Penick's Take
PENICK: UFC and Spike have no reason to be disappointed in UFC 120's ratings
Oct 19, 2010 - 5:02:03 PM PENICK: UFC and Spike have no reason to be disappointed in UFC 120's ratings

DISCUSS ALL THIS IN OUR NEW MMATORCH FORUM

...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

With the news coming out this afternoon that Saturday's UFC 120 event drew an average of only 1.9 million viewers, some of the discussion has focused on the decline in ratings from last year's UFC 105 and UFC 95 events. Both of those events aired via tape delay from England on Spike TV as well, and both drew significantly more viewers to Spike.

But while it may seem like a downward turn for the UFC on Spike, there were many factors that led to the ratings decline from last year's UK events.

Unlike with UFC 95 and UFC 105 last year, the event's results were scrolled on ESPN's Bottom Line crawl throughout the day. Having the results of the event reported by ESPN made some viewers decide to watch other programming that night instead of tuning into the fights.

And there was strong programming on other television networks on Saturday night for those fans to choose from. Up against an important Big Ten college football game between Ohio State and Wisconsin, the quarter hour numbers for UFC 120 showed a significant increase in the final hour once that football game had ended. Meaning, viewers tuned into the football game and only flipped to the fights once it was finished. But it wasn't just that game the UFC needed to contend with.

An average of nearly 11 million viewers combined were tuned into network television on Saturday night for the MLB playoff game between the Philadelphia Phillies and San Francisco Giants on FOX and the NASCAR racing event on ABC. The playoff baseball game peaked at nearly 7 million viewers in the final half hour, three times the number of viewers that the UFC garnered for the main event between Michael Bisping and Yoshihiro Akiyama.

And there's one final piece to the puzzle. Michael Bisping and Dan Hardy were the featured fighters on this card, and they also competed on last year's UFC 105 event. But last November's card featured Randy Couture in his first-ever fight on free television. Add to that the fact that UFC 105 did not have to go up against playoff baseball or any other major network sporting event, and it's no wonder that the ratings for UFC 120 compares poorly to UFC 105.

As for UFC 95, that card took place in February 2009, with no competition from network sports and an overall more enjoyable fight card. While the merits of Diego Sanchez and Michael Bisping as headliners can be debated, the fact is the overall fight card drew more interest from fans last February than did UFC 120 this weekend.

Finally, UFC 95 was not merely a glorified advertisement for a larger UFC event, as UFC 120 was set up to be. With Brock Lesnar's return this weekend at UFC 121, the card on Spike last Saturday was simply to advertise the 'important' event this coming Saturday. That could have lead to some fans deciding to gather to watch the major pay-per-view event instead of tuning into the tape delayed UFC 120 card.

The fact of the matter is that no one should have expected much more than a Fight Night level rating for this event. There were spots on this card that turned people away, most notable the boring draw between Cheick Kongo and Travis Browne, as well as a slower style fight between Mike Pyle and John Hathaway. Both of those fights, along with the fact that the air time for UFC 120 was a full hour earlier than when Spike's UFC Prelims specials start, helped to lower the average for the card.

When it came to the final hour, viewers showed back up, and the show peaked with nearly 2.5 million viewers for the main event. There's absolutely nothing more that could have been expected out of this fight card. It's not a matter of over-saturation of the UFC on Spike; fight fans will tune in for interesting matchups and interesting fight cards that they want to see. That fewer people were interested in watching Michael Bisping against Yoshihiro Akiyams, a fighter coming off a loss, than a free Randy Couture fight should not be surprising in the least.

The UFC and Spike are happy with the numbers being produced for now, and while next month's UFC 122 event is going to suffer from similar issues, for now this isn't an area the UFC needs to be overly worried about.