This past Saturday night’s UFC Fight Night 57 event was watched by an average of 903,000 viewers on FOX Sports 1.
This was a good showing for the UFC, up 104,000 over the ‘Fight Night’ average on FS1 and also up 204,000 compared with the UFC Fight Night 56 event earlier in the month.
The main event featured an enticing featherweight clash between top contenders Frankie Edgar and Cub Swanson which peaked with just over a million viewers. That’s pleasing given that, despite being an elite fighter who enjoyed a long run as lightweight champion, Edgar has never been considered much of a draw for the promotion.
The UFC Fight Night 57 prelims also did better than normal with 777,000 viewers – higher than the main card for the previous Fight Night show a couple of weeks ago which had been headlined by Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua and Ovince St. Preux in Brazil.
It’s hard to say why this was as there wasn’t any needle-moving fighters on the preliminary card which closed out with a heavyweight encounter between Ruslan Magomedov and Josh Copeland.
The solid viewership even continued on to the post-event show which was watched by 446,000 viewers.
It’ll be particularly pleasing for the promotion that they achieved these numbers despite significant competition on the night, including Manny Pacquiao’s latest boxing match on pay-per-view.
Meanwhile, on Friday night Bellator re-aired their recent Bellator 131: Ortiz Vs Bonnar event and pulled in 617,000 viewer.
