The World Series of Fighting beat its previous record television audience record by 38 percent on Saturday night when 365,000 watched a show with three title fights on NBC Sports Network.
Two weeks away from its highest profile event, the World Series of Fighting destroyed its previous television viewing record with Saturday night’s show with three title matches.
The WSOF 10 show did 365,000 viewers on NBC Sports Network in competition with boxing on Showtime and Glory on Spike. The company’s previous shows on NBC Sports had ranged from 94,000 to 264,000 viewers, and including Saturday, the overall average is 217,000.
The company’s next show on July 5 from Daytona Beach, will air on NBC with a late afternoon start time, so the show would be scheduled to end before the UFC 175 prelims start on Fox Sports 1. The show has been heavily promoted around lightweight champion Justin Gaethje (11-0) defending against Nick Newell (11-0)
The record was a surprise because previous WSOF shows have featured well-known former UFC fighters like Andrei Arlovski and Jon Fitch, but have never come close to this level of audience. The three title fights presented were David Branch’s becoming the first middleweight champion over Jesse Taylor, Rick Glenn winning the featherweight title over Georgi Karakhanyan and Jessica Aguilar retaining her women’s strawweight title with a decision win over Emi Fujino.
Glory kickboxing did 483,000 viewers on Spike, down slightly from the prior show on May 3, which did 498,000 viewers. The Glory show was a prelim show, featuring former MMA star Mirko Cro Cop, to build to a pay-per-view that started when the television show ended. The number is almost identical to the current Spike average of 478,000 viewers.