UFC on FOX 3: Miller vs. Diaz Completely Bombs in the Ratings

So much for quality fights being a ticket to great numbers on FOX.

Saturday’s UFC on FOX 3, which featured a low-profile main-event matchup between Nate Diaz and Jim Miller, garnered just a 1.0 adults 18-49 rating with 2.3 million viewers. There is a chance for a slight upward adjustment once the live west coast airing is taken into account, but it will not be enough to salvage this disastrous number.

Speaking to Headline Planet last week, UFC President Dana White had maintained that this was not a step down from the prior FOX card, which featured Rashad Evans vs. Phil Davis and Michael Bisping vs. Chael Sonnen as its co-main-events. Clearly, fans felt otherwise, as the lineup of Diaz vs. Miller, Josh Koscheck vs. Johny Hendricks, Alan Belcher vs. Rousimar Palhares and Lavar Johnson vs. Pat Barry was not a draw.

It was, however, a very exciting lineup and made for UFC’s most entertaining FOX card by a country mile.

Though ratings for the NBA game are not yet in, it definitely got crushed in the head-to-head battle with the Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Dallas Mavericks game. It also failed to win the night in the key demo–the 10PM airing of “48 Hours Mystery” on CBS scored a 1.3 rating.

http://www.headlineplanet.com/home/2012/05/06/ufc-on-fox-3-miller-vs-diaz-completely-bombs-in-the-ratings/

no surprises here, whats that the zuffa fluffers said? mma in japan was a fad? hmmmm looks like the same deal in america...lol.

Hopefully american fans abandon the UFC and start supporting Bellator and MFC.

Johan Lofgren wrote:Hopefully american fans abandon the UFC and start supporting Bellator and MFC.

This made me laugh:

Originally Posted by submerged88
The UFC just needs to wait for a night when there are no other sports events on TV and PPV and there are no holdays or big movies out and there are no popular TV shows on and there aren't any major events going on in the cities and the weather is bad so everyone has to stay in.

THEN, people will see how truly popular the UFC is because the ratings will be thru the roof.

http://www.sherdog.net/forums/f2/ufc-fox-3-bombed-ratings-wtf-2084989/index31.html

Shouldn't have expected any better with a Miller/Diaz main event.

It was an entertaining card but the casuals don't give a fuck unless names are involved, no matter how notoriously boring they can be.

MMA sucks nobody cares about this garvage sport.

Boxing is the sport of kings.

Also didn't help that Mayweather/Cotto was on the same night, along with a pretty good undercard.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that the sport sucks but its obvious that the UFC is becoming stale, of course to the casual fan UFC = MMA.

I think if MMA becomes more about the fighters and less about the promoters the way Boxing is, it will expand or hold its current market share.

The initial "newness" has worn off & nowadays casuals don't care to shell out hard earned money or waste their time watching two no names just because they are in the UFC & the UFC can't ever create a national icon not with that model.

Even in Brazil where the UFC is becoming known, none of their fighters are close to the status that Freitas had at his peak (I remember reading that his wedding was broadcast on TV). Eder Jofre might have had a similar status back in the day.

Fisticuffa wrote:I wouldn't go so far as to say that the sport sucks but its obvious that the UFC is becoming stale, of course to the casual fan UFC = MMA.

I think if MMA becomes more about the fighters and less about the promoters the way Boxing is, it will expand or hold its current market share.

The initial "newness" has worn off & nowadays casuals don't care to shell out hard earned money or waste their time watching two no names just because they are in the UFC & the UFC can't ever create a national icon not with that model.

Even in Brazil where the UFC is becoming known, none of their fighters are close to the status that Freitas had at his peak (I remember reading that his wedding was broadcast on TV). Eder Jofre might have had a similar status back in the day.

The boxing modell would be awesome for mma. Fans would focus on fighters instead of promotions (UFC) and there would be real world titles.

StillWill wrote:MMA sucks nobody cares about this garvage sport.

Boxing is the sport of kings.

Boxing is classy as f#ck but luckily mma has M-1, DREAM and KSW. The sport still has a lot of potential, the fans just need to support all mma instead of one company. That´s where G-MMA comes in.

M-1 and KSW are 10x better than the ufc as far as entertainment

StillWill wrote:M-1 and KSW are 10x better than the ufc as far as entertainment

THIS

btw Welcome to the forum Stillwill. Glad you made it here

UFC on FOX ratings

The fast national numbers are in for last night's show and it totalled 2.25 million viewers. It should be noted that this is a number that measured what was on from 8-10 p.m. on all the FOX stations, which means on the West Coast, it measured whatever the station aired in that slot. Some stations aired a replay of the fights and many aired other programming.

But no matter how you slice it, the number was very bad. That number would work out to a rating in the 1.2 or 1.3 range, horrible for first-run network programming. With the West Coast, the number could rise. The first show rose about 19% but the second show didn't rise at all from the original number, so we're looking at a final number probably between a 1.2 and 1.6.

The 1/28 show did a 2.6 rating and 4.7 million viewers.

While it was the highest rated show on the networks in the 18-49 demo, the competition was rerun programming and it was the least watched show in its time slot of all the networks except for NBC.

