Following on from our brief report yesterday revealing that an episode of The Ultimate Fighter had drawn just 4,000 viewers recently on Setanta Sports 2 here in the UK, latest viewing figures show that UFC 91 featuring Brock Lesnar vs. Randy Couture drew an average of 60,000 for the live broadcast which aired at 3am local time.

That’s a pretty impressive number and roughly in the same ballpark as WWE draw for their live PPVs which go out at 1-4am UK time.

Perhaps more impressively, the live broadcast peaked at 167,000 in the early hours of the morning.

Andrew Crawford sent word that prior to broadcasting live PPVs on Setanta Sports, UFC shows airing on Bravo drew around 80,000-90,000 viewers, with UFC 79 and UFC 81 drawing around 110,000-125,000 viewers.

While 60,000 may not seen like a huge number, its worth bearing in mind that while shows on Bravo went out on a tape delay, they were also available to many more people who subscribed to a basic satellite or cable package. Setanta, on the other hand, is a subscription channel which requires customers to pay up to £13 per month on top of their normal cable and satellie monthly subscription fee.

In an amendment on yesterday’s TUF figure, the show that saw 4,000 tune in for the November 19 was a repeat rather than a first run. We’ll hopefully have more on that in due course.

Phil Lowe
phil@ifight365.com