The UFC followed up a good showing on CBS last month with an even better performance last weekend.
Coverage of UFC 327 last Saturday night averaged 2.65 million viewers across a two-hour CBS window that included the final hour of prelims and the first hour of the main card, marking the largest UFC audience on linear TV since UFC on FOX 22 in December 2016 (3.18M). The previous high was 2.47 million for a similar two-hour window on CBS during UFC 326 last month.
(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 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 main card portion of the telecast averaged a 1.4 rating and 2.77 million viewers, peaking at 3.14 million. The prelims portion averaged a 1.3 and 2.52 million. Figures do not include any portion of the audience on Paramount+, which exclusively carried the main event between Carlos Ulberg and Jiri Prochazka.
Prior to the new UFC rights deal, linear television coverage of marquee numbered events had been limited to prelims only — with the main card the exclusive domain of pay-per-view. That has now changed, though linear has yet to get an actual main event.
For the week ending last Sunday, UFC on CBS was the most-watched sporting event on any network outside of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and the Masters. It comfortably surpassed its head-to-head Saturday night competition that included Major League Baseball on FOX (1.1, 2.13M), a reversal from the prior telecast, which trailed the World Baseball Classic on FOX head-to-head.
The UFC on CBS is now averaging 2.56 million viewers across two telecast windows. Last year, UFC averaged 661,000 viewers on linear TV, though that figure primarily consists of lower-profile UFC Fight Night cards on cable, many of which aired on ESPN2.
