UFC 213 took place this past Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas and the main card on pay-per-view was headlined by Robert Whittaker becoming the interim middleweight champion with a decision victory over Yoel Romero.
Prior to the main card on pay-per-view, the televised preliminary card aired on FS1 and featured a heavyweight bout as Oleksiy Oliynyk scored his 52nd career victory as he submitted Travis Browne in the second round.
When it comes to the television ratings for the preliminary card, the two-hour portion of the event averaged 675,000 viewers and peaked at 732,000 viewers during the Oliynyk vs. Browne matchup (9:30-9:45 p.m. ET). Prior to the live fights, the pre-fight show came in with 219,000 viewers and once the pay-per-view concluded, the post fight show on FS1 came in with 206,000 viewers.
Now it should be noted that the UFC 213 prelims did go up against stiff sports competition on Saturday night as NASCAR on NBC Sports Network drew 2.7 million viewers, the MLB game on FOX came in with 2.5 million viewers, and the NBA Summer League game on ESPN between the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics delivered 1.1 million viewers.
The UFC will return to FOX Sports on Sunday for UFC Fight Night: Nelson vs. Ponzinibbio and the six fight main card will begin at 3 p.m. ET/12 p.m. PT on FS1.