MMA Payout has learned that the prelims leading up to the Bellator PPV received an average rating of 712,000 viewers. In addition, MMA Payout has received the numbers for Bellator shoulder programming which aired on Saturday before the PPV.
“Unrivaled: Michael Chandler,” which aired in the 7pm slot on Saturday on Spike received an average of 607,000 viewers. Following the Chandler program, Spike ran “Rampage vs. King Mo: Winner Takes All,” which aired at 7:30pm. The hype program for their fight received 511,000 viewers.
The prelims which were split into two one hour programs for ratings purposes featured Cheick Kongo in the last bout of the prelims. The first hour received an average of 648,000 while the second hour received an average viewership of 776,000 viewers with the peak occurring at 9:48pm at 962,000 viewers with the Kongo-Eric Smith fight.
Payout Perspective:
We see from the viewership that Bellator programming received a healthy dose of viewers leading up to its PPV. But was the conversion from free programming to PPV successful? Notably, the Chandler program featured him talking about Eddie Alvarez as it was filmed prior to Alvarez needing to pull out due to injury. Yet, Spike still aired the program. It also did better than Rampage-King Mo despite the hype for their fight. This could be due to the fact that Cops was the lead-in for the Chandler program.
Having Cheick Kongo in the final fight before the PPV made sense as recent trends from the organization’s 10th season reflected the fact that ratings increased when he was on. Bellator’s night of programming went up against NBA and NHL Playoffs so the ratings are good if you are to factor that in.
Hey Paul, not bad dude – you had it at 659k – 728k.
It’s a good sign that ratings peaked just before the PPV with 962k viewers. A 20% conversion would put that at nearly 200k PPVs. Anything over 200k has to be viewed as a success.
UFC 172 did 750k in prelims and 350k in PPV, which would put Bellator at around 330k in PPVs based on 712k prelims. I’m not sure that’s realistic, but it would be a slam dunk for Bellator if they can get there.
Diego,
I would have to think anything breaking 100k would be a success. If you take into account that Alvarez pulled out. Also, I would imagine an event like this would have low overhead other than the payouts for Jackson/Ortiz/Chandler.
D – I can’t imagine they planned to do only 100k in a PPV. I would say below 100k is a failure, 100k-200k is OK but probably a disappointing, 200k-300k a success and likely where they hoped to be and 300k+ is amazing and beyond their expectations.
Diego.
Bellator was hoping for 85,000. 50,000 or less is a failure. Prelim figures have said it came in at 50,000. Gate was 127,000 dollars. Massive failure all around
I agree. I think they planned on doing close to 200k, but that was with Alvarez in the lineup. A lot of people were interested in that fight. Their last fight drew over a million avg. viewers on Spike. I hope they did over 200k, I just don’t see how they would generate that buy rate, because they are relying on basically hardcore fans.
Luke Thomas said that 35k would be a big failure and at 80k, they would make a small profit.
I don’t see any way they did 200k. UFC 170 prelims had an average that matched Bellator’s peak, they did 330k buys.
I think 100k would be seen as a major success.
Some reports have 120 doing 50k buys. Anything this early has to be taken with a grain of salt.
Why on earth would a company try to enter the PPV market when the entire PPv numbers are down across the board?
If they get 100k it’s a huge success. Not sure it will happen. I do believe their first PPV will do better and their PPV’s will decline from there.
Bellator will beat the ufc
Fast sinking ship ufc
Bellator 120 was a very entertaining event. And I think that Will Brooks was the stand out of the whole night. As for the Rampage / King Mo fight, Rampage hurt King Mo in both the second and third rounds. As such, Rampage’s UD win is not surprising.
I notice that a lot of people want to try to compare Bellator and the UFC. In my opinion, this is silly. Bellator is not yet at the level of the UFC; nor does Bellator have to be. The UFC has been in existence for over 20 years, while Bellator sstarted only about 5 years ago. Keeping this in mind, it is clear that Bellator is extremely successful for the level that it is at. Bellator’s first PPV turned out to be a fairly strong event. This is quite impressive given the loss of Eddie Alvararez from the card. Also, Bellator will learn from its first actual PPV experience and continue to improve as a company. All and all, Bellator is clearly going to continue to grow each year. I truly doubt that Bellator will be disappearing anytime soon – Bellator’s numbers are too good for that, which is why the company continues to attract more and more corporate sponsors.
It is through these sponorships, and the advertising dollars that they bring, that Bellator makes a significant profit on each of its shows to date. This is excellent for the fighters, as Bellator provides another large stage for MMA fighters to display their skills and to earn a living. Bellator fighters are allowed to be sponsored by outside entities, and those entities are not inhibited by Bellator as they are by the UFC.
Given these factors, Bellator’s continued growth seems nearly guaranteed.