Tag: TUF ratings

TUF 20 Debut Pulls In 536k Viewers For Worst Premiere Ratings in Show’s History

(“Beauty might be skin deep, but so are our viewers.”) 

If you were overcome with a sudden feeling of deja vu while reading that headline, you’re not alone. We’ve written some variation of it at least three times now — once for the TUF 16 premiere, again for the TUF 18 premiere, and probably once for TUF 19, but we don’t care enough to look it up — with the only variant between them being the perpetually-descending number of viewers tuning in each season. But yes, the numbers are in, and with 536,000 viewers, TUF 20: Easy on the Eyes, Hard on the Face has shattered the record for the lowest viewed season premiere in the show’s history. I guess we should have seen this coming.

I don’t mean to make some overarching statement about the state of WMMA here, but this can’t be a good sign for the popularity of the women’s strawweight division. Between the social media campaign, the PR tour, the red carpet premiere, and the blatantly sexualized marketing campaign that was put together for this show, it was safe to say that the UFC had a lot riding on TUF 20. Expectations were high, and the season premiere bombed. Hard. Like, the Jacksonville Jaguars’ offensive line hard.

The craziest thing about all this? The TUF 20 premiere was actually good. The brackets, the attention to the fighters backstories, the massive upset that was Torres vs. Marcos — it was a top notch episode from production to pacing. While the dwindling quality of seasons past has been rightfully reflected by its viewership (or flat out discussed on the show itself), TUF 20 is the first season in the show’s history to crown a champion at its conclusion. It had stakes, dynamic participants, all of the stuff that reminds us what a compelling show TUF can be. Yet no one fucking watched it.

I’m not sure what there is to take away from TUF 20‘s abysmal numbers, really, other than the fact that FS1 will likely never be a comparable platform for delivering MMA content to Spike TV. But be honest, how many of you actually tuned in for last week’s premiere?

–J. Jones


(“Beauty might be skin deep, but so are our viewers.”) 

If you were overcome with a sudden feeling of deja vu while reading that headline, you’re not alone. We’ve written some variation of it at least three times now — once for the TUF 16 premiere, again for the TUF 18 premiere, and probably once for TUF 19, but we don’t care enough to look it up — with the only variant between them being the perpetually-descending number of viewers tuning in each season. But yes, the numbers are in, and with 536,000 viewers, TUF 20: Easy on the Eyes, Hard on the Face has shattered the record for the lowest viewed season premiere in the show’s history. I guess we should have seen this coming.

I don’t mean to make some overarching statement about the state of WMMA here, but this can’t be a good sign for the popularity of the women’s strawweight division. Between the social media campaign, the PR tour, the red carpet premiere, and the blatantly sexualized marketing campaign that was put together for this show, it was safe to say that the UFC had a lot riding on TUF 20. Expectations were high, and the season premiere bombed. Hard. Like, the Jacksonville Jaguars’ offensive line hard.

The craziest thing about all this? The TUF 20 premiere was actually good. The brackets, the attention to the fighters backstories, the massive upset that was Torres vs. Marcos — it was a top notch episode from production to pacing. While the dwindling quality of seasons past has been rightfully reflected by its viewership (or flat out discussed on the show itself), TUF 20 is the first season in the show’s history to crown a champion at its conclusion. It had stakes, dynamic participants, all of the stuff that reminds us what a compelling show TUF can be. Yet no one fucking watched it.

I’m not sure what there is to take away from TUF 20‘s abysmal numbers, really, other than the fact that FS1 will likely never be a comparable platform for delivering MMA content to Spike TV. But be honest, how many of you actually tuned in for last week’s premiere?

–J. Jones

‘TUF 18? Episode 9 CRUSHES The Record for Least-Viewed Episode Ever

(I *begged* them to have “Oh Yeah” playing in the background of this scene, but did they listen to me? Nooooooo.)

