There was a very nice uptick in the ratings for the UFC 144 edition of the preliminary bouts on FX. After pulling in less than a million viewers for UFC 142’s prelims and 1.3 million for the UFC 143 undercard, the 144 edition hit 1.5 million viewers.
MMA Junkie with the details:
FX drew a solid 1.5 million viewers for this past weekend’s UFC 144 “UFC Prelims” broadcast, MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) today confirmed with industry sources.
The two-hour Feb. 25 broadcast preceded the UFC 144 pay-per-view main card and featured four bouts live from Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.
The broadcast outdrew the first two “UFC Prelims” specials on FX, which drew 888,000 viewers (UFC 142) and 1.3 million viewers (UFC 143).
As more casual fans who don’t read the news or pour over the schedule start to adjust to all the changes with the Fox deal we should see more numbers like these and possible increases.
One note to remember though, the prelim ratings have not been predictive of any sort of final PPV buy numbers, so that doesn’t mean UFC 144 will have done surprisingly well. But it is certainly good that the show drew so much interest on FX.