The 2 hour season debut of The Ultimate Fighter 22 featuring coaches Conor McGregor and Urijah Faber drew 622,000 viewers according to Sports TV Ratings. It’s the best start to a TUF season since TUF 18: Team Rousey vs. Team Tate.
This season, Team McGregor vs. Team Faber, will feature European fighters facing American fighters. The season debut featured the fights to get into the TUF house which would set the rest of the season.
Notably, TUF 22 in its 10-11pm time slot went up against MLB baseball on ESPN which drew 788,000 viewers per Sports TV Ratings. US Open Tennis won the night for sports cable viewing as the Men’s Quarterfinal which aired from 7-10pm ET drew 1.3M viewers on ESPN.
The Live+SD ratings average for TUF 21 last season was 393,000 viewers. For TUF 20 last fall, it drew 513,000 viewers.
Payout Perspective:
Should we be surprised with the good start comparatively speaking? The UFC and FS1 hope the “Conor effect” helps the TUF franchise. It’s really too early to know how this will work out but it will be worth comparing the ratings over the past couple seasons.
mmaguru says
Expect ratings to fizzle like his future buy rates if he loses to Aldo.
Saldathief says
Proves Conor is not what they thought. Only the girls selll. Go rousey hahahha
Logical says
NO ONE is going to revive TUF, it’s dead, it’s nothing more than filler now. It doesn’t matter how popular the coaches might be, the ratings will keep getting worse. TUF had a couple of great seasons early on and built a lot of good talent during its first couple of seasons, it ran its course, it did its job… time to do something new and bury that f***ing thing.
Combo says
TUF continues to succeed way beyond boxing’s attempts at their own reality series (“The Contender”, “The Next Great Contender”).
Chris says
Looks like PBC debut on FS1 did 180k viewers.
BrainSmasher says
Did PBC really get lower ratings than the UFC weigh ins? Lol
TUF was full of great fights and the banter between Connar and Faber was very funny. This should keep people interested and the decline won’t be as bad as recent seasons.
Remember that there isn’t a huge demand to follow any coach onto TUF. Brock or Rousey or Chael didn’t do great numbers as would be expected. If they are not fighting then people do not follow them in droves. But they do boost TUF ratings but not to the level of their fights.
BrainSmasher says
Did PBC really get lower ratings than the UFC weigh ins? Lol
TUF was full of great fights and the banter between Connar and Faber was very funny. This should keep people interested and the decline won’t be as bad as recent seasons.
Remember that there isn’t a huge demand to follow any coach onto TUF. Brock or Rousey or Chael didn’t do great numbers as would be expected. If they are not fighting then people do not follow them in droves. But they do boost TUF ratings but not to the level of their fights.
saldathief says
Once again the ufc girls have to compare a third rate boxing show to the premier mma promotion how tired, old and pathetic., Try to get some new points, oh wait you cant and wont bahahah
d says
HAHAHAHAHA!!! PBC going below rock bottom!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Could be better says
As usual, most of what the UFC sells is filler material. How about we just focus on the SPORT? Could we please cut the sideshows and focus on fighting? It’s always nice to see fighters train but it’s not worth a show. It’s becoming harder and harder for me to distinguish between UFC fighters and movie stars.
Anyway, 620,000 viewers is a pretty small number after all the promotional hype.
I estimate that in a couple of months a new more marketable champ will pop up out of nowhere and Conor and Aldo will fade into obscurity.
Chris says
Heres Sal comparing PBC numbers to UFC, a network tv PBC card to cable FS1 UFC card that aired at like 10am. Thats ok though but when you flip it Sal gets all mad.
HYPOCRITE
saldathief on April 13th, 2015 10:40 PM
Its so pathetic that when UFC FN 63 does 10% of the PBC nbc numbers its not bad hahaha. Talk about delusional. Hey at least haymon didnt have to borrow half a billion to lose 40% of his business,UFC is down like 60% after 2014 bahaha D is so scared that boxing is making a tv push hahah look at all his desperate pathetic posts. 2 shows at 3 million mark!! news flash to retards, the boxing business model makes money!! The UFC model has to borrow money hahahah
tops E says
Chris is a passive aggressive hahahahahaha
d says
Tops’ mental illness is covered thoroughly in the DSM V.
Chris says
An mmapayout post by Tops saying absolutely nothing but hahahahahaha, shocking. Guy never has anything real to say or add to a topic or a response.
He just types hahahaha alot, atleast other trolls attempt to say something. d might be right maybe he is slow.
Tops E says
Chris cries and is so sensitive…..passive agressive he is sniff sniff hahaha