The final UFC on FOX event of 2017 took place this past Saturday night in Sacramento, California and the main event battle between Michelle Waterson and Paige VanZant peaked at nearly 5 million viewers.
According to FOX, the strawweight bout between Waterson and VanZant peaked at 4.8 million viewers during the 10-10:15 p.m. ET quarter-hour and the entire broadcast came in with an average audience of 3.178 million viewers. The viewership from Saturday is up 14 percent than last December’s UFC on FOX event (2.781 million) and this is FOX’s most-watched UFC event since April of 2013 (3,742,000).
Prior to the main card on FOX, the six fight televised preliminary card was shown on FS1 and was headlined by Paul Craig winning his UFC debut with an armbar submission victory over Luis Henrique da Silva. The three hour preliminary card broadcast averaged 679k viewers and this is down 2 percent from last December’s UFC on FOX event (693k). However, the viewership for the preliminary card from was up 4 percent in the Adult 18-49 demographic (338k vs. 326k) from last December’s FOX card.
The viewership numbers from Saturday proves why the UFC decided to have this fight card headlined by Waterson vs. VanZant. The UFC was able to capitalize on VanZant’s appearance earlier this year on Dancing with the Stars and only time will tell if this can elevate Waterson into a potential ratings star for the UFC.