UFC on FUEL TV 1 ratings: 217,000 viewers

http://mmajunkie.com/news/27470/ufc-on-fuel-tv-1-ratings-debut-event-scores-217000-viewers.mma
Wednesday's UFC on FUEL TV 1 event drew 217,000 viewers, MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) today confirmed with industry sources.

That's a new live-event record for FUEL TV, which drew 148,000 viewers for the UFC on FX 1 preliminary card and 144,000 viewers for the UFC on FOX 2 prelims this past month.

Wednesday's event took place during a free-preview week for FUEL TV on many cable platforms.

UFC on on FUEL TV 1 took place Feb. 15 at Nebraska's Omaha Civic Auditorium. After three prelims on Facebook, the three-hour FUEL TV broadcast featured six bouts, including Jake Ellenberger's entertaining main-event victory over fellow welterweight contender Diego Sanchez.

The event proved a surprise hit for the UFC, which earned mixed reviews for the recent and bigger UFC 143 and UFC on FOX 2 events. Stefan Struve, Stipe Miocic and Ivan Menjivar all earned stoppage wins on Wednesday's main card. Additionally, T.J. Dillashaw picked up a dominant decision victory, and Ronny Markes edged Aaron Simpson via split decision.

The event aired internationally on a variety of broadcast partners. If no TV station aired the event, fans from that country could watch a free stream on UFC.tv.

The UFC recently moved much of its live-event programming from Spike TV to FX and FUEL TV thanks to its seven-year deal with FOX. Although currently cable TV's lowest-rated cable station (among those big enough to garner ratings information), FUEL TV has increased from approximately 30 million homes to 36 million in the past few months due in large part to the new UFC programming, which has set ratings records for the sports-oriented station.

Spike TV's counter-programming efforts, which included a replay of The Ultimate Fighter 13 Finale and past Diego Sanchez fights, averaged approximately 674,000 viewers on Wednesday.

Well I don't think anyone expected Fuel TV to be in 100 million homes by now, so the numbers are promising. I think as the UFC gains more traction and Fox starts playing more hardball, Fuel TV will be part of a package deal. You want F/X and Sci-Fy? You need to include Fuel in your negotiation package. Once those numbers start to climb, this 277K will be a chump change number.

Well they continue to improve, it's a good number for that channel.