The Ultimate Fighter 26 premiered on FS1 with 308,000 viewers on Wednesday, August 31 and the UFC reality show saw a 22 percent increase in the +3 DVR viewership with a total of 375,000 viewers.
The +3 DVR viewership was confirmed to The MMA Report on Tuesday evening by Nielson sources.
In the debut episode of The Ultimate Fighter 26, all of the fighters arrived at The Ultimate Fighter gym in Las Vegas and where greeted by the head coaches for this season, former UFC lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez and Justin Gaethje. After all of the fighters went through a training session, the teams were picked and it was revealed that the first matchup would be #1 seed Roxanne Modafferi of Team Gaethje facing #16 seed Shana Dobson of Team Alvarez. Modafferi would end up winning the fight in the opening round by TKO to advance to the quarterfinals, where she will face the winner of #8 seed Emily Whitmire and #9 seed Christina Marks.
Since the +3 DVR numbers for the debut episode were revealed by Nielson, the second episode of The Ultimate Fighter 26 premiered seven days ago and stay tuned to The MMA Report for information on the +3 DVR viewership for that episode.