UFC 194 prelims do record viewership on Fox Sports One

Photo: MMAWeekly.com

In what could be a precursor to a big PPV buyrate, Saturday’s UFC 194 prelims did a record 1,931,000 viewers on Fox Sports One, double their 2015 prelims average of 987,500.

The numbers shatters the record set earlier this year by January’s UFC 183 prelims that did 1,546,000 viewers that Miesha Tate in the featured prelim fight of a show headlined by Anderson Silva vs. Nick Diaz. 

Saturday’s four-fight prelim show headlined by Urijah Faber vs. Frankie Saenz garnered the highest number for a UFC PPV prelim show on any broadcast partner since the UFC 126 prelims on February 5, 2011 on SPIKE TV did 2,000,000 viewers for a 60-minute two fight broadcast featuring Donald Cerrone and Chad Mendes in separate fights. This was also during a time period when UFC was on television far less frequently and that number, while good, wasn’t thought be particularly notable as many Fight Night shows were either at or near that number.

Saturday’s viewership total was higher than all but one FS1 Fight Night show which was January’s UFC Fight Night 59 headlined by Conor McGregor vs Dennis Siver. That show was on a Sunday after the NFC conference championship game.

The company’s final prelims average on FS1 for 2015 is 1,073,273 viewers – a 47% increase over the 2014 average of 728,444.

In other UFC ratings news, the TUF 22 Finale featuring Frankie Edgar vs. Chad Mendes did 893,000 viewers, up from the July TUF 21 finale (691,000) but down from the December 2014 TUF 20 finale (989,000) The FS1 prelims did 809,000 viewers, way up from July’s 470,000 and the December 2014 prelims’ 719,000.