Yesterday, we mentioned that the Ultimate Fighter 18 mid-season recap episode which aired on October 23rd was the least-viewed episode in the history of the series. To be specific, it received an average of only 476,000 viewers, a 24% drop from the previous low-water mark of 624,000 average viewers, brought in by TUF 16 episode 5. It was a poor showing, without question, but you can’t expect much out of a clip-show, especially since it was competing against the first game of the World Series. Surely, the numbers would bounce back the following week, when there was an all-new episode with a women’s fight on the schedule.

Actually, the numbers sunk even further. On October 30th, TUF 18 episode 9 — which featured the forcible ejection of Cody Bollinger and a savage performance by Sarah Moras — received a viewer average of only 452,000, a 5% drop from the freakin’ clip show. Obviously, the numbers were hurt once again by having to compete with Game 6 of the World Series, but it’s safe to assume that the UFC will never put together a mid-season recap episode for TUF ever again, because that shit is apparently ratings suicide. (By the way, is there really that much crossover between MMA fans and baseball fans? I can’t think of two more dissimilar sports, but I guess a lot of people were watching the MLB post-season this year. I don’t know. I wasn’t one of them.)

The recent TUF ratings news is just the latest in a string of bad viewership numbers for the UFC…


(I *begged* them to have “Oh Yeah” playing in the background of this scene, but did they listen to me? Nooooooo.)

Yesterday, we mentioned that the Ultimate Fighter 18 mid-season recap episode which aired on October 23rd was the least-viewed episode in the history of the series. To be specific, it received an average of only 476,000 viewers, a 24% drop from the previous low-water mark of 624,000 average viewers, brought in by TUF 16 episode 5. It was a poor showing, without question, but you can’t expect much out of a clip-show, especially since it was competing against the first game of the World Series. Surely, the numbers would bounce back the following week, when there was an all-new episode with a women’s fight on the schedule.

Actually, the numbers sunk even further. On October 30th, TUF 18 episode 9 — which featured the forcible ejection of Cody Bollinger and a savage performance by Sarah Moras — received a viewer average of only 452,000, a 5% drop from the freakin’ clip show. Obviously, the numbers were hurt once again by having to compete with Game 6 of the World Series, but it’s safe to assume that the UFC will never put together a mid-season recap episode for TUF ever again, because that shit is apparently ratings suicide. (By the way, is there really that much crossover between MMA fans and baseball fans? I can’t think of two more dissimilar sports, but I guess a lot of people were watching the MLB post-season this year. I don’t know. I wasn’t one of them.)

The recent TUF ratings news is just the latest in a string of bad viewership numbers for the UFC…

According to Dave Meltzer’s most recent pay-per-view buyrate column on MMAFighting, UFC 165: Jones vs. Gustafsson brought in somewhere between 300,000-325,000 PPV buys — by far the lowest tally for a Bones-headlined pay-per-view card — while the early estimates for UFC 166: Velasquez vs. Dos Santos 3 “are in the same range, or very slightly up” from UFC 165.

Yes, UFC 166 had to compete with the MLB post-season, and UFC 165 may have suffered from its proximity to the blockbuster Mayweather/Canelo boxing match. But excuses aside, those are terrible numbers for title fights in the UFC’s two heaviest weight classes. Over on BloodyElbow, Nate Wilcox suggests what the real culprit might be, and adds some interesting historical context to the numbers:

It seems obvious to me that the moves from Spike TV where preview shows for UFC PPVs sometimes drew over a million viewers to FX/Fuel TV and now FS1/FS2 has dramatically reduced the UFC’s promotional reach.

It’s also worth noting that when UFC 99 did 360,000 buys in the summer of 2009 that was considered the “floor” for UFC ppv buys. It was an event taking place in Germany and airing in the U.S. in the mid-afternoon and featuring a non-title fight between Rich Franklin and Wanderlei Silva. If you’d told me in 2009 that four years later the UFC HW and LHW titles would draw comparable PPV numbers I’d have laughed in your face.

