Viewership Drops For UFC 212 Prelims
The UFC knew coming into the UFC 212 event that numbers were going to be down compared to the numbers that UFC 211 drew. For a few reasons. UFC 211 featured a stacked card with some big names while UFC 212 did not. Although UFC 212 had a great main event that had well-known stars, the lighter weight division usually do not draw well unless Conor McGregor is featured in the bout.
The viewership numbers for the event are in. The prelims, which were headlined by Raphael Assuncao and former WSOF champ Marlon Moraes, pulled in 732,000 viewers. This is down from the UFC 211 prelims that did 1,148,000 viewers with Eddie Alvarez vs. Dustin Poirier being the featured prelim. It should be noted that the UFC 212 prelims were featured on FOX Sports 1 while UFC 211 prelims aired on FX. The reason for this mention is due to FX being available in more homes than FS1. For even more comparisons, UFC 210 prelims drew 723,000 and UFC 209 prelims had 1,033,000 viewers. Both of those preliminary cards aired on FS1.
UFC 212 took place on Saturday, June 3, 2017, at the Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Three bouts aired on UFC Fight Pass at 6:30 p.m. ET while four bouts aired on FOX Sports 1 at 8 p.m. ET. Six bouts aired on PPV at 10 p.m. ET.
Viewership was not made available for the weigh-ins, pre-fight and post-fight shows. With the post-fight show not being available means that they did not do good numbers as they didn’t crack the top 150 shows on cable. With the post-fight show not doing good numbers is a bad sign for PPV buys as that meant that a lot of people were not 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 buy rate, then the prelims and the post-fight show does good viewership numbers.
Fight fans get ready because the UFC is bringing you even more action this weekend. UFC Fight Night 110 takes place on Saturday, June 11th, 2017 at Spark Arena in Auckland, New Zealand. The prelims with air on UFC Fight Pass at 7PM/4PM ETPT with two bouts while four bouts will air on FOX Sports 1 at 8PM/5PM ETPT. The main card will feature six bouts on FOX Sports 1 at 10PM/7PM ETPT. A heavyweight bout between Derrick Lewis and former interim title contender Mark Hunt will serve as the main event.
