UFC 143: Dustin Poirier (Esther Lin)
UFC 143 was the promotion's second time utilizing the FX platform to showcase preliminary fights. After some dissappointing ratings for the UFC 142 prelims, some were worried that the UFC was associated with Spike TV too much and that the new network television deal wouldn't be as smooth as assumed.
The good news is that those fears are not justified. The UFC 143 prelims averaged 1.4 million viewers over a two hour period, which is in line with the hour prelim specials that the promotion was pulling with Spike TV. While fans may still not have adjusted to the UFC's new television partner, there are indications that the television deal will be beneficial to both FOX and Zuffa.
The UFC 143 prelims on FX opened with an exciting fight between Matt Riddle and Henry Martinez. It was headlined by a featherweight scrap between Dustin Poirier and Max Holloway, which saw Poirier win the fight with a mounted triangle choke and earn submission of the night honors. The other bouts were Matt Brown vs Chris Cope and Alex Caceres vs Edwin Figueroa.
0 recs | 19 comments
It will catch on eventually, alot of my casual friends still ask me when the next SPIKE card is
_Kevin Jennison J. Zametov-St Pierre - February 7, 2012
Even I accidentily called them the "Spike prelims" last weekend
It’s gonna be tough to shake for a few months.
Charles Awad - February 7, 2012
discoandherpes - February 7, 2012
it was a great card to watch
still need to adjust to NFL on Fox football theme, but on a whole it seems more legit
Rucker - February 7, 2012
Maybe they will start using the Hans Zimmer Anderson Silva-money UFC Evolution theme?
Andy Anderson - February 7, 2012
phew!
it was terrifying how many people seemed to watch old fights on spike and think they were watching some new event.
Clifford J - February 7, 2012
wait until the UFC on Fuel 1 card goes up against the Spike TV Diego Sanchez marathon
Spike’s going to win that one handily.
Nate Wilcox - February 7, 2012
They could be showing just about anything on Spike
Fuel needs to get in a LOT more homes to compete with Spike broadcasts..
Charles Awad - February 7, 2012
The UFC would be wise to stream fights online at UFC.tv since many people don't have Fuel
Matthew Roth - February 7, 2012
that defeats the purpose of the Fuel deal
which is to get UFC fans to call their cable companies and demand Fuel be added to their packages.
Nate Wilcox - February 7, 2012
that would work for me.
As of now, I have to resort to…less…honorable means to watch Fuel fights
Body Triangle - February 7, 2012
I paid $9.99 on UFC.tv recently for a card (for the life of my I can't recall which card)
I guess it was a Fox event?
UncleMax - February 7, 2012
Where? A lot of things on UFC.tv are locked out in the U.S.
Machiel Van - February 7, 2012
As they should, being in three times the homes. My guess is Zuffa’s goal is to get subscriptions to FUEL high enough so that the FUEL shows are averaging 300,000 per event by the end of the year.
slickrick00 - February 7, 2012
I wonder...
I wonder what the average ratings are for FX at that time slot. If there is an average. I’d assume they have different stuff every week.
Tacoknight - February 7, 2012
I think the most important part of this story is the huge jump from the 142 prelims
The 142 prelims averaged 880 thousand…these averaged 1.4 million.
That’s a big jump. It seems like it took a bit for the masses to catch on. I hope they do FX prelims for EVERY PPV.
That will also help with keeping people ‘hooked’ in terms of making the prelim specials more regular. Spike was doing like 10 or so a year…meaning they missed a few PPVs. If EVERY PPV gets a prelim special on FX, that’ll build the audiance.
I also think the fact that they will have 6 fight nights in addition to two TUF finales on FX…it’ll build the audiance quite well.
Chris Groves - February 7, 2012
The 142 prelims were also on against NFL football, right?
Every sporting event is gonna get affected going head to head with the NFL.
fbihop - February 7, 2012
I'm sure that played a factor
I don’t follow other sports…so I really had no idea.
Chris Groves - February 7, 2012
Well, that sucks for me. For some reason, I thought that these prelims were on Fuel, so I didn’t bother tuning in. In fact, for most of the fights I was just reading the thread here on BE when I could have been watching them on the TV behind me.
Jeffigatame - February 7, 2012
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