Saturday’s The Ultimate Fighter 17 Finale ended up as the second highest-rated UFC event during its run on FX, doing a 1.2 rating and 1,710,000 viewers.
The show also led to FX winning the night in the male 18-34 demographic, not just on cable, but beating everything on network broadcast television as well. It was also television’s highest-rated show in the demo Saturday night.
The only show during the company’s 16 months on FX to have beaten it was the Jan. 19 show from Sao Paulo, Brazil, headlined by Vitor Belfort’s win over Michael Bisping, which did a 1.3 rating and 1,860,000 viewers.
It beat the last TUF final on Dec. 15 by 33 percent when it came to ratings, and 32 percent when it came to total viewers. It also beat last year’s spring season final by 68 percent in total viewers.
The show was built around three major fights: a bantamweight fight where Urijah Faber scored a fourth-round submission on Scott Jorgensen; the TUF season 17 championship match where Kelvin Gastelum upset Uriah Hall; and a women’s bantamweight match where Cat Zingano beat Miesha Tate to determine who coaches against Ronda Rousey on the next season of The Ultimate Fighter.
In the male 18-34 demographic, the show did a 1.59 rating. In males 18-49, the show did a 1.64, the second-highest number on all of television for the night, trailing only NASCAR on FOX.
For the season, the first-run airing of The Ultimate Fighter episodes averaged 1.32 million viewers on Tuesdays.
The last TUF finale to top Saturday’s number was the final event on Spike on December 3, 2011, which included a Bisping vs. Jason Miller main event and pulled a 1.7 rating with 2.47 million viewers.
There is only one UFC broadcast left on FX, a card on May 18 from Santa Catarina, Brazil, headlined by Belfort vs. former Strikeforce middleweight champion Luke Rockhold.