In 2013, that “floor” has been re-located to the sub-basement.

In a related story, last Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 30: Machida vs. Munoz show — which aired in the middle of the day on an obscure channel called FOX Sports 2 — brought in just 122,000 viewers, which was even less than the audience generated by the World Series of Fighting 6: Burkman vs. Carl event that aired that night on NBC Sports (161,000 viewers).

Which brings us to a pair of questions we seem to be asking a lot these days: Does anybody even care anymore? And how low can these TUF ratings go?

TUF 18 Ratings Update: A Round of Applause For Our First Group of Female Contestants


(“I’m so sorry…I’m sorry…I’m…*looks down*…hey, those really are nice shoes.” Photo via Getty.) 

If you’ve been following The Ultimate Fighter this season, chances are that, like us, you’ve been more than impressed with the quality of the fights themselves. Four great fights with four decisive (not to mention brutal) finishes have easily outshined most if not all of the petty drama that oft permeates the TUF house, a trend that has only increased since the program’s move to the FX and FOX Sports 1 networks.

Unfortunately, great fights have not necessarily equaled great ratings this season. Blame it on the new network, blame it on the time slot, but TUF 18‘s ratings have been just barely swimming above the “lowest live-viewership” record since the premiere episode. Yes, despite seeing a temporary boost with the second episode, MMAFighting’s Dave Meltzer is reporting that last week’s fight between Davey Grant and LivesWithParents pulled in just 640,000 viewers.

In fact, episode 3, featuring the fight between Chris Holdsworth and Chris Beal, similarly drew in just 639,000 viewers. Here’s the thing, episodes 2 and 4 — which featured the female fights of Baszler/Pena and Rakoczy/Modafferi — performed significantly better than those featuring their male counterparts. As Meltzer writes:

For the Ultimate Fighter, there has been an up-and-down pattern in the ratings. As in, the week of a women’s fight, the audience is up. The two women’s fights, airing on Sept. 12 and Sept. 26, did 870,000 and 778,000 viewers live. The men’s fights on Sept. 19 and Oct. 3 did 639,000 and 640,000. 


(“I’m so sorry…I’m sorry…I’m…*looks down*…hey, those really are nice shoes.” Photo via Getty.) 

If you’ve been following The Ultimate Fighter this season, chances are that, like us, you’ve been more than impressed with the quality of the fights themselves. Four great fights with four decisive (not to mention brutal) finishes have easily outshined most if not all of the petty drama that oft permeates the TUF house, a trend that has only increased since the program’s move to the FX and FOX Sports 1 networks.

Unfortunately, great fights have not necessarily equaled great ratings this season. Blame it on the new network, blame it on the time slot, but TUF 18‘s ratings have been just barely swimming above the “lowest live-viewership” record since the premiere episode. Yes, despite seeing a temporary boost with the second episode, MMAFighting’s Dave Meltzer is reporting that last week’s fight between Davey Grant and LivesWithParents pulled in just 640,000 viewers.

In fact, episode 3, featuring the fight between Chris Holdsworth and Chris Beal, similarly drew in just 639,000 viewers. Here’s the thing, episodes 2 and 4 – which featured the female fights of Baszler/Pena and Rakoczy/Modafferi — performed significantly better than those featuring their male counterparts. As Meltzer writes:

For the Ultimate Fighter, there has been an up-and-down pattern in the ratings. As in, the week of a women’s fight, the audience is up. The two women’s fights, airing on Sept. 12 and Sept. 26, did 870,000 and 778,000 viewers live. The men’s fights on Sept. 19 and Oct. 3 did 639,000 and 640,000. 

Additionally, the DVR numbers for TUF 18 have been incredibly strong:

Viewership has increased anywhere from 32 percent to 37 percent from the initial reports when you factor in people who watched the show via DVR between Thursday and Saturday. For example, the Sept. 26 show, the most recent to have DVR numbers for, did an additional 272,000 viewers of the initial airing, pushing total viewership to 1.05 million.

