I was initially discouraged by the Strikeforce ratings news, but the final number for the Fedor fight was very good. 5.46 million viewers tuned in and saw Fedor fight.
People are going to argue that viewers tuned in for the news, but it’s an irrelevant point. The viewership numbers are an average from 11:00-11:15. If someone tuned in for the news and it wasn’t on, they’d turn the show off. If they didn’t and kept watching, then there’s no reason not to count those viewers. Eyeballs are eyeballs. Someone seeing it and then telling people about it is just as good if not better than someone seeking it out.
The fight came in below Kimbo Slice’s fights on CBS and on Spike, and also came in below Gina Carano’s fight with Kaitlin Young on the first CBS show. The important thing to note is the large increase in viewership in a short period of time, the half hour before had just 4.01 million viewers, which means the main event segment posted a viewership increase of 1.45 million viewers. It’s an impressive number, and probably enough for CBS to do another MMA show with Fedor on top. He’ll probably draw even better next time.
The final number is supposedly a 2.5, which is a respectable number even if not a home run. For a show built around a Russian nobody knew with no Gina Carano fight anchoring the main event, this is not a bad rating. I believe if there was a Gina co-main event the Fedor fight could have potentially rivaled the numbers Kimbo did. It would have also done better if the Shields-Miller match didn’t kill the show’s ratings growth.
Unfortunately for Strikeforce, it looks like Fedor is out for at least 6 months with an injury. They have a solid Showtime deal and can continue to build stars over there, but with Gina out for the forseeable future it’s hard to see who they could main event a CBS show with before Fedor returns. My advice would be to hold off on a second show until he is healthy. The decision to do a second CBS show for EliteXC in July was disastrous, and it was entirely forseeable that the number would be poor. Strikeforce and CBS shouldn’t set themselves up for failure; instead they should spend 6-8 months building stars on Showtime and in the press and then return to CBS with Fedor’s next fight. In the meantime, CBS can contribute by continuing to promote and advertise Strikeforce and its stars.
One thing is for certain: Fedor Emelianenko is no longer an unknown quantity in the U.S. 5 million people saw him win a fantastic fight with a spectacular knockout. His value increased a lot as a result of this show.