UFC 244’s prelims on Saturday night attracted an average audience of 910,000 viewers on Saturday night.
That’s the best numbers so far for the UFC on ESPN2 and even beat out three college football games that also aired on the station that day, giving some indication of the level of interest in the main card headliner between Jorge Masvidal and Nate Diaz on pay-per-view later that night.
The ratings rose to over one million during the second hour of the prelims and peaked at 1,121,000 during the final fight prior to the PPV between Corey Anderson and Johnny Walker.
In total the prelims came at 2nd for it’s time slot on cable for Males 18-34 and 18-49, beaten out only by a football game on ESPN.
It remains to be seen how the pay-per-view numbers will be, but the solid prelim viewers, plus the fact that on Google the event was searched more than 2.1 million times, compared to just 1 million for the Canelo Alvarez vs. Sergey Kovalev boxing match that also aired on PPV that night, bodes well for the UFC and proves that Jorge Masvidal and Nate Diaz are both major draws for the company.
