Saturday night’s ‘World Series Of Fighting 8’ event drew an average of 212,000 viewers on NBC Sports.
That’s a nice rebound from the series low 94,000 they pulled for WSOF 7 at the tail end of last year and makes it their third most watched event so far on the network.
Not bad going considering that headliners Justin Gaethje and Richard Patishnock aren’t established stars yet. The fact it was a title fight will have helped lend it credibility though, and Anthony Johnson Vs Mike Kyle was a solid co-main event, while having a female fight featuring highly rated strawweight competitor Jessica Aguilar also helped spice things up.
As a side note, it’s interesting to hear word emerge that NBC Sports actually attempted to strike a deal with Bellator to start airing their preliminaryt cards on the channel, but it’s believed that they couldn’t reach an agreement.
Still, it shows that NBC Sports are eager to extend their MMA coverage, though it could also be seen as a slap in the face to WSOF given that their prelims only air on the internet.
Having said that, WSOF will get a chance to air two events on the main NBC channel during 2014, so they’ve got plenty to look forward to moving forward.
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WSOF Ratings To Date On NBC Sports:
WSOF 1 – 198,000 viewers
WSOF 2 – 210,000 viewers
WSOF 3 – 201,000 viewers
WSOF 4 – 264,000 viewers
WSOF 5 – 227,000 viewers
WSOF 6 – 161,000 viewers
WSOF 7 – 94,000 viewers
WSOF 8 – 212,000 viewers