The Ultimate Fighter has always been a strong DVR property as compared to most sports programming, but the increases have historically only been in the 15 percent range. 

So it’s not exactly great news, but it does offer a sliver of hope for TUF‘s chances on FS1.

Personally, I’d love to help the show out by tuning in Wednesday nights. I really would. But if the UFC expects me to miss out on Always Sunny so I can listen to Momma Rousey hand down life lessons, they are sorely mistaken. Because I need characters whose problems I can identify with, and seeing an illiterate janitor, a sociopath, a tranny-lover with delusions of grandeur and a bird woman drunkenly argue about things they have no understanding of is like going to a family reunion every week for me.

–J. Jones

What Sorcery is This? ‘TUF 18, Episode 2? Ratings *Up* 14% From Season Premiere


(“Quick, someone get a trampoline and Adam Carolla before everyone stops watching!” Photo via Getty.) 

It looks like a few more of us were finally able to find the Fox Sports 1 network on our deluxe digital cable television packages (#whitepeopleproblems). According to MMAFighting’s Dave Meltzer, viewership for the second episode of The Ultimate Fighter 18 jumped up 14% from the season’s premiere last week. It’s not incredible news given how abysmal said premiere’s ratings were, but it’s something gosh darn it:

It was the largest increase of a first episode of the season to a second episode in the 18-season history of the show. Only four previous seasons has the second episode had more viewers than the first, almost all in the early days of the show. Some of the gain was due to significant promotion of the show during FOX’s NFL telecasts on Sunday. Other was likely positive word-of-mouth coming from the first episode.

Right Dave, “promotion during NFL telecasts” and “word-of-mouth” were responsible for the increase in TUF 18 viewership. Please, explain to me again what exactly this “NFL” is that you speak of (*shakes head*). The ONLY reasoning behind these numbers is that the audience who tuned in the first week, like myself, instantly fell in love with Miesha Tate and had to come back for more. That being the case, I’d just like to let you all know right here and now that I CALL DIBS (after she leaves Bryan Caraway, which she totally told me she was doing this one time on Twitter).

Previously: Comparing/Contrasting/GIF-capping Shayna Baszler and Julianna Pena’s TUF 18, Week 2 blogs.

–J. Jones


(“Quick, someone get a trampoline and Adam Carolla before everyone stops watching!” Photo via Getty.) 

It looks like a few more of us were finally able to find the Fox Sports 1 network on our deluxe digital cable television packages (#whitepeopleproblems). According to MMAFighting’s Dave Meltzer, viewership for the second episode of The Ultimate Fighter 18 jumped up 14% from the season’s premiere last week. It’s not incredible news given how abysmal said premiere’s ratings were, but it’s something gosh darn it:

It was the largest increase of a first episode of the season to a second episode in the 18-season history of the show. Only four previous seasons has the second episode had more viewers than the first, almost all in the early days of the show. Some of the gain was due to significant promotion of the show during FOX’s NFL telecasts on Sunday. Other was likely positive word-of-mouth coming from the first episode.

Right Dave, “promotion during NFL telecasts” and “word-of-mouth” were responsible for the increase in TUF 18 viewership. Please, explain to me again what exactly this “NFL” is that you speak of (*shakes head*). The ONLY reasoning behind these numbers is that the audience who tuned in the first week, like myself, instantly fell in love with Miesha Tate and had to come back for more. That being the case, I’d just like to let you all know right here and now that I CALL DIBS (after she leaves Bryan Caraway, which she totally told me she was doing this one time on Twitter).

Previously: Comparing/Contrasting/GIF-capping Shayna Baszler and Julianna Pena’s TUF 18, Week 2 blogs.

–J. Jones

Could the First International Version of The Ultimate Fighter Already Be on the Verge of Cancellation?


(If the UFC really wanted to save TUF: Brazil, perhaps they could start by firing the 8 year-old responsible for photoshopping their promo posters.) 

