UFC Fight Night 33 on Friday night scored an average viewership of 755,000. The event was held at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre in Brisbane, Australia and featured an unforgettable heavyweight bout between Mark Hunt and Bigfoot Silva, which was scored a majority draw.
UFC Fight Nights on FS1
UFC Fight Night 26: 1.78 million viewers
UFC Fight Night 27: 824,000 viewers
UFC Fight Night 28: 539,000 viewers
UFC Fight Night 29: 638,000 viewers
UFC Fight Night 30: 122,000 viewers (FS2)
UFC Fight Night 31: 641,000 viewers
UFC Fight Night 32: 722,000 viewers
TUF 18 Finale: 1,129,000 viewers
UFC Fight Night 33: 755,000 viewers
UFC Fight Night 33 Prelims: 132,000 (FS2)
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Source: Fox Sports
Payout Perspective:
After pretty remarkable numbers for the TUF 18 Finale (1.129M viewers), the numbers for UFN 33 look to have come back down to earth. UFN 33 drew 755,000 average viewers and peaked at 886,000. The Prelims on Fox Sports 2 drew 132,00o viewers. That’s a pretty big drop off from the TUF 18 Finale but falls in place with other UFN events. Compared to UFN 32, UFN 33 drew 33K more average viewers for the event.
The event went head to head with WWE’s Friday Night Smackdown on Syfy, which drew 2.837M viewers and a Friday Night ESPN NBA game which drew 1.061M viewers.
You can tell the numbers are moving in the right direction. The last 3 events have done much better than the 4 events before them. Only being beat out by the first two events on the network.
On a side not. I have followed this sport a very long time. I have never seen so many great fights in one year. It seems every event there is a new fight of the year that was better than the last. We have Jones/Gus war, Diego/Gilbert war just off the top of my head. There were a few others around those events. Now we get what was maybe the greatest HW war of all time. Its not just great fights. Its the big name guys in main events or co main events. I have never seen anything like it.
I agree very well put as always. The Mark Hunt vs Bigfoot fight was incredible. I can’t wait to see Ufc 168 at the end of the month. Its getting better.
For the life of me I still don’t know how the TUF finale did 1.1M. I get that it has a built-in audience and all, but was anybody really emotionally invested in any of the fighters? All the fighters/fights are garbage. And Guiterrez was the only one with a personality. Must have something to do with Thanksgiving.
On a different note, for the liiife of me I don’t understand how DFW can expect to attract talent at TUF when the pay continues to be absolutely pathetic for winning it all. At the very, very, very least, double it. They supposedly hand out a lot more in locker room bonuses every event right? Truly, truly mind-boggling.
BS,
Now that CFB, NASCAR, and TUF seasons are over, I’m actually curious as to how many viewers FS1 and FS2 will get for UFN’s. There really isn’t much right now other than CBB and that never draws very well, so that’s something to keep an eye on.