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Are Events Like UFC Fight Night 32 Why the UFC’s Popularity is Suffering?

(It’s almost 2014. Dan Henderson and Vitor Belfort are still main-eventing UFC cards. / photo via Getty)

By Matt Saccaro

Cards like UFC Fight Night 32 are contributing to the death of MMA’s popularity in the US.

In case you haven’t noticed, the UFC’s numbers have been atrocious lately. UFC 165, a card headlined by the light heavyweight champion of the world and future of the company Jon Jones, drew a paltry 325,000 buys. Cain Velasquez vs. Junior Dos Santos III—the finale to the greatest trilogy in UFC heavyweight history—drew a slightly higher number at UFC 166.

The UFC has had woes on free television too. TUF is regularly breaking the wrong kinds of records. And the ratings on FOX Sports 1 have been inconsistent at best. They started strong with a tremendous 1.7 million (back to 2011 Spike TV levels) for UFC Fight Night 26, dropped 54% to 824,000 viewers for UFN 27, fell a further 35% to 539,000 for UFN 28, rose to 638,000 for 29, and stayed at that level for the next fight night card on FOX Sports 1, UFC Fight Night 31 (a.k.a. UFC Fight for the Troops 3).

(It’s almost 2014. Dan Henderson and Vitor Belfort are still main-eventing UFC cards. / photo via Getty)

By Matt Saccaro

Cards like UFC Fight Night 32 are contributing to the death of MMA’s popularity in the US.

Not counting UFC Fight Night 32 (the ratings aren’t out at the time of writing), the average viewership for UFC Fight Night cards on FS1 is 884,400. The average viewership for the last five “Fight Night” events the UFC held on Spike TV is over twice that number at a little over two million (1.8 million for UFN 25, 2.2 million for UFN 24, 2.5 million for UFN 23, 1.6 million for UFN 22, and 2 million for UFN 21).

UFC Fight Night 30, the lone Fight Night that’s been featured on FOX Sports 2, only drew 122,000 viewers and was outdrawn by World Series of Fighting 6, which scored 161,000 viewers.

Something—nay, many things, are amiss. Even the king of hyperbole Dana White admitted that the UFC is not mainstream. And with cards like UFC Fight Night 32, it never will be.

What about that event stood out? What about that event made people say, “I need to keep watching the UFC”?

The card was stacked with middling Brazilian fighters and prospects only the hardcore fans and journalists knew or cared about. Fans will say that the card was great because there were finishes, but that’s a short-sighted and extremely myopic view. Yes, four of the six bouts on the main card were finishes, but what’s a finish worth when nobody is watching?

The casual fan, the group on which the UFC’s growth and popularity in the United States is dependent, doesn’t care about finishes. The casual fan cares about names, about stars. The guy who wears tapout and does bicep curls in the squat rack talks about Kimbo Slice and Brock Lesnar, not about the intricacies of a setup for an armbar or a triangle.

Ask yourself this: What did UFC Fight Night 32 do to regain the swaths of casual fans who have tuned out of MMA since 2013?

Obviously, the UFC can’t put all the good stuff on free television because they make money on their PPVs. Still, that brings up another question. What “good stuff” do they have left to put on free TV that’ll draw what they were drawing on Spike?

Their stars are fading. Instead of creating new ones, they’re vomiting a stream of generic, EA sports create-a-fighters onto television screens across America. They’re expecting the casual fan to watch because it’s the UFC and the UFC is a good brand and they’re fights and fights are exciting. Everyone loves fights, right? It’s in our blood to love fighting. Or so the tired MMA-triumphalist rhetoric goes.

But it’s become apparent that that logic isn’t true. People aren’t tuning in for the novelty of “this UFC thing” anymore. They’ve moved on either because they’re waiting for Chuck Liddell’s or Kimbo Slice’s or Brock Lesnar’s next fight, or because the sport is too hard to follow, or because they never see it on TV because they don’t watch FS1, or because they see cards like UFC Fight Night 32 and just don’t care anymore.

