Bellator 138 drew 1.58 million viewers on Spike TV Friday night according to Sports TV Ratings. The event was the largest average viewership in Bellator history.
The previous record was November’s Bellator 131 which averaged 1.2 million viewers.
The main event for Bellator 138 was Kimbo Slice taking on Ken Shamrock. Slice KO’d Shamrock in the first round. It drew the highest peak in the company’s history: 2.1 million viewers (11;45pm-12am).
Bellator 138, which aired from 9:0pm-12:03am Friday night, drew an 0.8 rating among adults 18-49 per Sports TV Ratings.
| Overnight | Peak | |
| Bellator 132 | 767,000 | 1,200,000 |
| Bellator 133 | 565,000 | 967,000 |
| Bellator 134 | 872,000 | 1,200,000 |
| Bellator 135 | 607,000 | 922,000 |
| Bellator 136 | 655,000 | 900,000 |
| Bellator 137 | 594,000 | 768,000 |
| Bellator 138 | 1,580,000 | 2,100,000 |
Payout Perspective:
The ratings are great for Bellator as it was second to only US Open Golf on FS1 in cable sports viewing on Friday. Scott Coker’s “tent pole” event strategy seems to be working as viewers are making sure that they tune in when a big event is on. MMA Payout will keep you updated on further ratings information as we receive it.
bahahahahah
http://mmajunkie.com/2015/06/with-some-convinced-of-fix-in-shamrock-vs-slice-truth-likely-far-less-interesting
Bellator > PBC
Hahahaha!
These numbers are nearing UFC on Fox numbers..
Not bad.
Great showing!
I’m still going to throw out there that Conor v Aldo is going to sell 2 million PPVs. If it doesn’t it will 100% be a disappointment.
circus fight. this fight does 2 million but henderson vs belfort does less. i guess freak shows ae better than real fights
The last 7 Bellator shows have drawn a higher average audience than the last 7 UFC Fight Night shows.
I don’t know if that difference is due to the networks they’re on or what.
More like those numbers are close to PBC on NBC numbers. HAHA!
Only difference is Bellator makes money while PBC loses millions! HAHAHA!
Joe, explain to me how UFC 189 doing less than 2m buys would be a disappointment? That makes no sense. If it breaks 1m it will be a very big success.
Also, Spiketv gets much better ratings as a whole than FS1. FS1’s ratings are terrible other than UFC an NASCAR.
@ Joe, I think UFC 189 will do 950k buys not bad at all for a UFC PPV.
@ D, I think Dana White is really convinced that Mcgreggor is the new GSP in terms of PPV buys and he has claimed that it will make 2 million PPV buys (as well as saying Aldo vs Mcgreggor is the May-Pac of MMA). Zuffa has put so much cash promoting it starting months back (while doing almost nothing for UFC 187).
If it does less than 2 million it will probably be a disappointment to the UFC, less than 1 million will be an embarrassment to White.
I’m saying that it would be disappointing because of the investment that they’re making into the marketing of it.
The UFC has hit more than 900k+ with their typical level of promotion on numerous occasions.
This could have done the same w/o them blowing the budget on marketing.
To justify the money being spent on promotion, it has to do well over 1 million. Cause it was probably going to do about that much regardless.
JF,
That can’t be true. Do you honestly think White believes McGregor can win as frequently on top as GSP? No way. At best he is a Lesnar type- a guy who could possibly win a title, not hold it long but sell a few big rivalry ppvs.
White claimed it would do over 1m, not 2m. The UFC doesn’t invest the type of money boxing does into their promotions from an advertising stand point. Although they have thrown a lot more money into this ppv than any from the past, it will still make a ton of money if it goes over 1m buys. Kind of hard not to make money with that type of revenue.
Joe,
Your analysis is way off. Show me a ppv they didn’t heavily invest in where they did over 900k buys. Also, the cost of the ppv has increased $10 since the last ppv they did over 900k.
You are just fabricating things about the cost of the promotion. You really don’t know what you are talking about.
UFC 189 does 500k maybe 700k if that! 2 million ?? bahahahahahahaha smoke another dick! Bellator doing better then the UFC!! bahahahaha PBC is a few months old, whats MMA’s excuse?
Since Dave’s source, whos has nothing to do with the UFC, yea right! hasn’t leaked numbers I saw this wow what SHIT!
http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2015/5/14/8606073/pay-per-view-estimates-ufc-185-275000-buys-ufc-186-100000-125000
Sal, no one can understand anything you are ranting about. You come across literally like a raving lunatic.
This upcoming UFC will be lucky to break 5OOk, UFC isn’t growing at all, boxing just put up the biggest PPV ever lol.
Scott Coker can sure put on a show that feels like a big event. The main event was about as irrelevant and freakish as MMA can get but you know what? it was a fun f****** show and I loved every minute. Good for Bellator on these ratings!
I think UFC 189 will do 600-700k range and the UFC will lie about it.
If they sell over 1m then you can chalk it up to hype because Aldos been selling 150-230k ppvs on a consistent basis.
