Bellator 124 drew an average of 771,000 viewers this past Friday night on Spike TV, peaking with an audience of 1,271,000 prior to the main event 205lb title fight between Emanuel Newton and Joey Beltran.
That’s up 104,000 viewers from last week’s season premiere which went head-to-head with UFC Fight Night 50 on FOX Sport 1.
Any time Bellator are able to break the 700,000 barrier on a Friday night it’s a positive sign for the promotion, and this is the sixth time in 15 events so far this year that they’ve been able to do so.
This past weekend’s show also registers as the third most watched Bellator event of the year, so it appears as if the promotion is off to a good start in it’s 11th season and they’ll be hoping for more of the same when Melvin Manhoef makes his Bellator debut in the main event of this Friday’s Bellator 125 show opposite Doug Marshall.
Meanwhile, on a busy Saturday night for combat sports, World Series Of Fighting 13 produced an average of 246,000 viewers on the NBC Sports Network with an event headlined by Marlon Moraes and Cody Bollinger.
That’s up 40,000 viewers from their last show and ranks as their third most watched event on the NBC Sports channel to date.
Considering this wasn’t the strongest card they’ve ever put on and the fact that they were going up against stiff competition on that evening, including the latest Floyd Mayweather pay-per-view and UFC Fight Night 51 on the ‘Fight Pass’ service, this was a good showing for WSOF.