This issue becomes even more complicated when you consider the question of overseas expansion. UFC Fight Night 32 was, obviously, a Brazil-centric card. The UFC is also eyeing expansion in many other countries. But is the UFC pursuing this goal because the US market is drying up, or is the US market drying up because of the UFC’s obsession with international growth?

The answer, for now, is elusive. When we see how the UFC closes out the year, we’ll know the bubble has burst if we see the UFC’s popularity in the US continue to wither.

Numbers Confirm That WAY More People Receive FOX Sports 1 Than FUEL TV

(That awkward moment when you realize you jumped ship way, way too soon.)

I imagine that after receiving the ratings numbers for Fight Night 26: Shogun vs. Sonnen this morning, Dana White calmly asked everyone to get the fuck out of his office, closed the door, threw on some Rage and did the following…

It would be hard to blame him if he did, because early figures for the UFC’s debut on the FOX Sports 1 network are nothing short of astounding. According to a press release sent out this morning, Saturday’s main card at the TD Garden averaged over 1.7 million viewers, shattering the UFC’s previous FUEL ratings like they were Corey Hill’s leg:

FOX Sports 1, driven by UFC FIGHT NIGHT: SHOGUN VS. SONNEN, posted an average audience of 1.71 million viewers in prime time (8:00-11:00 PM ET), a more than 10-fold increase compared to that which SPEED, FOX Soccer and FUEL TV combined to deliver on the comparable night a year ago (141,000). Among younger demographics the comparisons are even more significant. FOX Sports 1 viewership was over 25 times greater than SPEED/FOX Soccer/FUEL TV among both Adults 18-49 and Men 18-49, and 40 times greater among Adults 18-34 and M18-34.

(That awkward moment when you realize you jumped ship way, way too soon.)

FOX Sports 1, driven by UFC FIGHT NIGHT: SHOGUN VS. SONNEN, posted an average audience of 1.71 million viewers in prime time (8:00-11:00 PM ET), a more than 10-fold increase compared to that which SPEED, FOX Soccer and FUEL TV combined to deliver on the comparable night a year ago (141,000). Among younger demographics the comparisons are even more significant. FOX Sports 1 viewership was over 25 times greater than SPEED/FOX Soccer/FUEL TV among both Adults 18-49 and Men 18-49, and 40 times greater among Adults 18-34 and M18-34.

40 TIMES GREATER?! On a network I still can’t find with a remote, a TV guide and a homeless guy I dragged off the streets to watch the fights with me?

But wait, MORE NUMBERS:

FOX Sports 1 averaged a 1.33 household rating last night in prime time, and ratings were particularly strong among younger demographics. Remarkably, FOX Sports 1 out-rated all four major broadcast networks among Adults 18-49, Adults 18-34, Men 18-49, and Men 18-34 based on impressions within each demo.

UFC FIGHT NIGHT: SHOGUN VS. SONNEN was the most socially-active English-language show in all of television yesterday, with 46,520 commenters, producing 124,635 Tweets, based on the number of commenters not Tweets. For the entire day, FOX Sports 1 was the third-most socially active English-language network (52,209), as ranked by number of unique commenters after NFL Network (116,253 unique commenters) and FOX Broadcast (104,365).

So you’re saying that if you actually put a decent fight card together, fans will tune into said card even if it’s on a previously unheard of channel? QUICK, SOMEONE ALERT LORENZO OF THIS DISCOVERY FORTHWITH.

It’s safe to say that the UFC knocked this one out of the park and is off to a great start on the FS1 network. Perhaps most telling of all was this email sent from White to Dave “The Doom and Gloom F*ckstick” Meltzer that we obtained (hacked in and stole) from his Blackberry:

Dearest Dave,

1.71 MILLION. 1.33 RATING.

F*ck you, you no-longer-working-at-Yahoo piece of sh*t. – DW

Lets hope the UFC can boast similar numbers with their second event, Condit vs. Kampmann II, which goes down from Indianapolis, Indiana on the 28th. Based on the card alone, we’re going to make the wild prediction that they won’t.

