MMA Payout has learned through Nielsen sources that World Series of Fighting’s event on Saturday night received a meager 94,000 viewers. WSOF 7 from Vancouver, BC in Canada competed with a heavy night of college football, boxing and Invicta FC.
WSOF 1 – 198,000 viewers
WSOF 2 – 210,000 viewers
WSOF 3 – 201,000 viewers
WSOF 4 – 264,000 viewers
WSOF 5 – 227,000 viewers
WSOF 6 – 161,000 viewers
WSOF 7 – 94,000 viewers
The 94,000 viewer average is a substantial drop off from its other events. Even WSOF 6, which aired on the same night as the Mayweather-Alvarez fight, garnered 161,000 viewers.
Payout Perspective:
A tough night for WSOF as it competed with championship weekend in College Football, dueling boxing events on HBO and Showtime and an Invicta FC “PPV.” While the event included the amazing Nick Newell, there were no other compelling fights on the card despite crowning a new Featherweight Champion. Was it poor planning that WSOF scheduled its event on the same night as other events or is it a case that the organization has to get dates for events where it can be fit in?
As the WSOF heads into 2014, it will have an opportunity to be on NBC twice. Hopefully, it can sufficiently build interest in its product before both events on the network. Also, let’s hope for WSOF’s sake that the dates do not coincide with other major sporting events.
I don’t think WSOF can worry about when promotions like Invicta run events. IF they can compete and survive with a little show like that on the same day. Then they need to close up shop. The UFC is who they don’t want to cross paths with. With the UFC running events on on petty much half the weeks through out the year and that number moving closer to 75% of the weeks. WSOF cant be worried about every fly by night promotion. There is only so many weeks in a year. WSOF has to get in their half dozen events or how ever many. IF they are ducking dates used by the UFC, Boxing, Bellator, Invicta, etc. Then they will never be able to book an event.
With a max of 200K viewers and I would guess half that for Invicta. How many possible cross over viewers could there be? 20,000 tops?
The issue here was a weak card and being on a network with no viewer base. Add that to competition on other networks and no marketing. You get poor ratings.
I didn’t watch the event. I seen some talk about the fighters before hand. But I never paid attention and didn’t know there was an event. Basically I didn’t care about the fighters I saw. So I never paid it any attention to see there was an event. Not a meaningful fighter or fight on the card to catch anyones attention. There other events didn’t have this problem. They either had Fitch, Burkman, Sponge, etc. Also part of the problem is there have been a lot of high quality events from the UFC. People may have not been ready for more fights. Especially lower level fights. What has the UFC had in the last 3-4 weeks? 3-4 events?
Why would The NBC broadcast network put WSOF on? Even at 200,000 viewers it’s a fraction of their audience…even it’s a time buy a rating like that hurts the network. Has anybody actually heard NBC say they’re putting this on…or seen a press release? Or is the MMA community just taking Sefo at his word?
WSOF ratings are a reflection of the network not so much the product. Let’s remember that Bellator wasn’t doing much better on MTV 2. NBC is wanting the MMA product to see what happens. CBS and Fox have had good ratings with MMA. I think WSOF has a good enough product that it could do good ratings if handled right. There is no doubt they will beat 200,000 viewers. I’m guessing 800k to 1.2 million.
Main Event do similar ratings to WSOF on NBCSN but when they promote afternoon fights on NBC, they usually do over a million viewers, I can see WSOF doing the same.
You guys realize that WSOF is low level MMA without any stars? 1.2 million? Are you high? MMA is oversaturated. NBC probably won’t even put this garbage on TV. Ray Sefo just got a major reality check with this god awful rating. WSOF won’t last much longer.