UFC 198 Prelims on FS1 drew an average viewership of 768,000 per Nielsen. It was the highest rated sports program on cable TV on Saturday.
The Prelims featured Matt Brown taking on Demian Maia. Viewership for the fight was at its peak as it drew 985,000 viewers in the last quarter hour of the 2-hour show. According to Sports TV Ratings, it drew 399,000 viewers in the adult 18-49 demo making it the highest-rated show in that demo for Saturday.
Below is a graph of this year’s PPV Prelims on FS1.
In addition, the FS1 UFC Fight Night pre-show drew 253,000 viewers and the post-fight show on FS1 drew 117,000.
Payout Perspective:
Despite doing less than the other PPV shows this year, the UFC 198 Prelims on FS1 did very well. Per Sports TV Ratings, only ESPN’s “30 for 30” Believeland drew higher ratings on Saturday in the category of “sports cable.” The lower ratings may reflect what to expect for the PPV buys but the event did do well considering it was not a U.S. card.
Another solid outing.
I wonder what the Bellator numbers were. The UFC obviously put Brown-Maia as a prelim headliner just to take interest away from the Davi-Lawal fight card.
didnt fool with these, was busy watching Bellator, which was only a decent card, the king mo vs lawal fight didnt have any action until the last round. Not an overly entertaining card from bellator