UFC On ESPN 14 from Fight Island drew an average of 908,000 viewers this past Saturday night.
That was enough to secure the event the No.1 spot on cable for the night With a .35 rating among the 18-49 demographic.
The card peaked with 1.2 million viewers during the main event, an eagerly anticipated middleweight clash between former champion Robert Whittaker and Darren Till that largely lived up to expectations.
This was an event that deserved to do well as there was real strength in depth on the main card, with the co-main event featuring a trilogy clash of Brazilian legends Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, while Alexander Gustafsson’s heavyweight debut against former champ Fabricio Werdum delivered even more star power.
With that in mind, while the show appears to have done fairly well, it perhaps could have performed even better given that it now ranks just ninth in the fourteen event ‘UFC On ESPN’ series to date.
Earlier in the evening the UFC On ESPN 14 prelims pulled in 483,000 viewers and came in No.8 on cable for the night with a line-up fronted by Francisco Trinaldo’s fight with Jai Herbert.
By way of contrast, Bellator also returned to action on Saturday night with a card fronted by former UFC fighter Sergio Pettis going up against Ricky Bandejas, but was only able to muster 277,000 viewers on the Paramount Network.