It appears to have done worse then previous Strikeforce and Elite XC weak shows on CBS and along the lines of what WWE shows do for their two NBC appearances that are now considered throw aways in the same time slot.

http://www.f4wonline.com/more/more-top-stories/118-daily-updates/25490-ufc-on-fox-ratings?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Above is from Meltzer.

The UFC will need big names and title fights for their FOX shows to drive the ratings up. Their original plans to put on top contender bouts on FOX and try to sell bigger PPV cards clearly is not going to work.

FOX cards should be similar to what PPV cards are now and PPV cards should be fewer and contain only multiple title fights and be super stacked. Top contender cards should be on FX and Fuel TV. This model should drive up the ratings.

StillWill wrote:M-1 and KSW are 10x better than the ufc as far as entertainment

this is the line of a wise man. 8)

HA! Serves them right for thinking they could put a Versus card on network television and pawn it off as a PPV level card lol I'm completely flabbergasted that ZUFFA honestly thought this card would bring in the casual fans This would have been a great FX or Fuel card, but the genius minds of Dana White and Joe Silva thought the Fox audience would watch just for the sake of watching mma, which is insane. The Fox cards should be PPV level, with plenty of big names. Fedor did bigger numbers on CBS because even the casual fans knew that they were goign to see something special and while I like Jim Miller and Nate Diaz they aren't exactly the kinda big names that interest the casuals.

I mean lets break it down a bit. I mean, Lesnar was able to bring in over a million buys, GSP usually brings in about 800000, Silva can feasibly bring in about 600k, and Jones seems to be hovering around the 500k mark so minus Lesnar it's not like they don't have some stars that can generate interest. There is an audience for mma in the states and you would that a free show on a huge network would be the perfect chance to show off the best the UFC has to offer to try and entice some fence sitters that are interested in MMA but who are not really willing to shill out money for overpriced PPVs. Wasn't that Baldies goal? To make mma a mainstream sport? ZUFFA are treating this deal like their old Spike contract, putting on weak free cards as samplers for their main focus, PPVs. Of course there is a being difference between pulling in 2 million views on Spike and doing that number on a major network. Those ratings are shit, and unless something changes fast UFC will probably be relegated to FX and Fuel or cut off entirely. The UFC has expanded a lot recently and I'll wager that expansion was motivated by the potential Fox deal. I doubt UFC is sustainable right now if they lose their deal and while MMA is growing globally, I don't think MMA is ready for about 500 fighters suddenly flooding the market if the UFC goes belly-up.

Get your shit together baldy, stop thinking that MMA is a privilege and start actually selling your product and caring about your fanbase. The casuals aren't going to watch your low level cards (even though the fights were great here) just for the sake of watching MMA. The PPV audience is dropping, it isn't sustainable unless you do 3 GSP cards a year. This is your golden goose, put Frenchie on Fox or at least build a more appealing card for the casuals or Fox will drop like a sack of bricks.

lol, Word guys. Y'all are dead on. It's crazy to assume any combat sports athletes going to well while Floyd's fighting......and Cotto's got huge draw too.....on cinco de mayo....Canelo on the undercard......Seriously, in a country filled with latino blood.......idiots.


As far as the UFC failing. I reckon y'all should take into serious consideration the effect that'd have on the whole of MMA. The only way the UFC fails is if the money isn't there. I know y'all want to live in this made up pretty world were fans simply move brands. That shit never happens.

marchegiano wrote:lol, Word guys. Y'all are dead on. It's crazy to assume any combat sports athletes going to well while Floyd's fighting......and Cotto's got huge draw too.....on cinco de mayo....Canelo on the undercard......Seriously, in a country filled with latino blood.......idiots.


As far as the UFC failing. I reckon y'all should take into serious consideration the effect that'd have on the whole of MMA. The only way the UFC fails is if the money isn't there. I know y'all want to live in this made up pretty world were fans simply move brands. That shit never happens.

Sadly, I have to agree with you here. While I hate admitting it the UFC is the biggest mma org by a wide margin and if they go down it will hit mma (especially in North America) hard. People aren't going to start watching Bellator (or MFC lol) if the UFC goes down, most will probably stop watching mma entirely. Like I said, casuals aren't going to watch mma just for the sake of watching mma. Bellator's audience will probably grow once they are on Spike but I doubt they will ever pull in huge numbers, outside of hardcore fans. Strikeforce had to sign the #1 HW in the world to pull in good ratings on CBS, a feet Bellator will not be able to accomplish. There is also the issue of the some 500 fighters that will suddenly become free agents if the UFC goes down. When PRIDE died ZUFFA owned them and they were able to integrate many of the top fighters into the UFC pretty easily, I don't see One-FC or M-1 buying the UFC and most orgs will not be willing to pay big money for the top UFC fighters and the ones that do get signed will be spread out across existing orgs and whatever new ones arise.. MMA will chug along with or without the UFC, and I'm sure some other American company will try their own foray into MMA after the dust is settled but MMA will lose a lot fans and exposure. It won't be the mma utopia that we are all clamoring for like when PRIDE was still around.

