UFC Fight Night 82 drew 1.317M viewers on FS1 Saturday night per Sports TV Ratings. In addition, the Prelims which preceded the main card drew over 1M viewers.
The event, which originally was scheduled on PPV drew a 0.6 rating in the 18-49 demo. The main event saw Stephen Thompson stop Johny Hendricks in the first round. The 1.317 million viewers (airing between 10-1am ET) comes in second to last month’s UFC Fight Night 81 this year. January’s UFC event drew 2.288M viewers and the prelims posted 1.767M viewers. The event also was on FS1.
The prelims drew another 1.093M viewers for the 8-10pm ET time slot and 0.5 rating in the 18-49 demo.
Thus far, 2016’s UFC Fight Nights have done much better than the overall average of 2015’s Fight Nights. Of course, we’re just two Fight Nights in. The 2015 average for 16 fight nights was approximately 921,000 viewers. It excludes a couple Fight Nights that aired on Fight Pass.
Overall, on sports TV cable Saturday night, the OKC-Golden State game on ESPN Saturday night won the night with 3.23M viewers and 1.4 rating in the 18-49 category.
Payout Perspective:
Despite what one might think at the outset, this card was a good for TV. Of course, it probably was not one you would pay $60 for so it was likely a good decision for the UFC to move this to FS1 and for the FS1 to agree to the switch. Despite overlapping with the big NBA game Saturday night, UFC on FS1 did very well. The average for Fight Nights are up this year (albeit a small sample size) which is good news for FS1.
UFC also had four programs in the top 100 shows Saturday, two in the top 10. When is the contract up, 2018? UFC have a lot of leverage.
Dana has said they are negotiating just now and also said only if Fox or ESPN pays will they drop PPVs.
Im guessing they can only negotiate with Fox right now and others in the last year of the deal.
I’m guessing they split rights between Fox & ESPN who are willing to share rights, the other option would be NBC/NBCSN but they like exclusive rights before they sign deals.
They need to get on ESPN. That would be a game changer. They have the sports broadcasting infrastructure to promote events and build fighters. Judging by how ESPN has declined over the years and their massive layoffs. I don’t see it happening. They passed before and its that poor decision making that has hurt them!
That’s why they would share with Fox/FS1, they both share Pac 12, Big 12, MLS, European Soccer & US Soccer Games.
They most likely will share the Big 10 when that deal comes up as well.
Wow. Pretty clear the UFC’s ratings have exploded over the past year. This is very impressive for FS1 which does not have the base other cable networks like Spike or ESPN have, yet they are pulling in considerably better numbers than their competitors on cable like PBC and Bellator.
They will get a solid deal when they renegotiate unlike PBC which will be out of business.
Except you forget to add in that this was suppose to be a ppv and ended being a lack luster event.
Ppv would’ve done 100K-200k at best.
I recall Broner-Maidana being moved to Showtime instead of ppv, and D was jumping for joy.
Well Broner-Maidana did 1.3M viewers on a premium channel that is only available to 22M people while UFC fight night 82 did 1.3M on a free channel thats available to 85M people.
Broner wins
Werdum-Velasquez would have done around 400k buys.
Broner-Maidana was never made up on ppv and was moved to Showtime because it couldn’t sell seats. It was also moved to an entirely different, low profile venue out of Vegas. This is a completely different scenario. Velasquez was injured and had to pull out. Had he not been injured, they never would have moved the fight. This was moved only because of the headliner being injured, not because of the zero ppv interest that Broner drew.
Showtime/HBO ratings are better than boxing ratings on cable. They can’t do better ratings than that. If the UFC had Cruz-Dillashaw or Hendricks-Thompson on HBO or Showtime, they would do better ratings than 1.3m viewers.
Broner loses…..in every way possible. He loses tune up fights and can’t sell a fight to begin with because no one cares about him. He’s never sold a ppv in his life. He was a fraud then and is an even bigger fraud now.
How’s PBC doing? HAHA!
Cant sell a fight but makes over $1M a fight and does better ratings than the UFC.
He’s overpaid and PBC is losing money, with worse ratings than the UFC. Who will be out of business shortly between the two leagues?
PBC isnt a league.
If PBC goes under, nothing happens. The fighters continue like everythings the same.
If the UFC goes under, the entire sport goes under.
PBC is a league by the very definition of the word.
If it goes under, a number of things happen- 1. It will be very difficult for Al Haymon to ever borrow so much as a dollar again to fund a venture. 2. Boxing will be done on the networks permanently. 3. The entire process cost everyone involved in boxing a ton of money.
Also, the UFC will never go under. That would basically be impossible at this point because even if Zuffa tanked (which the opposite is happening right now), someone would buy the promotion from them.
There is only one company between the two that is going under and that is PBC.
You’re going under.
That’s what investors told Al Haymon at his last meeting about PBC. HAHAHA!
Qui Xiao Jun did 200million viewers in China.
Game over
If you guys are going to start deleting comments, is there any explanation for why Topps can continue to rant on here?