Last weekend both Bellator Fighting Championships and Strikeforce held events on the same night with MTV2 airing Bellator 35 beginning at 9PM EST, and Showtime airing Strikeforce: Feijao vs. Henderson beginning at 10PM EST.
Trying to compare their numbers head-to-head doesn’t make much sense, as one airs on a premium-cable station with a subscription base of approx. 18 million, and the other is a cable network station which features music-related programming aimed at a younger audience.
If one winner had to be picked though, it would have to be Bellator who saw an increase in key demographics with their debut on MTV2.
MMAjunkie.com had the viewer numbers for both events.
Strikeforce: Feijao vs. Henderson averaged 412,000 viewers, a stark contrast to last months Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Silva event, which featured the first bouts of the promotions Grand Prix tournament. Of course the draw for February’s event was likely to have drawn bigger numbers, but last Saturday’s show was on par with the promotions average viewership numbers from 2010 of 426,000 per broadcast.
Bellator 35 debuted on MTV2 Saturday night drawing 200,000 for the live event, and peaking with 231,000 viewers. This is very good news for Bellator who saw huge increases in key demographics.
…ratings viewership represented an 83 percent increase in men ages 18 to 49 years old, 80 percent rise in men ages 18 to 34 years old and a whopping 133 percent increase in men ages 25 to 34 years old.
It will be interesting to see the viewer numbers for both promotions future events, with Strikeforce preparing for the next set of Heavyweight tournament bouts in June, and with Bellator featuring events almost every Saturday over the next few months as part of their fourth season.
Certainly the hype that will build up to the June Strikeforce show could provide them with their biggest viewer numbers yet, but will this past weekends success for Bellator prove consistent or will the youth who follow that MTV2 tune into something else once the novelty has worn off?