The UFC aired live fights on both Friday and Saturday night on the FX channel, and official figures show that they had mixed fortunes on the TV ratings front.
The ‘UFC On FX 4’ event on Friday which was headlined by Gray Maynard Vs Clay Guida drew 1.3 million viewers making it the second most watched program amongst males on cable TV that night.
That’s pretty much in line with the previous UFC On FX shows on the channel which had in the region of 1.1 – 1.4 million viewers.
Meanwhile, the ‘UFC 147 Prelims’ special on the channel a day later drew only 969,000 viewers, the second lowest of the preliminary cards shown on FX to date.
The fact that on this occasion the prelim card featured a selection of fighters from Brazil who the U.S public wouldn’t have known if they hadn’t been tuned into the recent TUF: Brazil series online may well have had a part to play in the low numbers, while the general lack of interest in UFC 147 could also have contributed.
The UFC will likely console themselves with the fact that while the card appears to have gone largely unnoticed in the U.S, it was a huge success in Brazil with some 20 million people having been reported to watch it on Globo TV.
‘UFC On FX’ Shows:
UFC on FX 2 ratings (main card): 1.4 million
UFC on FX 4 ratings (main card): 1.3 million
UFC on FX 1 ratings (main card): 1.3 million
UFC on FX 3 ratings (main card): 1.1 million
‘UFC Prelim Specials’:
UFC 145 ratings (prelims): 1.6 million
UFC 144 ratings (prelims): 1.5 million
UFC 143 ratings (prelims): 1.4 million
UFC 146 ratings (prelims): 1.3 million
UFC 147 ratings (prelims): 969,000
UFC 142 ratings (prelims): 880,000
*Story changed to reflect updated figures for UFC 147.
