The UFC 181 Preliminary Card on Fox Sports 1 took place this past Saturday and featured Urijah Faber defeating Francisco Rivera by submission in the second round. 
According to Nielsen sources, the UFC 181 preliminary overnight viewership number for the prelims landed at 840,000 viewers and this is up 34 percent from the UFC 180 number of 624,000 for the prelims.
In addition, the pre-fight show came in at 606,000 viewers and this is the most watched pre-fight show since the network debuted last year.
The viewership from Saturday is the highest number for a pay-per-view preliminary card on Fox Sports 1 since UFC 175 in July. Also, this is fourth time this year that the pay-per-view prelims have reached over 800,000 viewers and was up 8 percent in the People demographic of 19-49 (545,000 vs. 503,000).
Here is the UFC pay-per-view preliminary card numbers in 2014 to date.
UFC 169: 933,000
UFC 170: 936,000
UFC 171: 305,000 (aired on Fox Sports 2)
UFC 172: 750,000
UFC 173: 697,000
UFC 174: 784,000 (aired on FX)
UFC 175: 1,000,000
UFC 177: 436,000
UFC 178: 698,000
UFC 179: 536,000
UFC 180: 624,000
UFC 181: 840,000
Stay tuned to TheMMAReport.com for more updates on MMA TV ratings.