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The UFC and FOX do not know how to promote
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Liquidrob's Top 10 Fighters Rankings
The 10 Fighters Who Changed The Game
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lol, if it wasn't for VSN I wouldn't even know there was a fight on. -
Wonder what teh fight did.
4.6 = not pretty
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Dana White Expects Fox Debut to Blow Kimbo's CBS Debut Out of the Water
While the executives at Fox and the UFC aren't going to make predictions on just how big they expect the first live UFC event on Fox on Nov. 12 to be ratings wise, everyone believes it will be huge.
The first major MMA event on network television was the EliteXC fight on Saturday, May 31, when former street fighter Kimbo Slice faced James Thompson in the night's main event.
The peak viewership for that card hit 6.51 million viewers, with an average of 6.12 million viewers for the event's last 50 minutes, which encompassed the main event for the card.
With the UFC set to debut on Fox Saturday, Nov. 12 with the heavyweight title up for grabs as Cain Velasquez faces Junior Dos Santos, the stakes have been raised. So do the Fox executives expect a bigger number than what the Kimbo vs. Thompson fight drew?
"One of my golden rules is never predict ratings because it's a zero sum game," said Fox Sports chairman David Hill. "If I was a betting man, which I am, I'd probably put a couple of bucks on the fact that we will."
UFC president Dana White wasn't quite so coy.
White first pointed to the fact that the fight Kimbo had with Roy Nelson on Spike TV as a part of The Ultimate Fighter, which was a taped broadcast, pulled in five million viewers. He expects huge numbers for their debut on Fox.
"I'm not going to be too cocky here and trump what David Hill said, but I'll tell you right now, I'm expecting to blow that number out of the water," White statedLiquidrob's Top 10 Fighters Rankings
The 10 Fighters Who Changed The Game
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Liquidrob's Top 10 Fighters Rankings
The 10 Fighters Who Changed The Game
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Sure, Fox also hinted that they expected it to become the #1 MMA telecast in north america.
@ the 8:30 episode of Cobs doing a better rating and nearly matching the 18+ demo.
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"Officials from both the UFC and Fox refrained from giving expectations on what ratings the show would pull. Most figured dipping below 5 million viewers would start to feel disappointing."Liquidrob's Top 10 Fighters Rankings
The 10 Fighters Who Changed The Game
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Fox Sports chief executive David Hill admitted he and president Dana White discussed the “tactics” of booking a single, heavyweight fight in hindsight, but added he was overwhelmingly satisfied with the product.
“It absolutely delivered everything I hoped it would,” Hill told ESPN.com. “I spoke to Dana and maybe, tactically, Dana didn’t play it the right way. But this is what you get in this sport. This is world heavyweight champion action.”Liquidrob's Top 10 Fighters Rankings
The 10 Fighters Who Changed The Game
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Some interesting ratings stats
Kimbo vs Thompson at 6.5 million (CBS)
Kimbo vs Nelson at 6.1 million (Spike)
Hendo vs Rampage at 5.9 million (Spike)
Fedor vs Rogers did over 5 million also on CBS I believe, Gina as the co-main event on CBS did more than 5 million alsoLiquidrob's Top 10 Fighters Rankings
The 10 Fighters Who Changed The Game
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It's not even the highest rated show in UFC history (thanks to Kimbo/Nelson on Spike).
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Dana just sent me a PM responding to this thread
'Shut up, I don't want to hear it'Liquidrob's Top 10 Fighters Rankings
The 10 Fighters Who Changed The Game
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The question that will ultimately decide how successful this is...will be how many of these 4+ million people were non-fans and how many become fans to the point they buy tickets, PPVs or merchandise.
With a 64 second fight, is that enough time to build a new fanbase?
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I doubt they gained any news fans, fans that would buy a PPV? no way
They can't even get there core to buy PPV's anymore, those numbers are dropping fastLiquidrob's Top 10 Fighters Rankings
The 10 Fighters Who Changed The Game
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