Lets look at his last 3 ppvs and their buys.
UFC 179-180K
UFC 169-230K
UFC 163 180K
Now he faces Conor and ppl expect 2m? Doesnt seem plausible.
But if I were “d” I would wish for Conor to win because if Conor loses, then the UFC hype machine dies again.
Think about that.
In a few months span, Jones is gone, Cain loses to a guy who shouldve been done years ago, and Conor loses.
Rousey and Weidman lose and its all over for the UFC.
UFC is a ponzi scheme, pay the fighters peanuts while Dana and his gang live the high life and bash boxing. Lol Doesn’t anyone remember when Dana said woman would never fight in the UFC? Look how desperate he is, his biggest star is now a woman.
“i guess freak shows are better than real fights” PRIDE NEVER DIE
Fagbusiness you are a total moron. First off, there is no way 189 only does 500k buys. Even if it flops it will do at least 700k. Also, you don’t know what a Ponzi scheme is you idiot.
By the way, Mayweather was the first person to open his mouth in the mma vs boxing equation because he realized how popular it was and the fact that it was taking over boxing. Plus he realized if it came down to a real fight, mma fighters would kick his ass. White even offered him a fight with Sherk for a million and he refused it.
The Gayest…..reporting from Bellvue again. Nut job.
D,
Conor v Siver on FS1 got 3 million viewers. That blows everything out of the water.
The previously great selling PPV events were not any where near as marketed as this one. Dana even says they’re totally blowing the budget here. So, they gotta sell HUGE to justify it. 1mm is not enough.
It’s 2mm PPV buys or bust.
Joe, you are just pulling numbers out of your ass. I know they are spending more on marketing, but what you are implying is that they are expecting to lose money for an event like this. That makes no sense. White never said he expected to hit 2m buys and their marketing budgets for most big ppv cards are in the 5-6m range.
If this ppv hits 1m ppv buys that equals roughly close to 60m in ppv. After the cable companies get their cut, the UFC is left with 24m. Add in a possible gate of 7m. Sponsorship money maybe another million. Fan Expo, merchandise, concessions, etc. This will be close to a 40m event. Are you telling me their overhead costs are anywhere near 40m? How much do you think it costs to promote an event like this? I’ll give you a hint, there is no way the UFC spent more than 15m to promote this and I doubt they even eclipsed 10m.
This 2m figure you are throwing out there is pure nonsense.
D cant comprehend the truth or anything close to the truth. A rant is a rant haha
Saldaqueer.
D,
Everything I pulled I got from this site.
I’m not saying that the card would lose money, I’m just saying that to justify the doubling or tripling of the advertising budget they gotta pull a much bigger number than 1mm PPV buys.
It might not even matter, thouhn. Apparently Jose Aldo is hurt
No, you didn’t. Because you are just making baseless assumptions with zero evidence to validate your numbers. Even if they tripled their ad budget they would still make a lot of money from this fight. 1m buys is a very big number- especially when you are paying fighters under 10m probably. Your math doesn’t add up.
The only person saying they would break even at 1m is Dana White and he is saying that as usual to imply the UFC isn’t making a ton of money, and the fighters are.
As to the Aldo claim- again, you are pulling things out of your ass. Go get a reliable source to verify anything you are saying. He just re-tweeted a fan comment 20 minutes ago about how he was going to defend his title at UFC 189.
D,
I’m not saying they’ll lose money. I’m saying that to justify the spending it has to sell well over 1mm PPVs. Reason being, that the UFC has sold more thank 900k PPVs on numerous occasions in the past without spending this much on advertising.
Dana has said that this is by far the most they’ve ever spent on promotion and they’re not done spending. What kind of ROI would it be if they don’t sell the most PPVs they’ve ever sold.
As for Aldo, Luke Thomas is pretty reliable. And I did say MIGHT
Your argument makes no sense. You are saying that they need to hit 2m ppv buys to justify spending that much because they have hit 900k in the past without spending that much. First off, You are also confusing ppv buys with revenue. If they hit 1.3m that would put them right around the same revenue that UFC 100 did seeing how the cost of the ppv’s now are $10 more now than they were than and they marketed the hell out of UFC 100.
Also, where is this theory deriving from that you have to make the same roi on the first million buys you sell with anything on top of that? Hypothetically speaking, if they make 20m on the first 1m buys and only 5m on the next 500k in net, would that be a failure? That makes no sense.
As for Aldo, he may have a rib injury. Worst case scenario is they move the fight back a couple of months and elevated MacDonald-Lawler, but it is still going down.
D.
I’m not saying that the UFC won’t make money if they only sell 1 million.
I’m saying that they have to sell more PPVs because why spend all the money on ads if its not going to grow your audience??
If you admittedly spend greatly more money than ever to raise awareness of an event and the event then you should expect a growth in audience size.
That’s the point though, it will grow their audience and they will profit more.
Again, who created this belief that you have where you have to proportionally sell at the same rate for an event if you invest more money?