This past Friday night’s ‘UFC Fight Night 33’ show in Australia was watched by an average of 755,000 viewers on FOX Sports 1, peaking at 886,000 viewers during the main event.
That’s down sharply after the success of the TUF 18 Finale last week which drew 1,129,000 viewers, though it still leaves it 3rd out of the 7 ‘Fight Night’ events on FS1 so far.
Meanwhile, the preliminary card was watched by just 132,000 viewers on FOX Sports 2. That was to be expected though as FS2 is really struggling badly to find an audience at this moment in time.
It’s a shame that a good all-round fight card with a spectacular main event between Mark Hunt and Antonio Silva, along with a great KO win for Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua wasn’t watched by more people, but there were some reasons that could explain why.
Firstly, the UFC broke from their usual pattern of Saturday and Wednesday night fights by airing this one live on a Friday night which will have caught some people unawares.
Airing the prelims on FS2 also certainly didn’t help build a solid audience over the course of the evening, and there were some ihiccups when the main card began airing on FS1 with some fans being unable to see the action due to a technical issue.
UFC Fight Night’s On FOX Sports 1:
UFC Fight Night 26: 1.78 million viewers
UFC Fight Night 27: 824,000 viewers
UFC Fight Night 28: 539,000 viewers
UFC Fight Night 29: 638,000 viewers
UFC Fight Night 31: 641,000 viewers
UFC Fight Night 32: 722,000 viewers
UFC Fight Night 33: 755,000 viewers
