2 Million Tune In To UFC 100 Replay; Strikeforce “Carano vs. Cyborg” Peaks With 856,000 Viewers
The UFC and Spike TV on Tuesday issued a joint press release announcing they’d “knocked out the competition” this past Saturday, August 15, with 2 million viewers tuning in to watch a replay of UFC 100 on Spike TV.
The event originally aired live on pay-per-view on July 11, and was headlined by Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir, Georges St-Pierre vs. Thiago Alves, and Dan Henderson vs. Michael Bisping.
The UFC 100 replay attracted 513,000 viewers in the advertiser-coveted demographic of men 18-34, beating the PGA Championship on CBS (479,000), Major Leauge Baseball on Fox (242,000), and Strikeforce on Showtime (181,000).
Strikeforce’s “Carano vs. Cyborg” event, which aired live on the premium network Showtime directly opposite UFC 100 on Spike TV, averaged 576,000 viewers and peaked with 856,000 for the card’s main event between Gina Carano and Cris “Cyborg” Santos, according to MMAjunkie.
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Add those 2 million to the 1.5 million who did the PPV and you have a whole lot of interested viewers.
Pretty good numbers for SF when you consider how few homes (relatively) subscribe.
hahahahahaha, a replay drew more than a live card!!!
And Affliction never did the numbers that Strikeforce did… Now I get it TimCat you aren’t a fan of Strikeforce but it was unrealistic to think that a Strikeforce event on Showtime (which cost extra) would ever beat UFC 100 on “basic cable” or “free” if you will.. So thinking of it logically I doubt that this is as laughable as you think it to be, in actuality Strikeforce’s numbers are quite good and damn near astonishing for a card headlined by two Female Fighters.. IMHO this is almost comparable to Griffin v Bonnar I, for the growth of a specific area of MMA, so whynot rejoice for the growth of MMA, instead of going hahahaha and such… If this were a PPV event the Carano v Cyborg card would have done great even by UFC standards, but alas this isn’t the UFC so people will look down on this event for whatever reasoning, and that for MMA is unfortunate.
fr702,
dude i’m with you on this, i was eaxcited to watch Carano-Cyborg for that specific fact that two female fighters were the headline and there would be a first ever womens champt at 145. Like you i am an MMA fan overall and i enjoy when the sport grows because i get tired of people who don’t know $$hit about MMA thinking that MMA is only the UFC.
I honestly thought that Strikeforce event would get lesser ratings, but it did pretty damn good, and i also felt that poeple were tired of watching Bisping get knocked the fu*k out by now being that everyone has seen that a million times and everyone would be tired of watching Brock beat down Mir, but they did show Bonnar-Coleman which didn’t make the main card when this event aired.
I got to it up in agreeance with FR. It is obvious the UFC is the mainstream organization for this sport, there should still be support to other organizations though. Strikeforce’s card had all entertaining fights, therefore I watched it live and taped UFC 100.
Still not thrilled that they didn’t show any pre-lims on Strikeforce though, especially since there is no sho-time in Canada and it was a PPV.
But Showtime costs less than a PPV so…apples to apples.
But honestly i don’t think anyone can get tired of watching Bisping get knocked the fu*k out that’s why they had a large number of people tuning in.
I hear ya, I taped it and have watched it three times since Saturday, plus I’ve watched it anywhere I could find it online. He’
ll come back better though, unfortunately.
Not a huge fan of Strikeforce in particular, however they are employing fighters who otherwise might not get the chance to fight on a world stage and get paid nice to do so. In that light they get all the respect in the world from me, and looking at how they’ve stepped their game up recently they are putting out some quality events with quality fights.
However, they don’t get me as excited as the UFC does or like Pride did, and most likely never will.
Strikeforce is screwed for their next card, unless they put more than 4 fights in 2 1/2 hours. That’s ridiculous and poor planning. They didn’t even fill out their time slot.
