The numbers are in and the final event of Bellator’s fifth season on MTV2 remained strong for the second straight week.
Viewership for last Saturday’s Bellator 59 event were reported as 265,000, a slight drop from the prior week’s 269,000 and good for the third-highest viewership of the season.
The event was headlined by Eric Prindle vs. Thiago Santos in the heavyweight tournament finals and Eduardo Dantas vs. Alexis Vila in the bantamweight tournament finals.
Over 11 events, Bellator drew over 200,000 viewers four times with the lowest viewership at 103,000 for Bellator 53. The average for the season was just over 186,000 with the show-by-show breakdown below:
- Bellator 49 (9/10): 235,000
- Bellator 50 (9/17): 114,000
- Bellator 51 (9/24): 158,000
- Bellator 52 (10/1): 269,000
- Bellator 53 (10/8): 103,000
- Bellator 54 (10/15): 185,000
- Bellator 55 (10/22): 168,000
- Bellator 56 (10/29): 154,000
- Bellator 57 (11/12): 129,000
- Bellator 58 (11/19): 269,000
- Bellator 59 (11/26): 265,000
The promotion struggled at times with competition from the UFC and college football with their slot on Saturday nights and tried occasionally airing at 7 pm EST to act as a lead-in for UFC pay-per-view events instead of head-to-head. 2012 will be Bellator’s final year on MTV2 before moving to Spike TV with the sixth season expected to kick off in February or March.
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