The replay of selected fights from UFC 206 earlier this month drew 4.7 million viewers on Christmas Eve according to Television By Numbers. It also drew a 1.6 rating and a 6 share in the Adult 18-49 rating making it the second highest viewed UFC show on Fox since UFC on Fox 1.
The replay was the most-viewed show Saturday night and drew the biggest share among adults 18-49 across the board on the network.
The fights on the 2-hour replay Saturday included Lando Vannata versus John Makdessi, Cub Swanson versus Doo Ho Choi, Donald Cerrone versus Matt Brown and Max Holloway versus Anthony Pettis.
Nielsen reports that the peak viewership occurred during the Swanson-Choi fight which many consider a Fight of the Year frontrunner for 2016.
Only the November 2011 fight featuring Cain Velasquez-Junior dos Santos scored more viewers when the company’s debut on Fox drew 5.7 million viewers.
Payout Perspective:
The obvious takeaway here is that the UFC has found a niche and its likely Fox will be open for this slot for next Christmas Eve. Even on a night when many people were doing holiday activities and spending time with family, many people tuned in. This is great for the UFC as the actual card only did 150,000 PPV buys.
This was a major success.
Goes to show there is value in publishing rights for UFC fights.
Another great success for the king of combat sports.
Why did the ratings drop the longer the show was on?
Hahaha…sea world hahaha
Jess most people probably had their TV on for football and then changed the channel lol
TOPS = kid
Fight Fan….very unhappy. Hahaha.
Nah, just speaking the facts
The facts are that this was a major success and shows the value of airing ppvs a week later on FOX.
Jess,
A combination of people turning their channel to other programming and/or people wanting to see Swanson-Choi as many online raved about it being FOTY.
Jason,
I see, that makes sense. I also did read other sites attribute much of the ratings success to the football lead in. Good idea to do this every year after the big football games.