It feels like just yesterday that Bellator was living out of some random performing arts theatre’s and broadcasted on random nights on both ESPN Deportes and Fox Sports Net.
Fast forward to now and Bellator has graduated to larger venues, found a home on Viacom’s Spike TV cable network and just completed its most successful season to date.
Sure the journey to Spike TV and season eight was not easy, nor was it an immediate ratings beast, but what Bellator has been able to do this season was truly remarkable.
The story of Bellator’s rise to season eight and Spike TV really started all the way back at Bellator 35. Bellator 35 took place on March 5th, 2011 from the Tachi Palace Hotel & Casino and was the season opener for season four and its debut show on its new Viacom network MTV2. Bellator and Viacom’s MTV2 inked a three-year deal back in 2011 that brought Bellator’s fan-base to a whole new level of distribution.
The Bellator 35 fight card featured a series of welterweight quarterfinal match-ups including such fighters as Lyman Good, Jay Hieron and Rick Hawn. According to Nielsen Research, Bellator 35 averaged 200k total viewers and saw heavy increases in both the male 18-49 (83% increase) and male 18-34 (133% increase) demographics. Making the debut show an utter success for all parties involved.
As for the remainder of season four, the season averaged roughly 204k total viewers over the 11 show season. A number that was largely helped by its largest audience on MTV2 which was Bellator 44.
Bellator 44 featured a lightweight tournament final between Michael Chandler and Patricky Freire and a middleweight bout between Hector Lombard and Falaniko Vitale. According to Nielsen Research, Bellator 44 averaged over 325k total viewers and saw solid ratings in the key male and adult 18-49 and 18-34 demographics. Again, very solid for a promotion that was really just getting its feet wet on MTV2 and in a Friday night primetime slot.
However, over the course of the next two-and-a-half years Bellator’s audience had a tough time finding its niche and really had trouble growing the overall audience above 200k total viewers.
For example, from Bellator 44 through Bellator 84, Bellator only reached 200k plus total viewers a total of 10 times. The largest (besides Bellator 44) being Bellator 47 (Summer Series – 2011) which reached 277k total viewers. The remainder of the shows (without factoring in those 10 over 200k) averaged only 154k total viewers. Note, that average is skewed because Bellator 71 (Summer Series – 2012) went unaired and hurt the average.
When looking at the overall season averages on MTV2 the best season to date was easily its first season, season four. Sure the Summer Series in 2011 had a bigger average, but that only had 3 shows, which makes me almost want to throw that out of the equation.
Here is a chart of Bellator’s average viewers per season on MTV2:
Again, at quick glance, it looks like Bellator actually started to lose audience as the relationship with MTV2 grew on. In some respect this is true, however, we also have to take into account that things changed over the three-year span such as time-slot, night of airing and overall marketing and promotion of the show.
For instance, one of the shows in the final Summer Series on MTV2 was unaired. Not to mention, some shows in the later part of the relationship butted up against some heavy UFC competition including TUF Live and TUF 16 which in previous seasons didn’t exist.
On the same token, if you take a close look at the chart below Bellator’s average held up arguably well against the UFC on Fridays. Sure the UFC had some very large audience nights, but when you compare the overall the UFC slumped down heavily during TUF live and TUF 16 had some of the lowest TUF ratings ever. I should also note that during TUF 16’s largest rating night, Bellator also saw its largest ratings night for season seven also.
With that said, Bellator on Viacom’s MTV2 was certainly not a bust by any means and looking back was really a great decision by Viacom executives. Not only were they able to further grow MTV2, but they were able to realize Bellator’s next logical channel move on the Viacom family of networks needed to be the former home of the UFC, Spike TV. A channel that at one point was really the place for MMA and arguably a place that was itching for something new.
“Bellator [MMA] fans on MTV2 were very hardcore viewers, they tuned in with no-HD and on Friday nights,” said David Schwarz, Senior Vice President, Communications, Spike TV. “The majority of MMA fans obviously heard about Bellator, but now Bellator [MMA] was going to be on a channel they knew, could easily find and tune in. MMA fans know where Spike TV is on their cable network, they weren’t as familiar with MTV2. Plus, Spike TV was the channel that brought these same people the first live MMA event on free television.”
When Bellator finally announced its move to Spike TV it felt like it took an eternity for Bellator to actually make its debut. It didn’t help that Bellator 85 was originally built as a fan voted card, but after some injuries and other issues Bellator had to rewrite the script and design something even bigger and better for the fans.
When all was said and done, On January 17th, 2013, Bellator debuted on Spike TV with Bellator 85 which featured two huge championship fights, several big names and the start of the light heavyweight tournament.
According to Nielsen Research, the card drew the largest rating in Bellator history landing at 938k total viewers and a peak of over 1.2 million viewers during the opening Pat Curran versus Patricio Freire featherweight championship bout. Bellator 85 also hit a live household ratings victory at 0.7 for overall households and a 0.7 in the vital male 18-49 demographic.
