Last Friday night was one of the few times this year that the UFC and Bellator MMA went head-to-head with each other on cable television. FS1 aired The Ultimate Fighter 26 Finale, while Spike broadcast Bellator 189 from Oklahoma. Both featured women’s championship fights in the main event, with minimal name value scattered throughout the main card, and the end result was not a lot of people tuning in to watch either event.
The Ultimate Fighter 26 Finale main card averaged 501,000 viewers, with a rating of 0.2 in the 18-49 age demographic. In the main event, Nicco Montano bested Roxanne Modafferi to become the UFC women’s flyweight champion, but the three-hour broadcast did not even crack the top-50 for the 18-49 demo. It is the least-watched TUF Finale of all-time, unless you want to count the TUF Brazil 2 Finale, which aired on Fuel TV. Perhaps it’s not surprising when you consider the whole of TUF 26 averaged a series-worst 233,000 viewers (not including DVR +3). Peak viewership came at 566,000 for Montano vs. Modafferi, which ran over the 1 AM ET timeslot.
As for Bellator 189, which featured Julia Budd’s rather unexciting split decision win over Arlene Blencowe to remain Bellator’s women’s featherweight champion, the main card averaged just 439,000 viewers and a rating of 0.15. In the cable network ratings, Bellator 189 was all the way down in 91st. Not including DVR+3 totals, this is the 6th of 20 Bellator MMA shows in 2017 to average under 500,000, which is double the combined total of 2013-2016. Their next card will be on tape-delay, as Rafael Carvalho defends his middleweight title against Alessio Sakara on Saturday, December 9th in Italy.
Last but not least, the UFC 218 prelims on FS1 clocked in at 694,000 viewers, which is the fourth-lowest of all PPV prelims on FS1 this year. Faring worse were UFC 213 and 215, with both doing under 150,000 buys. UFC 218’s prelim viewership was surely affected by the college football conference championship games.
The UFC’s next fight card is Saturday, December 9th at 10 PM ET/7 PM PT, as UFC Fight Night: Swanson vs. Ortega airs live on FS1. It will go head-to-head with the big boxing match between Vasyl Lomachenko and Guillermo Rigondeaux on ESPN.