Again for those who don’t quite get it, Showtime runs the production and they decided to not air the prelims not Strikeforce it sucks yet it is true…
DbiZ “apples to apples”, its cool man everyone finds something wrong with everything, you as well don’t like Strikeforce probably due to the fact that they signed Fedor cool whatever, I like them u don’t… And for me it has Zero to do with the signing of Fedor, I’ve liked them way before and well you stay on your anti Strikeforce train and that’s cool man, the numbers that they pulled are the best numbers that a NA org has pulled that hasn’t been on free tv (that wasn’t owned by ZUFFA) sooo instead of saying wow a MMA event headlined by women almost did a million viewers on a premium channel is awesome, complain that well it didn’t do a million and got smoked by perhaps the best card ever that happened to be on free tv… Na makes to much sense to give “props” to someone other than the UFC.. I love MMA not just the UFC but I guess I’m in the minority here cheers dbiZ thx
Actually, I do like Strikeforce. I’ve loved their other cards that I’ve seen. I don’t like getting 4 fights in 2 1/2 hours. If Strikeforce wanted those fights aired, Showtime would have. Instead they went for the Fedor commercial (which really…bragging about beating a middleweight in your big commercial? Way to go, slugger…) and that hyper-annoying douchehat Mauro.
It was a disgrace all around. The camera work was…unremarkable. The commentary was asinine. Mousasi was the highlight, the rest was a disappointment.
They got 7 fights in the first 2 hours and 4 in the final 2. That needs to change or they will lose viewers.
My mistake, it was 5 on the under card. And they went off the air a half hour early to show Penn & Teller.
Props for trying, now they need to execute better.
I mostly agree with you FR. You know someone has to dominate. UFC will do what is best for them. I don’t like an attack campaign by any means. But it is business. I don’t know that I even care for them playing re-runs opposite events. More then likely the UFC will always dominate mma. Not necessary to rule all though.
I see the other orgs as the minor leagues. Yes they have great fights but ultimately who wouldn’t want to fight in the UFC? They have the money and the higher level fighters and no one can argue that.
I think a better way to say it is “Strikeforce is screwed on their next show unless Showtime/CBS do a better job.”
If you can’t fill a two hour slot with the number of fights on the card, there is something seriously wrong.
agreed, bad business.
I am a fan of MMA but living in Vancouver my only option was to pay 39.99 for what turned out to be four fights, i was honestly angry, barely drunk yet and feeling a bit ripped off despite the couple of good yet short tilts i watched.
UFC seems to always deliver quantity and the Silva matchups are more than often quality also. If comparing my 39.99 expenditure there is no doubt where the goods lie.
I am also a huge K1 fan and would rank top tournament Kickboxing among the most exciting…DBIZ it seems to me my PPV started at 7:30 and ended before 9:30…pathetic, and i agree they’re screwed.
I might stick with my UFC and the ever exciting WEC, the two top organizations in my opinion. Cheers all!
I think that just shows how big of an event UFC 100 was. 2 million viewers, while there was a Strikeforce event going on…thats pretty damn good.
Strikeforce didnt do bad at all though. They had some good fights. And i really like what they have going. Im a huge Mousasi fan so its awesome getting to watch the guy fight in a good organization.
It sounds like someone over at Showtime needs a better understanding of both MMA and broadcasting combat sports events BEFORE Strikeforce’s next card.
As for Strikeforce itself, I admire what they are trying to do, but its going to be hard for them to gain acceptance with certain fans for a variety of reasons, first and foremost that they aren’t the UFC, nor are they trying to be. The most definitely need to step up all aspects of their production values, and for sh!ts sake bury Mauro and find someone who doesn’t ttrigger my gag reflex every time he opens his mouth.
In my case, I was more likely to support Strikeforce before agreeing to work with M-1 Global and Fedor, but it isn’t like I’ve yanked Showtime from my cable package.
Finally, that Fedor commerical was a disgrace. I can’t imagine that Scott Coker saw that and said, “yeah, lets go with that”…
I’m a fan of MMA, which I do know that alot of us are, and well some are just only for the UFC.. Not that being just a fan of the UFC is such a bad thing, helll I love the UFC no doubt but MMA as a whole I’m into.. With the alliance of FEG and Strikeforce this is going to be huge.. Now Strikeforce is only alligned with M~1 and Fedor for a year (F~Finkledinkle) so that is the bright news there and another bright spot is that Mr. Coker has copromoted for the longest time.. Coker has been in the business of presenting fights for 26yrs and hasn’t folded a damn thing..