–J. Jones

‘TUF 17 Finale’ Draws 1.7 Million Viewers for Highest Rated FX Finale Yet

(Cat Zingano’s emotional entrance that was sadly cut from the FX broadcast. “The fights that will silence WMMA detractors,” indeed.)

Just a quick update on the TUF 17 Finale, which continued with the recent trend of steadily rising UFC events to air on the FX network this past weekend. Whether it was the lure of seeing Uriah Hall cement his status as “The nastiest guy in TUF History” (Spoiler Alert: He didn’t.), the promise of the next challenger to Ronda Rousey’s throne, or the chance to catch a good old fashioned throwdown between two of the WEC’s finest, the TUF 17 Finale was a clear success all the way from the quality of the fights themselves to the ratings numbers the event was able to draw in. MMAJunkie’s John Morgan passed along the numbers via Twitter:

(Cat Zingano’s emotional entrance that was sadly cut from the FX broadcast. “The fights that will silence WMMA detractors,” indeed.)

Aside from testing highest in the key demographic of 18-49 year-old males, the TUF 17 Finale surpassed both the TUF 15 (1.0 million) and TUF 16 finale (1.3 million) — which were also broadcast during the 9 p.m. slot on Saturday nights — in terms of viewership.

The numbers for the TUF 17 Finale – like UFC 157 before it – continue to prove that WMMA can in fact become more than an occasional niche market in the UFC. Sure, the Zingano/Tate war was not solely responsible for the finale’s excellent ratings, but you can almost guarantee that those numbers peaked during their Fight of the Night-earning war.

In short, it appears that WMMA has just begun to hit its stride in the world’s largest MMA promotion. Now if only we could start paying them a little more…

–J. Jones

‘UFC 157? Ratings Update: Rousey and Carmouche Prove That Girls Can In Fact Run This Motha

(And the song Ronda chose to accompany this momentous occasion with? Oh, you best believe it was some Geto Boys. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.)

Of all the controversy that was brought to light in the weeks following the announcement of UFC 157 (WOMEN HEADLINERS?!, Dan Henderson playing second fiddle to WOMEN HEADLINERS?!, etc.), one issue that seemed to cling around more than most was that of pay-per-view buys. Specifically, how the UFC honestly expected a card featuring WOMEN HEADLINERS to draw diddly squat for viewers in the male-dominated sport of MMA. Because if we wanted to see two broads fight over a leather and gold belt, we’d go to Macy’s on Black Friday, amiright?

Well, we hate to spoil the misogynist fantasy, but it looks like WMMA (or at least Ronda Rousey) could turn out to be a huge draw for the UFC. The Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer spoke earlier today about the preliminary PPV estimates for UFC 157 and suffice it to say, they are a lot better than many of us would have predicted:

Over 400,000….they’re absolutely thrilled. The show, it was…they had predicted 250. Budgeted 250, I shouldn’t say predicted. But I mean, the predictions internally were 250-300. So they blew away their predictions, big time…They’re expecting big replay buys. Big replay buys means 25,000-30,000 more than they have right now. It could do mid fours, maybe more, but that’s a nice number to say.

(And the song Ronda chose to accompany this momentous occasion with? Oh, you best believe it was some Geto Boys. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.)

Over 400,000….they’re absolutely thrilled. The show, it was…they had predicted 250. Budgeted 250, I shouldn’t say predicted. But I mean, the predictions internally were 250-300. So they blew away their predictions, big time…They’re expecting big replay buys. Big replay buys means 25,000-30,000 more than they have right now. It could do mid fours, maybe more, but that’s a nice number to say.

She’s making a lot of money fighting, I don’t know what those numbers are going to be when they come out when they’re released. But she’s making a ton of money. They signed her to a hell of a contract because they really did believe…not necessarily that she’d be this giant PPV draw, but in other ways she’d be incredibly valuable to the company. And so far she has turned out to be more valuable than they expected.