Although the seventeenth season of the original The Ultimate Fighter marked a much-needed improvement in the reality show over that of previous seasons (and saw a substantial climb in ratings as a result), apparently the same cannot be said about its international counterpart, TUF: Brazil. Apparently.

Yes, despite pulling in nearly 8 million viewers during its first season, TUF: Brazil 2 — which features Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Fabricio Werdum as opposing coaches — is crashing and burning. According to a report by Brazilian outlet Ataque Total, the reality show has not been renewed for a third season as a result of continually waning fan interest:

With near 1-million viewers per episode, the season two of TUF Brazil don’t had the success of the first and is airing on 23h50 of Sundays. The second season has 16 welterweights in only one weight class and Minotauro Nogueira divides the coaching with Fabricio Werdum.

A huge team rivalry, lots of injuries and some boring fights is almost a trademark in the season. It’s a huge news for the brazilian MMA, with the sport losing its only weekly program in the biggest TV channels of Brazil. Alongside TUF Brazil, Rede Globo also shows 3 UFCs per year (usually Anderson Silva and Jose Aldo ones) and other channels like Bandeirantes, Record and RedeTV aren’t into the MMA world yet. 

As one would expect, the UFC has already taken to the interwebs to dispute these reports…


(If the UFC really wanted to save TUF: Brazil, perhaps they could start by firing the 8 year-old responsible for photoshopping their promo posters.) 

Although the seventeenth season of the original The Ultimate Fighter marked a much-needed improvement in the reality show over that of previous seasons (and saw a substantial climb in ratings as a result), apparently the same cannot be said about its international counterpart, TUF: Brazil. Apparently.

Yes, despite pulling in nearly 8 million viewers during its first season, TUF: Brazil 2 — which features Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Fabricio Werdum as opposing coaches – is crashing and burning. According to a report by Brazilian outlet Ataque Total, the reality show has not been renewed for a third season as a result of continually waning fan interest:

With near 1-million viewers per episode, the season two of TUF Brazil don’t had the success of the first and is airing on 23h50 of Sundays. The second season has 16 welterweights in only one weight class and Minotauro Nogueira divides the coaching with Fabricio Werdum.

A huge team rivalry, lots of injuries and some boring fights is almost a trademark in the season. It’s a huge news for the brazilian MMA, with the sport losing its only weekly program in the biggest TV channels of Brazil. Alongside TUF Brazil, Rede Globo also shows 3 UFCs per year (usually Anderson Silva and Jose Aldo ones) and other channels like Bandeirantes, Record and RedeTV aren’t into the MMA world yet. 

As one would expect, the UFC has already taken to the interwebs to dispute these reports, telling MMAJunkie the following:

The information is inaccurate. The Ultimate Fighting Championship and Globo are happy with this successful partnership, which includes broadcasts of a few of the UFC’s main events and exclusivity for the reality show in Brazil.

We hope for the UFC’s sake that they aren’t feeding us pork pies here, because if you can’t get Brazilians interested in your product, Lord knows what it says about the other, other incarnation of TUF, which will look to exploit the storied rivalry between….Australia and Canada next season. Good luck with that.

But what say you, Potato Nation? Has the fact that TUF: Brazil is only made available online deterred you from watching the show, or have you just had it with TUF in general?

–J. Jones

‘TUF 16? Viewership Plummets Even Further, Hits New Low-Water Mark of 624,000 Viewers


(I know I’ve seen you on TV somewhere. Hillbilly Handfishin’? Duck Dynasty? Can you give me a hint?)

By George Shunick

Yes, I know we just called for a hiatus on these “TUF ratings are in the shitter” posts. And I know O Chan just finished explaining why, from a network perspective, selling ads on original programming like TUF is better than giving them away during a broadcast of Big Momma’s House 2, even if the raw numbers are declining. But still, guys. You need to hear this.

