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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Bellator MMA is heading back to Friday nights this fall.
Spike TV President Kevin Kay revealed the move to SI.com this week, which will see the ninth season actually begin on Saturday, Sept. 7 with a live "Fight Master: Bellator MMA" Finale event.
Following that, Bellator will air from 9-11PM ET on Fridays beginning on Sept. 13. They debuted on Spike TV in a Thursday night timeslot from 10-midnight ET in January, but with their lead in program Impact Wrestling getting moved up an hour, Spike and Bellator decided to move off of Thursday nights.
Their three-event Summer Series will air on Wednesdays beginning next week, with the "Fight Master," their new reality series, airing that night as well. But they'll head back to Friday nights in September, which was their home in 2012 on MTV2. However, where they had competition from the UFC on Fridays in 2012, they'll have no such head to head in 2013 and beyond.
"I don't want to see Bellator going head to head with the UFC," said Kay. "I don't think that makes any sense for fans. No matter who would win in that scenario, you don’t want to not give the fans the choice to watch both.”
"The Ultimate Fighter on Fridays was doing over a million viewers a week. I'll take that, and with live fights, I think we'll do even better. There's a lot of young men at home across [the] 18-49 [age demographic]. Gold Rush on Discovery does four million viewers on Friday nights. [The viewers] are there. You just have to give them the right thing and I think live fights on Friday, without competition, is going to be the best place for Bellator."
Penick's Analysis: This is the most sensible move. They could have attempted Tuesday nights, or really late Thursdays, but this Fridays allows them to entirely avoid the NFL schedule, and it allows them to entirely avoid going head to head with the UFC, which would not have been ideal for either organization. Fridays may still see a dip in viewership, as it's historically a bad night for their main demographic on television, but if they keep putting on good fights and keep that timeslot, they'll find their audience hopefully more consistently than they did with that night on MTV2.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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