As noted by Adam Swift, depending on how strong the replay buys come back, UFC 157′s numbers should place the event 48th out of the 92 pay-per-views since 2006. When comparing the preliminary numbers to some of the UFC’s more recent PPV’s, it pales in comparison to the likes of UFC 155 (590,000) and UFC 154 (700,000), but falls right in the range of UFC 153 (410,000) and UFC 152 (450,000). So basically, squash match main events are always a solid bet in the land of the UFC. And they say the spirit of PRIDE is dead…

So now that Rousey is officially the best thing going for WMMA, should we expect to see her pop up in Fast 7 Furious 7: Electric Boogaloo next year?

–J. Jones

Ratings Update: UFC 156 Prelims Set Record Numbers, Epic KO Fails to Boost TUF 17

(“I’LL ASK YOU ONE MORE TIME, JAY, WHO TATTOOED THIS AFFLICTION SHIRT TO YOUR BACK?!”)

If the first month is any indication, 2013 is going to be a good year for MMA. There hasn’t been a significant injury in weeks (sorry Patricky), title fights are almost starting to make sense, and on top of it all, the UFC’s primetime ratings are slowly beginning their climb out of the abyss. Throw in the fact that Bruce Buffer’s upcoming autobiography is all but a shoe-in for a Pulitzer and we are left with little to complain about. It feels…good.

So before we jinx ourselves, let’s get to the great news regarding the preliminary portion of UFC 156, which was able to pull in record numbers during its run on FX last Saturday despite the fact that it featured several debuting fighters and not a lot of name power. As MMAFighting’s Dave Meltzer reports:

Saturday’s UFC 156 prelims drew 1,897,000 viewers, topping the previous UFC on FX record of 1,860,000 viewers set two weeks earlier for the Vitor Belfort vs. Michael Bisping card from Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The number was a huge increase from the prelims on FX on Jan. 26 before the FOX network special from Chicago’s United Center which did 1,208,000 viewers.

The largest previous audience on FX for prelims before a big show came on July 7 when theUFC 148 prelims did 1.8 million viewers. But that was to be expected, since there was more interest in UFC on that day with the Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen middleweight title rematch than any day over the past two years.

After almost ten minutes of research, we have determined that there are only two real explanations for the UFC’s sudden viewership jump:

(“I’LL ASK YOU ONE MORE TIME, JAY, WHO TATTOOED THIS AFFLICTION SHIRT TO YOUR BACK?!”)

Saturday’s UFC 156 prelims drew 1,897,000 viewers, topping the previous UFC on FX record of 1,860,000 viewers set two weeks earlier for the Vitor Belfort vs. Michael Bisping card from Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The number was a huge increase from the prelims on FX on Jan. 26 before the FOX network special from Chicago’s United Center which did 1,208,000 viewers.

The largest previous audience on FX for prelims before a big show came on July 7 when theUFC 148 prelims did 1.8 million viewers. But that was to be expected, since there was more interest in UFC on that day with the Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen middleweight title rematch than any day over the past two years.

After almost ten minutes of research, we have determined that there are only two real explanations for the UFC’s sudden viewership jump:

1) Americans were riding the violence-fueled high that only the anticipation of the Super Bowl can bring.
2) Jacob Volkmann‘s cult of survivalist troglodytes has gained a far greater following than we previously thought possible. This is probably the correct answer.

Unfortunately, not all is well in the land of UFC ratings…

Despite receiving Dana White’s hype-seal of approval and delivering one of the most violent knockouts in the history of The Ultimate Fighter, Tuesday’s episode of TUF 17 took a significant dip in ratings. Where episode two managed to reel in 1.27 million viewers and a 1.5 household rating, the third episode of the oft duplicated reality show only took in a .92 rating and 1.2 million viewers.

Granted, these numbers aren’t even in the same ballpark as the shameful lows last season brought, but it kind of makes you wonder how an episode that received so much more publicity failed to stir up the same amount of interest. Any ideas as to this drop in ratings, Taters?

–J. Jones

‘UFC on FOX 6? Ratings Update: Flyweights Pull Strong Numbers, Fall Just Short of Henderson vs. Diaz

(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…

(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 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