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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
The UFC returned to Ireland on Saturday for the first time in five years, airing live on over-the-air network 3e in the country.
With a bunch of homegrown talent on the card, including Conor McGregor in the night's main event, there was a lot of interest in Ireland itself for the event. Because of that, it wound up being the highest rated sporting event on 3e in the network's history.
Over 600,000 of the country's 4.6 million people tuned in for the event at some point during the broadcast, with an average viewership of 257,500. The broadcast peaked with 340,200 viewers during the night's main event, and scored impressive viewership shares overall in the country of 36.69% of men 15-34, and 43.33% of adults 15-24.
Penick's Analysis: This is the UFC's global expansion plans working. They've been imperfect, and this hasn't been the result everywhere they've gone, but Saturday was exactly what they were going for, and probably exceeded any expectations they may have had. They've had a great week of events, and may extend that to this weekend on Fox, and now the debate will begin as to whether this is an anomaly or something they can sustain more often than not.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
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