UFC prelims, ratings, FX and main cards
Carlos Condit, right, trades punches with Georges St-Pierre during their welterweight title fight at UFC 154 in Montreal. (Nov. 17, 2012) Credit: AP
Multiple MMA sites reported the ratings for the UFC 154 prelims on FX last Saturday as 980,000 viewers, which is eighth best for the dozen prelim shows on Fox's primary cable channel in 2012.
That's a significant amount of homes tuned into a channel to consume programming, but it is still six digits.
There are plenty of outside ways to assign value to ratings numbers, both high and low. Perhaps there were quite a few big college football games that night (there were, by the way). Perhaps it's lineup of fights on the prelims.
Or, perhaps not. Perhaps those prelim ratings are tied to main event on pay-per-view, the one fight that gets promoted more than all the others.
Here's a look at the ratings for the 12 UFC prelims that have aired on FX in 2012 and who the PPV main events were. The table is sorted by the ratings column. Draw your own conclusions.
| EVENT | DATE | RATINGS | PPV MAIN EVENT |
|---|---|---|---|
| UFC 148 | July 7 | 1,800,000 | Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen |
| UFC 145 | April 21 | 1,600,000 | Jon Jones vs. Rashad Evans |
| UFC 144 | Feb. 26 | 1,500,000 | Ben Henderson vs. Frankie Edgar |
| UFC 143 | Feb. 4 | 1,400,000 | Nick Diaz vs. Carlos Condit |
| UFC 146 | May 26 | 1,300,000 | Junior Dos Santos vs. Frank Mir |
| UFC 149 | July 21 | 1,000,000 | Urijah Faber vs. Renan Barao |
| UFC 153 | Oct. 13 | 1,000,000 | Anderson Silva vs. Stephan Bonnar |
| UFC 154 | Nov. 17 | 980,000 | Georges St-Pierre vs. Carlos Condit |
| UFC 150 | Aug. 11 | 974,000 | Ben Henderson vs. Frankie Edgar |
| UFC 147 | June 23 | 969,000 | Wanderlei Silva vs. Rich Franklin |
| UFC 152 | Sept. 22 | 955,000 | Jon Jones vs. Vitor Belfort |
| UFC 142 | Jan. 4 | 880,000 | Jose Aldo vs. Chad Mendes |
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