The UFC 251 Prelims on ESPN topped cable rankings on Saturday drawing 809,000 viewers for its four-hour block on the network according to Nielsen via ShowBuzz Daily. It drew 397,000 in the A18-49 demo as well as topping most of the other demos.
The UFC 251 Prelims took place on Fight Island in Abu Dhabi with a three title fights on the PPV. Notably, the PPV buy rates came in prior to the network ratings. The PPV drew 900K domestic PPV purchasers and 1.3M viewers total overall.
The prelims featured the debut of light heavyweight Jiri Prochazka as he knocked out Volkan Oezdemir in the second round of the feature bout of the telecast.
Yahoo! Sports Kevin Iole reports that the prelims averaged 1 million viers and peaked at 1.2 million.
The ratings saw the 4 hour block win in the young demos – Males 18-49 (0.47), A18-49 (0.31), A18-34 (0.24), M12-34 (0.30) and A25-54 (0.36).
Payout Perspective:
Its worthy to note that UFC 249 drew 1.154 million viewers but only ranked 2nd in overall cable ratings while this past Saturday drew less than 850K viewers per Nielsen. However, it was a big win for the UFC as it scored high in all of its target demos and its PPV purchases totaled 1.3 million worldwide.
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