MMA Payout has learned from Nielsen sources that Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 36 received an average viewership of 1.4 million viewers. The show which aired at 7:30pm PT/10:30 ET is the biggest rating for a Fight Night on FS1 since UFC Fight Night 26 on the first day of the network.
UFC Fight Nights on FS1
UFC Fight Night 26 1,780,000
UFC Fight Night 27 824,000
UFC Fight Night 28 539,000
UFC Fight Night 29 638,000
UFC Fight Night 30 122,000
UFC Fight Night 31 641,000
UFC Fight Night 32 722,000
UFC Fight Night 33 755,000
UFC Fight Night 34 Fight Pass
UFC Fight Night 35 629,000
UFC Fight Night 36 1,400,000
Payout Perspective:
Although it was not the most exciting of Fight Nights, the 1.4 million viewers marks the biggest viewership since UFC FN 36. The ratings are a positive considering it went up against the Olympics and NBA All Star Saturday Night on TNT for a portion of the night. The annual NBA celebration scored an average of 5.7 million viewers with its peak during Fight Night (at 7:45pm/10:45pm quarter hour with 6.7 million viewers). NASCAR on FS1 was a lead-in for the UFC which averaged 3.5 million viewers. So, there was a considerable drop off between the NASCAR and the UFC event but for the UFC this should be seen as positive numbers as this was a Brazilian card which usually does not do well in terms of viewership.
UFC numbers have been on a pretty good run the last six months or so. A very good sign.
Not sure where you’re getting that BS. They’ve done OK, but not quite pretty good. The numbers are good for FS1, but a significant drop from their Spike days.
WOW, that is absolutely huuuuge. It is absolutely inexplicable, as I would’ve predicted 500-600k, but I guess a lot of the casual fans who’ve been MIA the past year tuned in to see Mousasi. Great sign.
Good to see some good ratings on FS1. Also nice to see people commenting and not being biased
Well, before we get our hopes up. NASCAR getting 3.5M lead-in is absolutely huge. It most likely increased viewership by around half the normal number.
Good point Jose. BUt this will work in the advantage of the UFC and FS1. Even if it doubled the UFC ratings. That is still 700-800K viewers that the UFC kept for hours that would have left the network. Gives the UFC a chance to make them follow the sport without a Nascar lead in. The UFC has been increasing their ratings lately and this is again good news what ever the reason.
Yeah, UFC got a big boost from Nascar.
The Nascar race got 2.5x UFC’s viewers, and that’s for a pretty meaningless Nascar race. The season doesn’t even start till Sunday.
Fox Sports 1 doesn’t get real Nascar Sprint Cup races until 2015.
The Nascar race went right up against the deadline. All the Nascar viewers kept watching for the post-race interviews … which never happened cause FS1 had to cut to UFC. Normally there’s a half hour of post-race interviews and stuff. Be really interested to see the hourly breakdowns for UFC, I bet it plummeted as all the Nascar fans gave up waiting for the post-race show.
On twitter you saw all the UFC fans bitching about stupid Nascar ruining the start of UFC. And all the Nascar fans bitching about stupid UFC ruining the post-race Nascar interviews.
How does the UFC [or anyone] sue individuals for LOSSES from illegal streams and win ?
The assumption the UFC is making here is that:
the people that stream PPVs illegally and people that watch the illegal streams would ACTUALLY BUY the PPVs if the streams weren’t available..
That is tough to prove…
If I can’t get the streams, I’m not paying 50 bucks for the PPVs period.
How does UFC or anyone get over that hurdle ?
Did Ariel Helwani get fired ?
This is obviously a misrepresentation of the true numbers for this event. What were the viewing numbers during the main event? All other numbers are purely fiction!
The reason the UFC gets away with suing streamers and watchers is that UFC customers are way to loyal to the brand and they know it. If you would have been watching from when zuffa took over they were begging for attention, customers, but as their success and brand loyalty have grown so has their pushing the limits of squeezing of fans. They have every right to practice these business tactics but make no mistake they are counting on their extremely loyal fans to support them with every move.
– more pay-per-views
– moving off of spike
– fight pass
– ticket favoritism
– media banning
– streaming crackdown
The UFC has always been against piracy. Even back during the illegal Direct TV era they were coming out before events telling people it is illegal and warning people of the 250,000 fine. They even worked with Direct TV to address the issue. The only difference between now and then is the UFC has the resources to do something about it rather than just talk. They can pursue technology to prevent it and legal avenues to prevent it.
the average UFC fan has no idea of what is going on with the UFC all across the rest of the globe their events are all on free tv. Here is a secret get a vpn for any European country and tune in for free. They sell their product for peanuts outside of North America. The equivalent of the CW in Europe carry their cards live and for free.