{"id":17241,"date":"2011-11-13T20:37:56","date_gmt":"2011-11-14T00:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=17241"},"modified":"2011-11-13T20:37:56","modified_gmt":"2011-11-14T00:37:56","slug":"ufc-on-fox-debut-a-huge-hit-heavyweight-championship-is-most-watched-ufc-event-ever-most-watched-pro-fight-since-2003","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=17241","title":{"rendered":"UFC ON FOX DEBUT A HUGE HIT: Heavyweight Championship is Most-Watched UFC Event Ever; Most Watched Pro Fight Since 2003"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>History was made last night as the UFC made its broadcast television debut on FOX, and a record audience tuned in as the challenger, Junior dos Santos defeated defending champion Cain Velasquez in a first round knock out to claim the coveted heavyweight crown. It was the most-watched UFC event ever and the most-watched professional fight of any kind in eight years, according to fast national ratings made available by Nielsen Media Research.<\/p>\n

The hour-long UFC on FOX premiere scored a 3.1\/5 household rating\/share, with 5.7 million viewers making it the most-watched UFC event ever and the most-watched professional fight of any kind on any network since 2003 when 7.0 million tuned in to watch Lewis-Klitschko on HBO. Velasquez-dos Santo is also the highest-rated and most-watched professional fight of any kind on a broadcast network for OSCAR DE LA HOYA\u2019S FIGHT NIGHT on FOX. (4.3\/6, 5.9 million viewers) in 1998.<\/p>\n

FOX Research projects that last night\u2019s UFC on FOX premiere broadcast to win the 9:00-10:00 PM time period across key demos including Adults 18-34 (3.2), Adults 18-49 (3.0); Men 18-34 (4.3) and Men 18-49 (4.0). Competitive fast national ratings for other networks are currently unavailable.<\/p>\n

The UFC on FOX debuted strong opposite significant college football competition last night. ABC’s primetime Oregon-Stanford broadcast averaged a 6.0\/11, while NBC’s Maryland-Notre Dame primetime broadcast averaged a 1.4\/3 and ESPN averaged a 1.5\/3 in prime for Alabama-Mississippi State (college football ratings are overnights \u2013 overnight for UFC on FOX event was 3.5\/6). The three games combined to total 8.9\/17 in primetime. Interestingly, among the Men 18-34 demographic, the UFC on FOX premiere posted a 4.3, strong enough to out-rate every college football telecast this season on any network with the exception of last week\u2019s No. 1 vs. No. 2 LSU-Alabama match-up (through 11\/5).<\/p>\n

The most recent mixed martial arts programs on broadcast television were a series of EliteXC events on CBS in 2008. The premiere of UFC on FOX attracted an average audience +16% higher than the premiere of EliteXC on CBS (5\/31\/08), their most-watched EliteXC event (5.7 vs. 4.9 million viewers). UFC on FOX also out-performed the EliteXC show in household rating (3.1 vs. 3.0) and across key male demos: Men 18-34 +34% (4.3 vs. 3.2); Men 18-49 +33% (4.0 vs. 3.0); and Men 25-54 +23% (3.8 vs. 3.1).<\/p>\n

Las Vegas led all local markets with a 5.3\/9, followed by Dallas (5.1\/10), Phoenix (5.1\/9), San Antonio (5.1\/8), Tulsa (4.9\/8), San Diego (4.8\/9), Greensboro (4.6\/6), New Orleans (4.5\/6) and Los Angeles (4.3\/8).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

History was made last night as the UFC made its broadcast television debut on FOX, and a record audience tuned in as the challenger, Junior dos Santos defeated defending champion Cain Velasquez in a first round knock out to claim the coveted heavyweight crown. It was the most-watched UFC event ever and the most-watched professional […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1019,510,5867,736],"class_list":["post-17241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boxing-news","tag-fox","tag-mma","tag-success","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}