UFC debuted on CBS with one of its better viewership figures in recent years.
Saturday’s coverage of UFC 326 on CBS averaged 2.47 million viewers across a two-hour window that included prelims and portions of the main card, the largest UFC audience on linear TV since UFC on FOX 22 in December 2016 (3.18M). The one-hour portion that included the main card — but not the main event — averaged 2.81 million and peaked with 3.21 million.
The CBS audience does not include streaming viewership on Paramount+, which was the exclusive home of the main event between Max Holloway and Charles Oliveira.
Viewership nearly tripled last year’s linear TV average for UFC fights (661K), but that comparison comes with a number of caveats — namely that the year-ago figure almost exclusively consists of events that aired on cable (several of which aired on ESPN2) and includes a number of lower-profile “UFC Fight Night” cards, with zero numbered main events. Saturday marked the first time that any portion of a numbered main event aired on broadcast television, as prior to the new UFC rights deal, those events were restricted to pay-per-view.
The last time a UFC event aired in primetime on broadcast television was in 2023, when a pair of prelims simulcast across both ABC and ESPN averaged audiences of 1.86 million (UFC 290) and 1.96 million (UFC 291). Keep in mind those telecasts did not include main card bouts. CBS last carried mixed marital arts in primetime 16 years ago, averaging 2.86 million for a Strikeforce event in April 2010.
(Note that Nielsen did not begin including out-of-home viewing in its estimates until 2020, only began doing so in 100 percent of markets a year ago, and is less than six months into a new methodology that combines its traditional panel with “Big Data” from smart TVs and set-top boxes. Those changes generally skew comparisons to past years.)
The UFC event ranked third among Saturday sportscasts behind only the North Carolina-Duke men’s college basketball game on ESPN (3.43M) and a United States-Great Britain World Baseball Classic game on FOX (2.98M).
Compared to the usual Saturday night CBS fare, which primarily includes “48 Hours,” the UFC event increased 30% overall and considerably more in the young adult demographics of 18-34 (+208%) and 18-49 (+190%).
