The UFC on FOX 18 Preliminary Card on FS1 took place this past Saturday night in Newark, New Jersey and featured Tarec Saffiedine scoring a victory over Jake Ellenberger in a welterweight bout.
According to Nielsen sources, the UFC on FOX 18 preliminary card averaged 702,000 viewers and this is a 16 percent increase over last January’s UFC on FOX 14 prelim card (607,000).
Along with the televised preliminary card rating coming out today, the updated ratings for the main card were also released. In the overnight ratings, the card came in with 2.43 million viewers on FOX and in the updated ratings, the card drew 2.685 million.
When it came to the sports competition on Saturday night, the night was won by College Basketball on ESPN with 2.984 million and other top sports programming included the X Games on ESPN (1.092 million) and Boxing on HBO (1.179 million).
The UFC will return to FS1 on Saturday for UFC Fight Night 82: Hendricks vs. Thompson. The televised preliminary card will begin at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT and the six fight main card will start at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT.