Saturday night’s UFC Fight Night 70, headlined by Yoel Romero’s win over Lyoto Machida did 909,000 viewers, down from 950,000 from the Dan Henderson vs. Tim Boetsch show on June 6. But what was notable is a prelim match was the most-watched part of the show.
The ratings pattern on Saturday night for UFC Fight Night 70, was unique, to say the least.
The show, headlined by Yoel Romero’s third round stoppage over Lyoto Machida, did 909,000 viewers, a number that was the fifth highest of the seven prime time UFC Fight Nights this year on FS 1.
While Machida is a big name and has drawn well in the past, there was a lack of undercard interest that put the number slightly below the 950,000 garnered by the Tim Boetsch vs. Dan Henderson-headlined Fight Night 68 on June 6, the previous prime time show.
What’s more notable is that the 9:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. FS 1 airing of the Alex Oliveira vs. Joe Merritt fight, which was listed as a different show, did 966,000 viewers. It’s rare, to the point it has never happened, that prelims have outdrawn the main show. What makes that even more unique is that fight was simulcast, meaning the same feed for that 30 minutes was also on FS 2.
The FS 2 prelims from 8-10 p.m., averaged 223,000 viewers, and one would think most of those viewers stuck with the channel for the final prelim rather than switched to FS 1. That number was down from the 280,000 on March 24, the previous time prelims were on FS 2. So it is probable that 1.1 million to 1.2 million viewers watched that specific match between the two channels.
But there is an explanation. The Canada vs. U.K. Woman’s World Cup soccer game, that preceded UFC on FS 1, was the most-watched sports event of the day, doing 1,354,000 viewers. That means a decent amount of women’s soccer fans stuck around for the early part of the UFC show, but didn’t stay for the entire two-and-a-half hours.
A peak rating for the two-hour main show was not available at press time.
The main competition, the Timothy Bradley Jr. vs. Jessie Vargas boxing match on HBO, did 1,121,000 viewers for the main event itself.
On Friday night, Bellator did its best rating so far in 2015 for a non “tentpole” event. The show averaged 764,000 viewers for a card headlined by Cheick Kongo’s decision win over Alexander Volkov. The main event itself did 940,000 viewers. That bout lost viewers late, because the 10:45 p.m. to 11 p.m. quarter hour, showing the introductions, first round and part of the second round of the fight, did 988,000 viewers.
Wednesday night’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter did 450,000 viewers, up 17 percent from its 385,000 viewer average for this season. It was the most-watched episode since the second week.