UFC Fight Night 14 “Silva vs. Irvin” Peaks At 3.8 Million Viewers
The Ultimate Fighting Championship proved yet again to be the ratings champion with the hard-to-reach demographic of young men. Spike TV’s telecast of a live “UFC Fight Night†on Saturday, July 19 (9:00pm-12:00am ET) featuring the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, Anderson Silva, out-delivered every other channel (broadcast and cable) with Men 18-34 (903,000), Men 18-49 (1,550,000), Men 25-34 (622,000), and Persons 18-34 (1,326,000).* The telecast peaked at 11:30pm for the Silva vs. James Irvin bout drawing 3.8 million viewers and a staggering 4.9 rating for Men 25-34 and a 4.1 rating in Men 18-34.
The UFC fight card also drew more viewers than FOX’s coverage of MLB (3,072,000) earlier in the day and nearly tripled its reach of Men 18-34 (369,000) and doubled the Men 18-49 (879,000).
Overall, the three-hour live UFC event averaged a 2.1 household rating, a 2.8 with Men 18-49, a 3.2 with Men 18-34, a 2.0 with P18-49 and 3.1 million total viewers. Comparing to other marquee weekend events, Spike’s UFC telecast also drew more Men 18-49 than ESPN’s coverage of “The ESPY Awards†(1,127,000) and Men 18-34 (689,000).
Compared to the time period a year ago, the “UFC Fight Night†was up +229% in household rating, +451% in M18-49, +463% in M18-34, +470% in M25-34 and +266% in average audience.
The “UFC Fight Night,†emanating from The Pearl at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, NV, was headlined by arguably the world’s best pound-for-pound fighter in any combat sport, “The Spider†Silva, as he moved up a weight class to fight “The Sandman†Irvin in the light heavyweight division. It was Silva who brought the “Sandman†a dream, dispatching Irvin just over a minute into the first round of their matchup with a barrage of punches that resulted in a referee stoppage. In other action, Frankie Edgar spoiled Hermes Franca’s return to the Octagon™ by controlling the fight with his strong wrestling and ground and pound style, earning a unanimous decision from the judges and Brandon Vera won a decision over Reese Andy.
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Looks like UFC’s plan worked!
I think these numbers include Tivo/DVR’d versions from a Nielson home. That would mean that many of the 3.8 million COULD have also purchased and been watching the Affliction:Banned.
I’m not 100% on this, but pretty sure that is the case.
Has Affliction released any PPV stats or anything? I would think that if the event sold like mad, they’d be throwing numbers out and touting their success…
i just heared chck is injured an will not fight evens? is this true?
Harimwakairi – No they haven’t released any PPV stats yet, but they take a while usually.
either way, even if ufc didn’t pull more viewers than affliction, the plan still worked cuz it took over 3 million people (theoretically) away from potentially watching affliction. ideally both did well and will be able to coexist which would be good for the fans and the fighters. unfortunately i don’t think that’ll be the case.
there is no question that the UFC had a much larger audience. the only question is if people who would have normally bought the PPV decided not to because of the free UFC event. Personally, if i had planned on getting affliction, i still would have gotten it.
I watched both. It seemed like the fights were completely opposite one another. When one fight ended, the other organization’s next fight started. The only fight that matched up was Silva-Irwin and Arlovski-Rothwell. Thankfully, Anderson finished his fight early, so I had time to go back to Affliction and see Arlovski’s Knee to Rothwell’s face. Awesome.
did they beat out affliction ………? i might have missed that peice of news i knew they would
fighters might get jealous of the pay difference between orgainizations but i dont think they can continue to pay people that much however they are backed by trump
wheres randy i know that the money behind that is got his attention they ufc should be like hey we want a cut of him money or like a million dollar deal to get randy and make this fooking fight happen anyone agree???? but dana doesnt want his belt to lose anything of its luster….. we have great fighters in the ufc but not always the best but we do have the spider
not bad..but they better watch out for affliction…if affliction gets a cage it would be much better than that huge ring
i agree that cages are better overall, though rings do have their advantages. for fighters like cro cop (who likes to stalk and trap opponents), sometimes a ring can add a lot of excitment. it does get annoying when ppl keep falling through ropes though