The rating for the UFC 103 countdown show was a measly 382,000 viewers which was surely hampered by the NFL games on that night as well as the new time slot.  I spoke about this earlier this week when I mentioned that the countdown show had been moved to a new time slot because of the NFL Monday night doubleheader.  Of course we all know that the premier of The Ultimate Fighter 10 blew everything out of the water on Wednesday night with over 4 million viewers tuning into the show, shattering all of the TUF records in the process.  The average(over 700,000) for the the UFC countdown shows this year have been well above the 382,000 viewers that the UFC 103 countdown show mustered. Of course, there's no real way to correlate the ratings for the countdown shows to ppv buys.  However, ratings that are that far below the average could not have been a positive sign in regards to ppv buys.  

So the debut of The Ultimate Fighter 10 will probably help increase the ppv buys for UFC 103. I'm not saying it'll be a hugely significant number, but I'm sure it'll impact it somewhat.  This will be the second UFC ppv in a row that does not feature a title fight, but two preliminary fights will air live on Spike TV prior to the ppv broadcast.  So it'll be interesting to see how UFC 103 does ppv wise.  Not to mention that it'll also be competing against the return of Floyd Mayweather Jr. as he takes on Juan Marquez. Over/under 450K for UFC 103 and will it beat the return of PBF?

HT: MMAPayout

UFC 103: Franklin vs. Belfort coverage