The UFC on Spike TV: The King of Young Men on Cable
The UFC proved once again to be the king of young men on cable television on Wednesday, September 17 with a live “UFC Fight Night†(8:00-10pm) and the premiere of season 8 of “The Ultimate Fighter†(10:00-11:00pm).
Spike TV’s “UFC Fight Night,†headlined by Nate Diaz and Josh “The Dentist†Neer’s, placed #1 with Men 18-34, 18-49, 18-24, and 25-34. In fact, the UFC fight drew more young men than ESPN’s telecast of Major League baseball game in the heat of a pennant race and ESPN2’s college football telecast combined as the Spike telecast drew 913,000 Men 18-49 and 465,000 Men 18-34. By comparison, ESPN’s telecast of the Red Sox vs. Rays and ESPN’s Louisville vs. Kansas St. college football game drew a combined 858,000 Men 18-49 and 373,000 Men 18-34.
Overall, the UFC fight card, emanating from the sold-out Omaha Civic Auditorium in Omaha, Nebraska, earned a 1.6 in M18-49, a 1.6 in M18-34, and an average audience of 1.8 million viewers. The viewership peaked for Diaz’s thrilling split-decision victory over Neer in the main event with 2.3 million tuning in.
Following the live fight, the premiere of “The Ultimate Fighter 8†ranked #1 in cable in M18-49 (846,000) with a 1.5 rating. Overall, the premiere earned a 1.2 household rating, a 1.5 in M18-34, and an average audience of 1.6 million viewers. Frank Mir and Antonio Nogueira, two of the world’s top heavyweight mixed martial arts fighters, serve as coaches for season eight of the popular Spike TV series.
Not all that surprising, you can watch baseball pretty much any given day during the season, and besides that see pretty much everything that matters on sportscenter, or baseball tonight later. With the football, the teams playing were good teams, but not power houses, and people don’t usually think of football on wednesday. I tuned in to the end of the football game, but again, you can see most of the important stuff from the football game on sportcenter later, why watch it when you can watch fighting, that you can’t see on sportcenter later that night, and even if you could, you miss a lot.
Too bad they didn’t release the numbers for the season premier of Manswers. Something like: “Viewership dropped from 1.6 million viewers during the season premier of The Ultimate Fighter 8 to just 17 people for the season premier of Manswers, which achieved an overall household rating of 0.”
I would watch a live fight over the Super Bowl and the World Series any day.
Justin, I think you’ve got it right… there are 162 games for each of the 30 teams in MLB each year. You can see a basebal game everyday if you want to, but your chances of seeing LIVE MMA aren’t nearly that good, so you have to take advantage of it when you get the chance.
Dolfan, Brandon, Justin,
A little random but F the dodgers!!!!
manny for pres.
Um, watch grown fat men punish a ball with a stick because their dads were over bearing jerks with no life and to lazy to play a real sport or…watch guys kick each others asses. duh
Surfingk5
C’mon now… baseball is a fine sport… nothing wrong with it except they play too many games… it gets tedious. But, if you can watch a baseball game every day of the week, why would you watch a baseball game instead of live MMA? Watch a game the next day. They’re endless.
That’s funny
MMA is exciting. It is nonstop action. Baseball takes forever and doesn’t have much action.