A week after season 16 of TUF scored its highest amount of viewers with 1,100,000 — thanks to a strong lead-in from the UFC on FX 5 broadcast — the show reached rock bottom and saw that number shrink to just 624,000 for episode 5. In other words, only 56.7% of last week’s viewers stuck around for the next episode. It’s the worst viewership tally in the show’s history, falling alarmingly short of the previous low-ratings record of 775,000 viewers. It’s gotten so ugly that BG’s prediction of 660,000 viewers representing the nadir of the season has already been shattered two weeks after he made it. Time to readjust our already-low expectations.


(I know I’ve seen you on TV somewhere. Hillbilly Handfishin’? Duck Dynasty? Can you give me a hint?)

By George Shunick

Yes, I know we just called for a hiatus on these “TUF ratings are in the shitter” posts. And I know O Chan just finished explaining why, from a network perspective, selling ads on original programming like TUF is better than giving them away during a broadcast of Big Momma’s House 2, even if the raw numbers are declining. But still, guys. You need to hear this.

A week after season 16 of TUF scored its highest amount of viewers with 1,100,000 — thanks to a strong lead-in from the UFC on FX 5 broadcast — the show reached rock bottom and saw that number shrink to just 624,000 for episode 5. In other words, only 56.7% of last week’s viewers stuck around for the next episode. It’s the worst viewership tally in the show’s history, falling alarmingly short of the previous low-ratings record of 775,000 viewers. It’s gotten so ugly that BG’s prediction of 660,000 viewers representing the nadir of the season has already been shattered two weeks after he made it. Time to readjust our already-low expectations.

At the risk of harping on the same points over and over again, part of the problem is the coaches. On one hand, you have a portly, middling heavyweight who, despite possessing great grappling and heavy hands, has yet to truly impress in the UFC and is best recognized for his unorthodox physique and mangy facial hair. On the other, you have an aging slugger who has really heavy hands — and worse everything else — coming off a year-long layoff from back surgery, and is notoriously media-averse. Point being, you’re not exactly getting charisma here. The only “drama” this show can muster is how much Nelson annoys Carwin and White. It’s not must-see TV by any stretch of the imagination.

But more than anything, it’s the lack of talent on the show. Brazil’s TUF is much more interesting because it has the potential to do what the first few seasons of TUF were able to do: unearth prospects. Brazil’s MMA scene is so disorganized and disassociated from the American scene that it’s entirely plausible that certain prospects have slipped through the cracks, suffered losses fighting at heavier weights, or simply haven’t possessed the requisite amount of free time to hone their skills. TUF offers fighters like that a shot that they may not get anywhere else. In America, though, the MMA scene is now developed enough that fighters who show promise and achieve early success are recognized relatively quickly, and are picked up by larger organizations — including the UFC — before they’d consider entering onto a tedious reality TV show.

Combine this with viewer fatigue for the stale format and the Friday Death Slot, and you have the ratings disaster that season 16 is. Over a million people tuned in a week ago, largely on the coattails of UFC on FX 5, and over 400,000 of those viewers said to themselves, “I’ve made a huge mistake.” (To be fair, they’re not alone.) You can’t spin that into something positive, no matter how hard you try. The only intrigue left for this season is if Carwin will actually agree to VADA drug testing leading up to the bout. (Considering his manager just accused arguably the most effective drug testing organization available to fighters of bullying Carwin, and insinuated that Nelson’s hair is an equally serious violation of the rules as doping, I suspect his answer will be “no.”)

If you need any more convincing, here’s a sad little statistic: TUF 16 episode 5 got beat in the ratings by a TBS overnight movie that aired at 4AM. Look, we all know how hard it is to say goodbye to things we once loved. But the UFC, for whatever reason, simply doesn’t want to come to grips with the fact that their cable TV labor-of-love needs to go. It’s time to say goodbye, for TUF’s own sake, if nothing else.

For further reading: Detailed Breakdown of Ultimate Fighter Ratings Shows Disturbing Trends