With the alliance with FEG this opens up fights that most of us have wanted to see also alot of them will happen here in America.. I’m talking the likes of Manhoef v Lawler, Aoki v Thomson/Melendez, Jacare v Le, Mayhem v Sheilds, Overeem v Fedor just to name a few, we could have the return of GP’s and most “hardcore” fans see this as a good thing…
I see most posters not liking Strikeforce because they signed Fedor, like it is their fault that HIS group decided to sign with Strikeforce instead of the UFC….
On another note, on the 15th of August almost 3million people collectivly were tied to their TV’s watching MMA and that is F~ing AWESOME and a good thing for all of us fans, between UFC 101 and Strikeforce: Carano v Cyborg (both I personally attended) there were 30+ thousand people at these live events, super crazy good stuff for MMA, this is growth of MMA (it is a good thing guys), last year when UFC went against Affliciton what happend? 100,000 buys for Afflicition and 1.1 million for UFC, a year or so later that has tripled… good stuff for MMA, no? We can continue with the fact that Carano v Cyborg was epic for womens MMA as well as MMA in general, it is popularizing the sport further which isn’t that what we as fans wish for?
Disagree with me all you want I don’t take it personal, I’m not happy with M~1 either guys but what can I do about it, whynot look at the good that Strikeforce is doing for us fans… Clearly its business and all business is driven by the bottom dollar but in their attempt of copromotion with FEG (DREAM/K~1) Strikeforce is trying to bring us “hardcore” fans the crazy fights that most of us truly want to see..
F~Finkledinkle and such and I will always support MMA and yes I do truly love the ZUFFA products don’t get it twisted whatsoever, I’m just capable of enjoying all MMA, helll without copromotion I wouldn’t have been able to give Mousasi a low five on his way to the cage to ko Babalu nor see Shimata say “you GIB UP.,.,,,, you GIB UP” live right in front of me…. I wonder what some of you will call me
It is great that over 3 million televisions were tuned in to MMA fights that night. That is never a bad thing. However, I wonder how many of those people had never seen an MMA card and how many were people like us who either were so excited by the prospect of having UFC 100 on free cable or were looking forward to Strikeforce. How many were people were new to the sport versus us dorks who will watch just about anything MMA-related. Just something I’m curious about.
Oh yeah. And F-Finkledinkle.
BsbiZ, I think that people such as you and I are in the collective few of that 3million or so, but I definately get what you are saying, my question is what is the “real” number ya know.. because you often get with other people to watch MMA so like were there a group of 10 or so guys/gals watching either the UFC or Strikeforce at someones house as usual?
Also to be honest I haven’t even seen the broadcast of the Strikeforce event, I have heard mumblings about the production not being up to what we accept as par and that just sucks that with a great moment that was (for me) this card it wasn’t able to be seen by MMA fans…. Yet I do personally know that Showtime is running all production, soo I gots nothing of what to say about that, also with Coker and the CEO of FEG hanging out all night and Coker doing press all night, I highly doubt he was able to make a call and get things done properly, but I’m just guessing at that one..
fr-very good point with the ‘real’numbers comment.and i’m sure there is a bit of disparity between Spiketv and Showtime viewership.
Its crazy to me when people hate on strikeforce…with the exception of dropping forty bucks on four fights, I will not argue with u, u have more of a right to be upset if u feel u overpaid and were underserved…but for anyone else, if ur a fan of mma, how can more fights on television per month ever be a negative thing?…and I didn’t think the production was awful…we forget that zuffa has had years to master the production of an mma card…
Fr, I’ve rewatched the event and I tried to spot some tall dude in a frenzy t low fiving gegard, can’t find u but oh well…the end
I’m not in a FrenZy shirt at the event… I put the pic in the forum section cheers friend
Um.. why is this site so full of UFC fanboys??????
MMA FTW……. Dana is a genious but it makes sense that a premium card given away for free on a wider platform (basic cable) would beat a similar card with a much smaller potential base of viewers.
DuRrrRr?