UFC on ESPN 5 from Newark, New Jersey Saturday afternoon drew 680,000 viewers on the network per Nielsen via ShowBuzz Daily. The prelims which preceded the main card on Saturday drew 523,000 viewers.
The main card featured Colby Covington as he took on Robbie Lawler. Covington defeated Lawler via unanimous decision. The main card drew 350,000 viewers in the A18-49 demo and a 0.45 overall share. The prelims drew 234,000 viewers in the A18-49 demo and a 0.37 share.
The prelims began at 12pm ET with the main card following at 3pm ET. Officially, the prelims had a 20-minute overrun into the main card on ESPN.
In comparison to other sports programming on Saturday afternoon. The Big3 Basketball League on CBS drew 555,000 viewers at 1pm ET. ABC’s XGames broadcast drew 570,000 viewers and a 284,000 in the A18-49 demo in the 1pm ET time slot. The Yankees-Red Sox game on FS1 drew 587,000 viewers in the 1pm ET window. It drew 155,000 in the A18-49 demo.
UFC on ESPN events (main card/prelims)
UFC on ESPN 1 1.463M/988K
UFC on ESPN 2 828K/480K
UFC on ESPN 3 1.091M/543K
UFC on ESPN 4 957K/548K
UFC on ESPN 5 680K/523K
Payout Perspective:
The ratings are the lowest for a UFC on ESPN event although this was the only event airing during the afternoon. If there’s any good news, it’s that the A18-49 demo was strong in comparison to other sports such as the Yankees-Sox game or the XGames.
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