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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Last weekend's UFC on Fox 16 event brought an average of 2.8 million viewers to Fox last Saturday night from Chicago.
The organization released the full numbers for the event on Tuesday, boasting that it was the top rated sports program on Saturday, and up in viewership 13% over last year's July event on the network.
Viewership peaked at 3.8 million viewers during the night's main event between T.J. Dillashaw and Renan Barao for the UFC Bantamweight Championship.
The event gained viewership throughout the night, with the prelims averaging 1.3 million viewers leading into the main card and the rating increasing for each fight of the night.
These figures make it the highest rated Fox event of the year, matching the figures in both average and peak viewership for December's UFC on Fox 13 card, which was headlined by Junior dos Santos and Stipe Miocic.
Penick's Analysis: The overrun definitely helped improve the overall number, as did a massively impressive performance from Bantamweight Champion T.J. Dillashaw. That bout is now the most watched non-pay-per-view fight of the year, and that's fantastic news for the 135 lbs. field. Dillashaw's performance deserved to be seen by as many as possible, and it seems to be the case given these figures. That's a very good number for the UFC given how under the radar the card felt in the midst of everything else getting pushed this month.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
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