MMAPayout will be covering in detail the FOX – UFC TV deal, quarterly and weekly, in order to analyze the performance of both properties throughout the lifespan of the TV deal. In this week’s edition, we will be looking at the UFC on FOX sports network ratings for the week of 12/02 – 12/08.
UFC on Fox Sports 1 Wednesday Night Block (12/04):
– UFC Tonight: 88,000 viewers (7-8PM)
– Big East Basketball: 37,000 viewers (8-10:30PM)
UFC on Fox Sports Friday/Saturday (12/06-12/07):
– UFC Fight Night: Hunt vs Bigfoot Prelims (12/06) on FS2: 132,000 viewers.
– UFC Fight Night: Hunt vs Bigfoot (12/06) on FS1: 755,000 viewers.
– UFC Fight Night: Hunt vs Bigfoot Replay on FS1 (12/07): 316,000 viewers.
Other Key Programming Notes :
– The Ultimate Fighter Live Weigh-ins (12/05) on FS2 drew 19,000 viewers.
– The Ultimate Fighter Finale Repeat (12/03) on FS1 drew 244,000 viewers.
– Ultimate Insider (12/08) on FS1 drew 23,000 viewers.
– UFC Unleashed (12/08) on FS1 drew 131,000 viewers.
– UFC Reloaded (12/04) on FS2 drew 46,000 viewers.
– UFC Road to the Octagon (12/08) on FS1 drew 76,000 viewers.
– Golden Boy Boxing (12/02) on FS1 drew 134,000 viewers.
***
Fox Sports 1 & 2 Weekly Totals:
– Fox Sports 1 Primetime Viewership: 186,000 (last week: 514,000)
– Fox Sports 2 Primetime Viewership: 30,000 (last week: 14,000)
Ratings provided by Nielsen TV Ratings & Fox Sports.
Payout Perspective:
If there was any wonder how well Fox Sports 1 would do after TUF and the College Fottball seasons came to an end, this week was a great indicator. This week averaged 186,000 average viewers during primetime compared to the previous week, which drew 514,000 viewers. That’s a viewership drop of roughly 64% in primetime from the previous week.
Despite no new TUF programming, UFC programming still claimed the highest programming on FS1 for the week UFC Fight Night (755,000) and 3 out of the top 5 programs in terms of average viewership. To make up for the lack of TUF, Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2 sprinkled a good amount of UFC programming replays and auxillary programming throughout the week, including UFC Fight Night replays, TUF Finale replays, UFC Unleashed, UFC Reloaded, Ultimate Insider, and the weekly UFC Tonight. The most successful non-live programming was the three episodes of UFC Unleashed aired throughout the week on FS1. Those episodes drew between 118,000 and 131,000 viewers.
The most watched non-UFC programming on FS1 for the week was an episode of FOX Sports Live (349,000) which aired right after the Ultimate Fight Night event on Friday and the NASCAR Awards Ceremony on Sunday, which drew 288,000 viewers.
In January Fox Sports deal with Feld Motor Sports starts. Feld runs SuperCross, ArenaCross, and of course, Monster Jam Monster Trucks. And Fox agreed to carry more of the events live than they did in the past.
They all used to be on Speed before it became FS1. Feld signed a new 5 year deal in November. Fox is only keeping the most popular of the old Speed properties.
Interestingly, MavTV appears to be trying to become the new Speed, they’ve been hiring former Speed talent and snapping up the B-level motorsports.
NBC Sports and Fox Sport have the premier motorsports – Nascar, F1, Indy. But there’s a surprising amount of other motorsports series out there.. Dirt racing, World of Outlaws, boat racing, off road racing, endurocross. Lucas Oil runs MavTV and a dozen or so minor league motorsports series.
MavTV also has some minor league MMA – King of the Cage, I think.
I like watching their late model dirt races. Mav seems like a good channel. But they need to stop using that crappy Knock outs show with lame graphics. Besides that I like it.
37k for Big East basketball? What the eff? They better be paying Fox and not the other way around.
I agree AK! You mean the students of the 2 schools and the cities of the 2 schools can get more than 37K watching the game not to mention the rest of the country? I know when Marshall U football is on. Everyone I know is hunting for it on every channel on the dial. Basketball to a lessor extent. But for 2 Big East basketball schools. That is pathetic and it shouldn’t even be on TV. NOt when they have regional Fox sports networks for it to be on. They could have drawn that with taped unleashed shows. Saved the expense of a live broadcast.