UFC Fight Night 66 / Bellator 137 TV Ratings

Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 66 event from the Philippines was watched by an average of 575,000 viewers on FOX Sports 1.

That’s low compared to what the UFC would normally expect to pull in for a ‘Fight Night’ show, but in this case it’s actually not that bad given that the event wasn’t airing at night, but rather in an out-of-the-ordinary morning time slot.

And it’s actually not too far off what Bellator 137 pulled the evening before on Spike TV, with 594,000 tuning in to watch the live action there.

The UFC event peaked with an average of 718,000 viewers during the main event which saw Frankie Edgar comfortably outpoint Urijah Faber , while Bellator peaked at 768,000 viewers as Brandon Halsey TKO’d Kendall Grove.

Comparing like-for-like, UFC Fight Night 66 was up significantly compared to the last show the promotion put on during the day, UFC Fight Night 63: Mendes Vs Lamas which only mustered 389,000 viewers.

On the other hand, Bellator 137 was down slightly from Bellator 136: Brooks Vs Jansen last month which pulled in 655,000 viewers and peaked with 900,000.

Up next for the UFC is the pay-per-view event UFC 187 on Saturday night which has a fairly strong line-up throughout and so should do solid numbers for the preliminary broadcast on FOX Sports 1 featuring the likes of John Dodson, Dong Hyun Kim, Uriah Hall and Rose Namajunas, while Bellator 138 next month wheels in the circus show match-up of Kimbo Slice Vs Ken Shamrock that could well draw a crowd, largely down to the novelty value rather than any real expectation of seeing a good fight.

Ross launched MMA Insight (previously FightOfTheNight.com) in 2009 as a way to channel his passion for the sport of mixed martial arts. He's since penned countless news stories and live fight reports along with dozens of feature articles as the lead writer for the site, reaching millions of fans in the process.