WEC 48 Prelims On Spike Draw 1 Million Viewers, WEC 48 PPV Numbers Promising

by Kelvin Hunt on Apr 27, 2010 10:26 PM EDT in News

That was the news released earlier today by Spike TV. The show was able to draw in 1 million viewers which undoubtedly help boost the WEC 48 PPV numbers which are reportedly in the 150K-200K range according to various reports. The two fights that aired on Spike TV was an absolute war between Leonard Garcia/Chang Sung Jung and also Anthony Pettis/Alex Karalexis.

The most impressive thing is that the event wasn't really promoted that heavily. In fact, there was no brand affiliation present in regards to the WEC name brand. Which according to Dana White was due to the fact of the WEC's relationship with Versus, etc.

The UFC began airing preliminary fights on Spike TV at UFC 103 and have had moderate success with the average rating right around 1.4 million viewers. So it's pretty impressive that the WEC guys can pull in 1 million themselves. I think it's great that these fighters finally got a real audience to perform in front of and hopefully it's a sign of better things to come.

However, the most impressive thing was the intitial trending for the WEC PPV. When we first heard of the WEC launching their first PPV offering, I thought they would have been lucking to get 50K PPV buys. However, Zuffa was smarter than I gave them credit for and they promoted the WEC PPV with the UFC behind it. In fact, it was just like a UFC PPV with the same broadcast team/ring announcer, etc. That's the power of brand name recognition ladies and gentleman.

SBN coverage of WEC 48: Aldo vs. Faber

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Seems like the WEC fighters are much more worth to Zuffa with the UFC name attached. Merger time says I.

"I don't care, hit him with your groin!"

by 3PA on Apr 28, 2010 5:19 AM EDT reply actions

Great to see some recognition come the way of these fighters. Aldo is a star amongst hardcore fans already. I’m just glad a larger audience got to see him do some work.

by Rich Wyatt on Apr 28, 2010 7:37 AM EDT reply actions

This was yet another gauge to see just how far MMA has risen, by the way. This show blew away the Bernard Hopkins vs. Roy Jones PPV buys. St. Pierre drew on par with Pacquiao last month. Now watch Lesnar possibly draw on par with Mayweater-Mosley.

by Rich Wyatt on Apr 28, 2010 3:56 PM EDT reply actions

Yeah I bet, but do you really believe the crossover is only like 5% like Dana White said?

I’m not a big fan of boxing at all, but I think the UFC has no interest in going up against a big name boxing match with two proven draws. I’d be willing to bet more boxing fans watch MMA than people think.

by doonerthesooner on Apr 28, 2010 4:06 PM EDT up reply actions