UFC Fight Night 42 took place on Saturday night at the Tingley Coliseum in Albuquerque, New Mexico and was headlined by Benson Henderson winning his second straight fight since losing the lightweight title as he submitted Rustam Khabilov.
According to Carleton Curtis of Fox Sports, the main card had 1,217,000 viewers in the preliminary ratings and this is the third most watched UFC event since moving over to Fox Sports 1.
The preliminary card also aired on Fox Sports 1 and had solid numbers as well with 812,000 viewers. This is the most watched Fight Night/TUF Finale preliminary card for the UFC on Fox Sports 1 in 2014, with the second most watched preliminary card being last week’s The Ultimate Fighter Brazil 3 Finale with 560,000 viewers.
With the viewership from Saturday, the average viewership for a Fight Night/TUF Finale main card on Fox Sports 1 in 2014 is now at 869,000 with the average for the preliminary cards being 444,000.
When it came to the competition on Saturday, the UFC went up against the Stanley Cup Final game, boxing on pay-per-view, and MLB on Fox. The Stanley Cup final game had over 5 million viewers on NBC, while the MLB game on Fox drew just over 2 million viewers. The numbers for the boxing pay-per-view have not come out at this time, but many people believe it will draw around 500,000 buys.
Here is the history of the UFC Fight Night preliminary viewership in 2014 on Fox Sports 1.
UFC Fight Night 35: 629,000 (Prelims – 220,000)
UFC Fight Night 36: 1,400,000
UFC Fight Night 38: 936,000 (Prelims – 369,000)
TUF Nations Finale: 641,000 (Prelims – 263,000)
UFC Fight Night 40: 655,000
TUF Brazil 3 Finale: 609,000 (Prelims – 560,000)
UFC Fight Night 42: 1,217,000 (Prelims – 812,000)
Stay tuned to TheMMAReport.com for more updates on MMA TV ratings.