(The average new viewer tuned in for 5 minutes and 54 seconds before realizing they weren’t watching ‘America’s Best Dance Crew.’ Photo via Tracy Lee/Cagewriter.)
For those of you who thought that the UFC’s decision to headline a FOX card with 125-pounders was promotional suicide, it’s time to eat some crow. According to the final ratings numbers, UFC on FOX 6: Johnson vs. Dodson drew an average of 4.4 million viewers last Saturday, peaking at 5.2 million viewers for the flyweight championship main event. That’s only a slight decrease from the viewership of the last FOX card, which attracted 4.4 million average viewers with a peak of 5.7 million for the Benson Henderson vs. Nate Diaz lightweight title fight.
Judging from the data here and here, Johnson vs. Dodson’s 5.2 million viewer peak would place it around #13 on the list of the most-watched MMA fights of all time in the United States. It’ll be interesting to see how the next UFC on FOX event on April 20th stacks up, as it features a returning star in Benson Henderson — and an excellent heavyweight feature adding weight to the main card — but won’t benefit from the frequent promos during NFL broadcasts that UFC on FOX 6 received.
For a quick comparison of the average viewerships for each UFC on FOX card so far, check out the numbers after the jump…
UFC on FOX 1 (Velasquez vs. Dos Santos): 5.7 million average viewers
UFC on FOX 2 (Evans vs. Davis): 4.7 million
UFC on FOX 3 (Diaz vs. Miller): 2.4 million
UFC on FOX 4 (Rua vs. Vera): 2.4 million
UFC on FOX 5 (Henderson vs. Diaz): 4.4 million
UFC on FOX 6 (Johnson vs. Dodson): 4.2 million