Bellator 90 drew an average of 737,000 viewers on Spike TV this past Thursday night.
That’s up 18,000 viewers from the previous week’s event, but is only 32,000 away from being the lowest audience of the season so far.
However, a later replay on Spike did pull 473,000 viewers, a substantial increase from the norm, and that’s almost certainly due to the fact that people wanted to see Emanuel Newton’s upset KO win over Muhammed ‘King Mo’ Lawal in the light-heavyweight tournament semi-final.
Despite that I’d say the overall feeling here will be disappointment from Bellator and Spike TV’s standpoint.
The fact that ‘King Mo’ lost was in itself a massive blow given that he’s their biggest ever signing and was pegged as a major star for them, but it must also be a let-down that fans didn’t bother to tune in to the live showing of his fight in significant numbers, only appearing for the replay once word spread of his shock defeat.
With a featherweight tournament final in the main event along with ‘King Mo’ I’d have hoped to see the ratings push up to around the 800,000 mark again, but judging by Thursday’s numbers the ceiling for the shows may be slipping.
Due to the fact that another big signing in Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral was also felled earlier on in the 205lb tournament Bellator will now have to lean heavier on their established stars like Michael Chandler, Ben Askren and Pat Curran to pull in bigger numbers.
One positive note for them lately is that it appears they may be coming to terms with Eddie Alvarez on a new deal, averting a messy courtcase and keeping him away from the UFC’s clutches.
Given the recent media attention this has garnered Alvarez’s stock his risen and so he could be someone that could move the needle on the ratings front if and when he returns to the Bellator cage.
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Bellator Ratings On Spike TV So Far:
Bellator 85: 938,000 viewers
Bellator 86: 812,000 viewers
Bellator 87: 705,000 viewers
Bellator 88: 807,000 viewers
Bellator 89: 719,000 viewers
Bellator 90: 737,000 viewers
