Strikeforce: Houston ratings peak at 470K

http://mmajunkie.com/news/20408/strikeforce-houston-ratings-peak-with-nearly-a-half-million-showtime-viewers.mma
Ratings for this past Saturday's "Strikeforce: Houston" event are in, and the Showtime-televised event peaked with an audience of nearly a half-million viewers.

MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) today confirmed the first-run ratings with an industry source.

Overall, the event, which took place Aug. 21 at the Toyota Center in Houston, averaged 367,000 viewers.

The event, which marked Strikeforce's debut in Texas, featured a pair of title fights; Rafael "Feijao" Cavalcante defeated former light-heavyweight champ Muhammed "King Mo" Lawal via TKO, and Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza edged Tim Kennedy via unanimous decision for the vacant middleweight bout.

The organization's peak audience – 470,000 viewers – came approximately two hours into the broadcast to coincide with the Lawal vs. Cavalcante main event.

Strikeforce has hosted five "Arena Series" events this year, and Saturday's show ranked third behind January's "Strikeforce: Miami" and June's "Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Werdum" events. (The organization's "Challengers Series," which is primarily prospects0driven, has averaged between 189,000 and 317,000 viewers for its five events in 2010.)

This year's "Arena Series" ratings include:

•517,000 viewers, "Strikeforce: Miami"
•412,000 viewers, "Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Werdum"
•367,000 viewers, "Strikeforce: Houston"
•308,000 viewers, "Strikeforce St. Louis: Heavy Artillery"
•164,000 viewers, "Strikeforce: Los Angeles"
The ratings, of course, do not include replays, DVR viewing or Showtime On Demand. In the case of the "Fedor vs. Werdum" event, for example, the total viewership increased from 412,000 viewers to more than 700,000 with the secondary-viewing options.

Still, as executives previously told MMAjunkie.com, Showtime, which boasts approximately 12 million viewers, is a premium-cable station and doesn't "live and die" with the ratings as advertising-based networks do.

Pretty good number. I was expecting lower ratings considering the lack of names on the card but it looks like SF is building a consistant audience on Showtime. That bodes well for the future.

Strikeforce major events average better than the WEC?

•517,000 viewers, "Strikeforce: Miami"
•412,000 viewers, "Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Werdum"
•367,000 viewers, "Strikeforce: Houston"
•308,000 viewers, "Strikeforce St. Louis: Heavy Artillery"
•164,000 viewers, "Strikeforce: Los Angeles"


So houston is right in the middle.

Kind of an "eh" rating. Was there "big" names? By SF standards, yes there were. 2 title fights, Lashley and Noons(former Elite champ).

Plus I would think SF would be hoping to build on it's previous events. not really seeing it happen yet.

The promotion hasn't been gaining momentum for at least six months.