UFC going out of business wouldn´t be the end of mma. I don´t really want them out of business I just want other promotions to get a huge slice of the pie. If the UFC for some crazy reason disappeared the fighters would go to Bellator, M-1, DREAM, KSW, MFC, BAMMA, Super Fight League, ONE FC etc and those promotions would gain a lot of fans and money. The interest for mma in the US would go down but it would be awesome for the global growth of mma. Imagine Barnett vs JDS fighting for the DREAM title in a co-promotion with KSW or Fedor vs Overeem for the M-1 title in a co-promotion with Bellator.

That's probably what will happen, just as it did with MMA in Japan after Pride.

But the current model is not helping expansion either, things in the US are plateauing or on the decline. Like it or not North America is MMA's main market, and even if the interest in Brazil is sustained (which I doubt going by what happened in Japan & what's happening in the US) they are not really the market for PPV which is the lifeblood of UFC.

The best case scenario is the UFC bleeding money but not so much that they go under and instead make the necessary changes to turn MMA into more of a sport and less of a WWEsque sports-entertainment.

I don't care about brands/promoters, it should be about fighters & fights which unfortunately it is not in MMA.

You need to look at mma from an asian or european perspective. Europe and Asia don´t need the UFC they just need the fighters who are under contract with Zuffa.

Nobody cares about MMA anymore.

Johan Lofgren wrote:UFC going out of business wouldn´t be the end of mma.

Yeah, it probably would. UFC is the only MMA that exists as far as the general public is concerned. If the casual fan isn't interested, then an organizationa nd sport can't survive. If the only people watching are hardcore fans, then the organization and sport will die, as we're seeing.

if the UFC goes down, you really think another MMA promotion will come up and take it's place? Absolutely no chance.

Johan Lofgren wrote:UFC going out of business wouldn´t be the end of mma. I don´t really want them out of business I just want other promotions to get a huge slice of the pie. If the UFC for some crazy reason disappeared the fighters would go to Bellator, M-1, DREAM, KSW, MFC, BAMMA, Super Fight League, ONE FC etc and those promotions would gain a lot of fans and money. The interest for mma in the US would go down but it would be awesome for the global growth of mma. Imagine Barnett vs JDS fighting for the DREAM title in a co-promotion with KSW or Fedor vs Overeem for the M-1 title in a co-promotion with Bellator.

I agree it won't be the end of MMA, but I also think you are being a bit idealistic. Most of those orgs are regional (main focus on their home territory) and they have their own interests that aren't exactly conducive accommodating 500 free agents. There have been plenty of high profile UFC releases over the years but generally it seems that M-1 and KSW aren't all that interested in signing UFC castoffs just for the sake of signing them. M-1 seem content to build up their homegrown fighters and expand the MMA market in Russia while slowly expanding into other parts of the world. Not only have they not shown much interest in the past in signing recent UFC releases just for the sake of having them, they don`t seem to need them at all. Most Russians don't seem all that interested in the UFC so I doubt signing Rya Bader woudl really improve their business. KSW also seems content in their home territory and with building up their own talents. When they do bring in American fighters it seems like it is just up build up their homegrown stars. I really can't imagine either org getting into a bidding war over former UFC fighters, it hasn't really been their MO and most orgs aren't consumed by a demented urge to have literally every fighter under their banner and dominate mma like the UFC has been doing since PRIDE fell. I don't think they would be able to accommodate all the UFC fighters and I don't think they woudl really benefit from signing them especially not the top fighters when they coudl just as easilly pick up a few mid tier fighters and use them to build up their homegrown talent. Most orgs seem content to put on good fights and make money,forgoing ZUFFA's BS imperialism.

Dream would have been the perfect place for most of these fighters to go, but Dream is likely done as an mma org, or at least done as a MMA HW. Bellator will pick up some fighters but they don't have the audience to justify forking over huge amounts of cash for the top UFC fighters, who will undoubtedly want top billing. That pretty much leaves One-FC and they are still a very young org who haven't even finalized a proper roster. I keep hearing about the Once-FC network but if you ask me it is just a matter of time before they bring over the best fighters and become a solo organization. Either way, it would be too much expansion too fast and no guarantee that that the SOutheast Asian audience would even give two shits about them signing P4P fighters just because they are available. IMO most of the UFC fighters will go to smaller American orgs and some of the champs who aren't as far removed from climbing the regional org ladder (Bendo, Aldo, Cruz, Diaz and others) will be the ones most likely to sign with orgs like One-FC and others. The top guys who have amde a huge amount of moeny thanks to the UFC (Anderson, GSP, and the like) will probably just retire, having made enough money to support themselves in their future endeavors. The PRIDE and odlschool UFC vets will likely retire or take one off superfights for big money. There are other reasons why I think the loss of the UFC will be bad for global mma but I`ll leave those for another time.


IMO though, this is only how I see things working in the current mma environment as most of the overseas markets are still new and growing. JMMA will never be as big as it was in the PRIDE era but I think Russia, Europe, and Asia will be pretty strong in a couple years.