One of the more attention-grabbing sporting events in recent years attracted a larger-than-usual audience to UFC.
Sunday’s live UFC fight card at the White House averaged a U.S. audience of 7.0 million viewers on Paramount+, per custom Nielsen analysis, which would mark the largest Nielsen-measured audience for a UFC event. The previous high would be 5.68 million for the debut of UFC on FOX in 2011.
Note that it is unclear whether the custom Nielsen methodology is directly comparable to the data the company usually reports. Nielsen developed a custom methodology for last year’s exclusive NFL game on YouTube that was not comparable to that used by the other networks, and was excluded from the NFL season averages.
There is little precedent for Nielsen measurement of a UFC numbered main event. Prior to the current media rights deal, those events were exclusive to pay-per-view, with only the prelims airing on Nielsen rated platforms. CBS did air portions of two numbered main events earlier this year, averaging 2.81 and 2.77 million respectively for hour-long windows during UFC 326 and 327.
Paramount+ reported viewership for its first UFC main event in January, but used Adobe Analytics rather than Nielsen.
For the night, an audience of 7.0 million viewers would place the UFC event ahead of the clinching Stanley Cup Final Game 6 (5.9M). An exact combined figure for the competing FIFA World Cup matches on Fox Sports and Telemundo was not available, but it seemed fairly likely that at least one of the two night matches would rank higher.
Comparisons to recent streaming-exclusive mixed martial arts and boxing telecasts are complicated by differences in methodology. Netflix reported an audience of 9.3 million for last month’s Most Valuable Promotions card featuring Ronda Rousey against Gina Carano, but that figure was measured by VideoAmp rather than Nielsen.
Netflix has reported audiences into the tens of millions for its boxing events, citing measurement companies VideoAmp and TVision.
