UFC 109 Prelims Draw Series-Record 1.7 Million Viewers on Spike TV
Posted by Kris Karkoski on Feb 9, 2010 at 3:02 pm ET8 Comments
Saturday’s UFC 109 preliminary card broadcast on Spike TV, featuring Mac Danzig vs. Justin Buchholz and Melvin Guillard vs. Ronys Torres, drew 1.7 million viewers, a record for the “UFC Prelims” series that debuted in September.
January’s UFC 108 prelims held the previous record with 1.5 million viewers.
The complete ratings for the “UFC Prelims” series include:
- UFC 103 (September): 1.4 million
- UFC 104 (October): 1.4 million
- UFC 106 (November): 1.3 million
- UFC 108 (January): 1.5 million
- UFC 109 (February): 1.7 million
SEE ALSO: UFC 109 results, UFC 109 recap, UFC 109 fighter salaries, UFC 109 medical suspensions, UFC 109 coverage
For the latest UFC news, UFC rumors, and UFC fight cards stay tuned to MMAFrenzy.com.
Loading ...
Yeah, I would guess that the prelim shows are going to be a regular part of both UFC events and SpikeTV’s schedule from here on out…
This was the second of 10 scheduled for this year.
Definately a great way to intice people to purchase the pay per view. I am surprised however that the 109 prelims were the most viewed as there have been “bigger” names on the previous cards.
super great numbers forsure and I do hope that it is “drawing” people to the great sport of MMA, yet I have a bit of an issue…
Dana decided to do this after the demise of Affliction, who as a company did this for every show they put on once on FoxSports and once on HDNet, I really wonder why Dana did do this last year (lets say) and only decided to do it when he put Atencio and co in the background, it isn’t his idea but he clearly believes it to be an awesome one..
He (Dana) has always stated that with the UFC you get 5 fights, great, competetive fights on each PPV…. If one or two or however many get finished there are always the prelims (kinda a PPV sales point) yet by giving them away for “free” is he perhaps putting in jeopardy one of his sales points.. Think if UFC 84 had free prelim fights? ya have to fill that hour right? so you would have gotten a lot of “free” bouts on SPIKE, and for those of us lucky enough to have gone to a live event (especially the UFC) alot of us will say that sometimes the prelims are the shhhh and the main card was good but not as good as the prelims…
I mean ZUFFA is getting paid either way, I was just thinking and typing my bad
Theres definitely a risk involved, but one Dana could minimize by having a few extra fighters on hand in the event of an emergency.
This might even be a good way to slowly incorporate the WEC into the UFC, but having a few WEC guys who live and train in and around Vegas ready to go if needed…
righton, but this is regulated MMA you can’t “just have fighters on hand” type thing, medicals weighins waivers, on and on, which then makes the fights official, now you have to pay these “on hand fighters” no matter if they fight or not and if you gaurantee that they are to fight to you have them fighter after your “main event” (I’ve seen it done but….) not from 11 or 13 fights on a card you have 17, now I’m pissy I didn’t so those fights on SPIKE or a PPV,what if one of those fights is an EPIC fight?
I don’t remember which card it was but this scenario has already played out and they just replayed the prelims that were shown earlier on spike. Which kind of sucked for me but I’m sure that the people who didn’t catch the free spike broadcast were appreciative.
That was 108. You’re right, it sucks for those of us that catch them on Spike, but for those that don’t it’s not so bad.