UFC on Fox 6 and Prelim TV Ratings Remain Strong

UFC on Fox 6 held strong in the TV ratings compared to December’s UFC on Fox event, dipping just slightly, but still returning strong results.

Saturday night’s UFC on Fox 6 drew an average audience of 4.2 million viewers, according to MMAWeekly.com industry sources. That number is narrowly below the 4.4 million viewers that watched UFC on Fox 5 on Dec. 8.

The UFC on Fox 6 main event peaked at 5.2 million viewers, setting the high mark for the broadcast.

The combination of a stacked main card and heavy promotion by Fox seems to be paying off in a significant uptick in the ratings.

UFC on Fox 5 marked the first time since the special UFC on Fox 1 event that a Fox card was headlined by a championship bout and featured a main card rivaling pay-per-view fight cards. The promotion for the event followed suit, finding heavy rotation during NFL games on the network.

Headlining with UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson defending his belt against John Dodson, UFC on Fox 6 emulated that strategy, again giving fans a pay-per-view worthy fight card on the Fox network.

The new tack produced ratings that were nearly double those of the promotion’s third and fourth events on Fox, which featured solid main cards, but no title bouts.

The two-hour preliminary bout on telecast on FX returned the same type of results, drawing 1.2 million viewers, as did the preliminary bouts for UFC on Fox 5.

UFC on Fox 7 features lightweight champ Benson Henderson – as did UFC on Fox 5 – putting his belt on the line in the main event against Gilbert Melendez, utilizing the new approach once again.

The April 20 event will be the first that won’t have the power of the NFL on Fox viewership behind it for promotion, so it will be interesting to see the TV ratings results with the championship fight card minus the NFL’s leverage.

But for now, the fine-tuning done by UFC and Fox officials is paying off.

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