MMA Fighting reports that UFC 157 Prelims received an average 1.267 million viewers. The 2 hour show preceding the big event Saturday is average for the prelims on FX.
The show was down from UFC 156’s Prelims which was the highest average for prelims on FX. The prelims for 157 included the Fight of the Night in Dennis Bermudez versus Matt Grice.
1. UFC 156 Prelims – 1.86 million
2. UFC 148 Prelims – 1.8 million
3.UFC 145 Prelims – 1.6 million
4. UFC 144 Prelims – 1.5 million
5. UFC 155 Prelims – 1.4 million
T-5. UFC 143 Prelims – 1.4 million
Payout Perspective:
Are the numbers disappointing considering the hype and initial information on the PPV buys for 157? Can it be explained that everyone was waiting for Ronda Rousey and didn’t care about the rest of the card? Brendan Schaub versus Lavar Johnson was the lead-in fight for the PPV and was not a very entertaining fight. Still, the numbers for 157 don’t even make the top 5 of prelims on FX.
Kind of crazy, 156 does 1.9 mill but only 300-350k PPV buys, 157 does only 1.3 mill prelims but 400-500k buys.
Guess the prelim numbers dont really mean much in terms of PPV buys.
Chris,
It’s strange, but no one (including Meltzer) has been able to figure out why there is no correlation between the two. Definitely strange.
Maybe for some cards there is an inverse correlation, especially for the casual fan.
Say a casual is thinking about buying a mid level card (like 157). They know they are committing 3 hours or so from 10pm to 1am. Are they really going to watch another 2 hours of mediocre prelims and spend 5 total hours on MMA? Maybe they go out to dinner, see a movie, hit a bar, play video games or surf the web. Maybe they even tape the fights and watch them a few days later.
But if they are not going to buy the card, then maybe they figure they can spend the 2 hours from 8p-10p (est) watching the fights live and then go out or do something else because they are not going to buy the fight card like for 156.
Honestly, how many people do you think were saying, “man I gotta watch Shaub (coming off 2 losses & fighting a guy coming off a loss), Chiesa, Bermudez or Stout (coming off a loss and 3 straight decisions and 10 of 11 decisions against a guy coming off a loss) at 8pm tonight?
Just a thought.
Once the UFC realizes that the majority of fans, and this goes for other sports as well, care more about seeing a particular fighter or team than some stupid league or federation, they will never break through to tremendous numbers. It will remain a 3rd rate sport at best, with third rate pay for its athletes.