UPDATED 9/17 – This past Friday night Spike TV offered up Bellator 99 on its new night and new time slot to improved ratings.
According to Nielsen sources, Bellator 99’s preliminary viewership landed 660,000 total viewers. Compared to last weeks Bellator 98 which was a Spike TV low of 437,000 total viewers.
Overall, Bellator 99 was a up 51 percent compared to last week, which was a Spike TV low. The show peaked at 809,000 total viewers during the main event and the replay broadcast had 435,000 total viewers.
Between the live and replay airing of the fight card, Bellator 99 had a cume audience of 1,095,000 viewers.
When it came to a lead-in, Bellator drew a few reruns of Cops that all drew well over 1 million people, making the viewership drop roughly 50%.
When it came to the competition, Bellator’s biggest challenge for viewership and demographic numbers was cleary WWE’s Smackdown on SyFy. Smackdown landed at over 2.8 million people, up from last week.
Two other shows that killed Bellator were College Football on ESPN and another SyFy show titled Haven, lead by WWE Legend Edge. College Football drew just under 2 million and Haven drew over 1.5 million viewers.
Safe to say, Bellator is going to have a tough time stealing from both ESPN and SyFy, especially with College Football season in full swing and the WWE and Smackdown riding a very strong wave.
Stay with TheMMAReport.com for ongoing coverage of the Nielsen ratings battle between Bellator MMA and the UFC.