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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Saturday's UFC Fight Night 49 event drew just 689,000 viewers to Fox Sports 1 on average, down from the 735,000 who tuned in for UFC Fight Night 47 the week before, and down significantly from Benson Henderson's last headliner on FS1 in June.
Saturday's show, headlined by Henderson's bout with Rafael dos Anjos, peaked earlier in the broadcast with 962,000 viewers during the Max Holloway vs. Clay Collard bout, falling off over the final two hours of the event.
It's a sharp decline from Henderson's headlining effort in June, which is a bit surprising given that bout with Rustam Khabilov provided his most decisive win in the last several years. That card peaked with over 1.5 million viewers during his bout with Khabilov.
This time around, Henderson suffered a KO loss to dos Anjos in the second of two events from the UFC on Saturday.
Penick's Analysis: There wasn't a ton of intrigue on this card to begin with, and as the second of two UFC events on Saturday alone it suffered from the burnout of a long day when the main card didn't end until 1AM ET. That's an issue as far as keeping viewership is concerned. Who knows exactly what led to the lesser viewership on Saturday, but the UFC has been in a rut this year with so many events that not a lot has seemed "must-see."
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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