(Updated 8/19) UFC Fight Night 26 took place on Saturday night at the TD Garden in Boston and was headlined by Chael Sonnen defeating Mauricio Rua by submission. The show was a great introduction for the new Fox Sports 1 channel and the ratings clearly showed that.
According to Nielsen sources, the preliminary overnight rating for UFC Fight Night 26 scored 1.78 million viewers and a 1.38 rating.
The overall ratings were good enough to beat most of the competition between 8PM – 10PM including both the Little League World Series and Women’s Tennis on ESPN/ESPN2.
I said a few times last week I felt the UFC was going to hit within the UFC on FX and UFC PPV prelims on FX numbers and they did just that. All in all, a 1.38 for a brand new network, that up until 48 hours before people were not even sure if they would have is a great introduction number.
The big question going forward will be how much higher, or lower, will this rating go, especially since the peak numbers for UFC Fight Night 26 which will be out later this week.
As always stay tuned for all the updated UFC and Bellator television ratings right here on TheMMAReport.com