“We [Spike TV] pride ourselves in MMA and January [Bellator 85] was really a premiere for Bellator [MMA],” Schwarz said.
When comparing Bellator’s season seven debut on MTV2 and season eight debut on Spike TV, Bellator blew all the old numbers out of the water. According to Nieslen Research, Bellator 85 was up +195% in M18-49, +200% in P18-49, and +394% overall compared to the season seven debut.
Safe to say, the increase in audience potential (80 million homes to 100 million homes), enhanced marketing efforts, new day and time-slot (Thursday at 10 p.m. EST), great lead-in (Impact Wrestling) was clearly the boost Bellator needed to breaks its MTV2 ratings hinderance. Now, the next key step was keeping ratings consistent, while also trying to grow the new fan-base for the next 10+ shows and beyond on SpikeTV.
“TNA’s model over the years has been great,” Schwarz said. “They have really developed into a solid product. What Dixie Carter and her team has done is truly amazing. It was nice to be able to have Bellator [MMA] immediately follow each Thursday night.”
When it came to the rest of the season, Bellator’s rating followed like a roller-coaster. Down one second, up the next next. Honestly, it was really tough to decipher week-by-week where the overall live rating was going to land.
“It was hard to make [ratings] predictions as television always surprises us,” Schwarz said. “The ratings week-to-week were very encouraging, especially for a league that was not very known. People coming back week-to-week also showed that people were pleased with the great fights and that was one of our primary goals.”
Especially since the new day and time-slot came with more interesting competition. For example, Spike TV’s rival network FX, which is the new home to the UFC’s The Ultimate Fighter show, debuted its latest season of its hit show Archer on the same night as Bellator 85. Archer’s debut landed at a season-high 1.6 million total viewers. A number nearly 40% higher than Bellator 85 in overall audience. Obviously, these two shows are not exactly the same demographic focus, but once again, this shows that sometimes a new day and time-slot isn’t always a good thing.
Furthermore, Bellator also saw itself going up against real live sports competition from the likes of both the NBA and NCAA Mens Basketball Tournament on TNT, TBS and TruTV throughout its season long roller-coaster.
This was clearly made evident during some of Bellator’s season eight lowest rated efforts which were Bellator 89 and Bellator 94. Both went up against heavy ratings assaults by both the NBA and NCAA. During the night of Bellator 89, Bellator landed at a meager 719k total viewers compared to the NBA’s 3.39 million total viewers. Meanwhile, the NCAA Mens Basketball Tournament drew a 2.09 million total viewers compared to Bellator 94’s very low 713k total viewers.
On the flip-side, for all struggles Bellator also hit some very good ratings numbers. For example, Bellator 90 featuring King Mo getting knock-out by the eventual light heavyweight tournament winner Emmanuel Newton registered over 1.210 million viewers total between live+replay viewing.
“Bellator 90 talk was all over social media and highlights were even on ESPN. Truly a special moment of the season for us,” Schwarz said.
The following week, Bellator 91 hit over 901k live viewers and a cumulative of over 1.242 million viewers (including replay) on a card which featured Attila Vegh becoming the second ever Bellator light heavyweight champion when he defeated defeated Christian M’Pumbu. That night Bellator was up against all its normal competition and even had a lower than normal lead-in from Impact Wrestling but still hit an unbelievable number.
Not to mention, the replay rating was through the roof pushing Bellator 91’s total viewership (live+replay) at 1.242 million viewers, almost beating out the NBA (which started in prime-time) that night which landed at 1.681 million viewers.
“Bellator 91’s ratings really sticks out in my head this season as a huge positive. It really showed that people tuned in the week before or at least heard about the King Mo knockout at Bellator 90 the week before and decided to come back for more great action,” Schwarz said.
All in all, season eight truly was a coming out party for Bellator. It succeeded on levels that I don’t think a lot of people expected and hit the 900k+ viewers 3 times. Kind of funny when you compare it to MTV2 when they only hit 200k+ viewers 10 times in almost a 40 event span. Not to mention, when you compare the average viewers per season on MTV2, Bellator clearly blew that out the water on SpikeTV. Hitting a season eight average of 792k total viewers, which is a 350% live increase from the MTV2 average and a 388% live increase from its season seven average.
“MMA is all over television, to get people coming back each week, especially when you put on 12 shows in 13 weeks, is very encouraging for us,” Schwarz said.
Obviously, more goes into a rating than just some numbers, but Bellator truly showed this season that it is ready keep growing and continue to make a name for itself in MMA on Spike TV. Plus, with the help of the several new MMA reality series debuting on Spike TV later this year and a crop of new talent heading to Bellator, it looks like Bellator and Spike TV are looking to keep winning in-and-out of the cage.
“Season eight was just the beginning for Bellator [MMA]. What we set out to do was put on exciting fights. Fights that would make people want to come back and I feel we did just that. Our goal now is to keep building and our number one priority is to keep putting on great fights,” Schwarz said.
