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 12/16 – 12/22.
UFC on Fox Sports 1 Wednesday Night Block (12/18):
– UFC Tonight: 62,000 viewers (7-8 PM)
– Big East College Basketball: 46,000 viewers (8-10 PM)
– Fox Sports Live: 52,000 viewers (10-11 PM)
UFC on Fox Sports Friday Night Block (12/20):
– UFC Reloaded on FS1: 303,000 viewers (7-10 PM). ( FS1 viewership high for the week)
– UFC Tonight: 231,000 viewers (10-11 PM) (Second highest FS1 viewership for the week)
– Fox Sports Live: 124,000 viewers (11-12 PM)
UFC on Fox Sports Sunday Night Block (12/22):
– Ultimate Insider on FS1 drew 64,000 viewers (9:00 – 9:30 PM).
– UFC Fight Flashback: 156,000 viewers (9:30 – 10 PM).
– UFC Unleashed: 205,000 viewers (10-11 PM).
Other Key Programming Notes :
– UFC Reloaded (12/21) on FS2 drew 107,000 viewers. (FS2 viewership high for the week)
– UFC Unleashed (12/21) on FS2 drew 105,000 viewers. (Second highest FS2 viewership for the week)
– UFC Present Anderson Silva (12/22) on FS2 drew 30,000 viewers.
– UFC Breaking Ground (12/19) on FS2 drew 48,000 viewers.
– Best of PRIDE FC (12/19) on FS2 drew 30,000 viewers.
– Golden Boy Boxing (12/16) on FS1 drew 150,000 viewers.
***
Fox Sports 1 & 2 Weekly Totals:
– Fox Sports 1 Primetime Viewership: 144,000 (last week: 155,000)
– Fox Sports 2 Primetime Viewership: 22,000 (last week: 14,000)
Ratings provided by Nielsen TV Ratings & Fox Sports.
Payout Perspective:
This week sees the same trend as the previous weeks, as FOX Sports continues to struggle since TUF and the College Fottball season came to an end. This week, the primetime viewership averaged 144,000 viewers, a drop from the 155,000 average viewers the previous week. In the past four weeks, primetime viewership on FS1 has declined from 514,000 to 144,000, which is roughly a 72% drop. Fox Sports 2 primetime viewership this week bumped up from 14,000 the previous week to 22,000, which is typical due to the small viewership numbers for the network. What’s noticeable about this week is that without TUF, there really isn’t a UFC Wednesday block anymore. It actually looks like Friday nights (which did great this week) and Sunday nights are starting to become UFC block nights.
Despite the declining primetime viewership numbers for the network, UFC programming once again claimed the highest viewership on FOX Sports 1 and three out of the top five for the week. It’s important to point out how remarkable it is that taped shows like UFC Reloaded and UFC Tonight on the Friday night timeslot out-rated FS1 live events in primetime on Saturday (CBB). This week was pretty rough for Fox Sports without any live UFC events to aid some of their programming considering that no program did more than 303,000 viewers in primetime.
Highest viewership for the entire week was 303,000 (UFC Reloaded) and 231,000 (UFC Tonight), both taped UFC programming. The most watched non-UFC program on FS1 for the week was the Big East CBB game on Saturday, which drew 229,000 viewers.
I expect the numbers next week to be MUCH higher with UFC 168 prelims and all the programs that got a boost from them setting new records. The average might be up around 400-500K again with out football.
Live coverage of the Supercross season started last night on FS1.
FoxSports renewed their contract with Feld (who owns Supercross) last Nov for 5 years. Feld’s motorsports package includes Supercross, Arenacross, and Monster Jam (ie monster trucks).
It’s very cheap programming. Feld doesn’t need to charge that much since the events are walking, jumping billboards for the bike manufacturers and the energy drinks that sponsor everything.
168 PPV buys?
and these rating numbers suck… only a matter of time before FS1 2 get canned..
@BS:
The numbers did go up for that week of UFC 168 but not at those 400-500K levels. Stay tuned this week for that report 🙂
@JKT:
FS1 was trying their hardest to promote Supercross and I believe I even saw a tweet from Kos promoting it, but it doesn’t look like it did much. Ill have those numbers soon as well.
@df:
Still too early for UFC 168 PPV numbers, but from numbers I’ve heard paint it somewhere between 700K to 1M. So it is likely to be a 600K+ PPV. Should have something a bit more definitive this week or next.
All of these people are idiots for thinking FS1 is failing just because of how many viewers they have. Mostly all of the viewers on FS1 are in the 18-35 male demographic. That’s the best demo to have as young males have the most “free” money to blow on random shit, so advertisers love it. Even if they aren’t pushing 1mil+. They still have 200k+ of the only demo that really matters in terms of trying to sell products.
The 18-35 male demo isn’t the only demo that matters or the demo that has the most money to blow. It is one of the harder audience demos to capture, so in a scarcity based system it is considered worth paying more to advertise to.
Spin it all you want FS1 and FS2 are failing. They failed before they launched which is why FOX had to give concessions and then the skepticism of everyone was justified as they have failed out of the gate as well.
Chris is back hahaha….UFC needs all the fanboys now ..desperation