UFC 209 Preliminary Card Delivers Big Ratings
There was definitely a buzz surrounding UFC 209, which helped out the prelims. The viewership numbers for the event are in. The prelims, which were headlined by Marcin Tybura and Luis Henrique, drew 1,033 million viewers, which is up from the 874,000 viewers that UFC 208 prelims drew.
UFC 209 took place on Saturday, March 4, 2017, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. There was three preliminary bouts airing on UFC Fight Pass at 6:30 p.m. ET while the rest of the prelims aired on FOX Sports 1 8 p.m. ET. The main card featured five bouts and will air on PPV (pay-per-view) at 10 p.m. ET.
The pre-fight show drew 453,000 viewers while the post-fight show did 205,000 viewers. The weigh-in show drew 207,000 viewers on Friday. With the post-fight show doing good numbers is a good sign for PPV buys as that meant that a lot of people were interested enough to hang out and catch the results/highlights of the actual PPV main card after the event aired. Usually when a PPV event does a good/great PPV buyrate, then the prelims and the post-fight show does good viewership numbers.
The UFC returns to FOX Sports 1 this weekend with UFC Fight Night 106 on Saturday, March 11, 2017, at the Centro de Formação Olímpica do Nordeste in Fortaleza, Brazil. A middleweight bout between former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Vitor Belfort and The Ultimate Fighter: Team Jones vs. Team Sonnen middleweight winner Kelvin Gastelum will serve as the event headliner.
