The Ultimate Fighter 17 (Team Jones vs Team Sonnen) followed up its successful ratings debut last week with another solid ratings performance last night.
Episode two focused primarily on the fight between Team Jones’ Gilbert Smith and Team Sonnen’s Luke Barnatt. The fight was a grueling two-round war which saw Luke Barnatt winning with a vicious flying knee.
This incredible episode and fight garnered a 1.27 million viewers and a 0.7 in the 18-49 adult demographic according to Nielsen reports. This was actually down roughly 12% overall from the debut episode but the show was able to mostly maintain its 18-49 number with only a minimal drop from 0.8 to 0.7.
When it came to the competition on the other cable networks, the UFC’s biggest competition came once again from the Big Bang Theory on TBS which landed at a huge 3.20 million viewers and a 1.3 in the 18-49 male demographic. TBS has been extremely consistent with the Big Bang Theory over the past few months so this is not a surprise at all.
Thankfully, the UFC did avoid some tough 10PM competition as A&E debuted Southie Rules to solid ratings and BET had the Real Husbands of Hollywood which came in fourth for the entire night.
It should also be noted that the lead-in for this edition of TUF, which started at 6:30 p.m. landed just shy of a million viewers with a .99 and a 0.5 in the 18-49 adult demographic. The point there being that TUF increased these numbers so people tuned in. Following TUF was once again one of FX’s top-rated shows, Justified, which pulled in a huge 2.08 million viewers and a 0.9 in the 18-49 adult demographic.
TUF 17 Ratings History:
Episode 1 – 1.5 million viewers
Episode 2 – 1.27 million viewers