UFC
UFC Fight Night 59 draws 2.75 million average viewers to Fox Sports 1, highest cable number in six years (UPDATED)
Jan 21, 2015 - 1:25:06 PM UFC Fight Night 59 draws 2.75 million average viewers to Fox Sports 1, highest cable number in six years (UPDATED)

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

The Conor McGregor push has been absolutely justified, as Sunday's UFC Fight Night 59 event was by far the most watched UFC event on Fox Sports 1.

According to numbers passed along by Fox Sports, Sunday's card average 2,751,000 viewers, besting the previous high mark garnered with 2013's network debut by more than a million viewers. For further comparison, this number is just 49,000 average viewers shy of December's UFC on Fox 13 event on network television.

Additionally, the preliminary card drew 908,000 viewers, a massive number considering it was directly head to head with the AFC Championship game.

McGregor closed out the night with a second round stoppage of Dennis Siver to set up his fight with Jose Aldo later this year for the UFC Featherweight Championship.

Penick's Analysis: The UFC did everything right with this one, and in retrospect those of us who questioned putting McGregor essentially alone in the main event are eating crow. I'll admit I wanted the Cerrone-Henderson fight to have five rounds, but this event was sold on the star power of McGregor, which was much higher than most were willing to admit or believe. There's no question now. The UFC and Fox did a great job in the week up to the fight and during the Packers-Seahawks broadcast of getting interest up, and this is now the most-watched MMA event on cable since the UFC on Spike in 2009.

UPDATE: According to the UFC's Dave Sholler, the show peaked at 3.1 million viewers. Given the MMA landscape in 2015, that's an incredible number.