost every MMA promotion hasnt come close to doing.
IMO a promotion needs PPV. But noone is going to pay money to see what they consider minor league events. So its real hard to get started. What i think they should do is start with 1 annual PPV where they prepare and plan for all their best fights and reach a crescendo with the PPV. This gives them a pay worthy product and gets fans used to paying for their product. Then its just a matter of expending into more PPV events a few years later. Remember the UFC didnt start off running 15 PPVs a year. They started running 3 a year and ran 4-5 for many years after that.
Simple Simpson is gone? really? Great news.
Anyway FX prelims and TUF > Bellator title fights, that says it all.
So much for Bellator overtaking UFC like Simple Simpson said.