This past Saturday night the UFC held its FUEL TV 8 event which featured Wanderlei Silva defeating Brian Stann in the second round by knockout in another memorable performance at the Saitama Super Arena in Japan.
According to Kevin Iole and since confirmed with Nielsen sources, the FUEL TV 8 live preliminary ratings number came in as the highest rated live FUEL TV card ever. The event scored almost double it’s previous best landing at 485k total viewers.
When it came to the demographic breakdown, FUEL TV 8 destroyed it’s previous records landing at 282k viewers in males 18-49. That is more viewers than any previous UFC show on FUEL ever. The post-show even broke records landing at 219k total viewers.
When it came to the Saturday night network competition the UFC was once again up against Cops on Fox, Hawaii Five-O and Golden Boy on CBS. Both episodes of Cops were seen by well over 3.4 million people and won out in the key 18-49 adult demographics. Hawaii Five-O and Golden Boy reruns also did well, with both having viewing audiences over 3.5 million viewers and strong 18-49 adult demographic numbers.
All in all, this is a huge win for the UFC and it should also be noted that Comcast has still not expanded its FUEL TV foot-print yet. So for those who are chalking this victory up as being more market saturation that is incorrect. I for one thank the time-slot and Wanderlei Silva for this record breaking rating.
Stay with TheMMAReport.com for ongoing coverage of the Nielsen ratings battle between Bellator MMA and the UFC.