‘TUF 11 Finale’ ratings analysis

MMAPayout.com has learned that the TUF 11 Finale on Spike TV drew a 1.4 HH rating on the strength of 2 million average viewers over its three hour broadcast on Saturday night. However, the show peaked at 2.4 million viewers for the main event that saw Court McGee defeat Kris McCray.

The program also garnered a 2.3 in the M18-34 and 1.8 in the M18-49 demographics.

Payout Perspective:

The broadcast is probably a poor result when you compare it to previous TUF Finale events; the 1.4 HH is the lowest TUF Finale rating since Season 4 did a 1.1 HH (the season that Serra and Lutter won title shots).

I think this is ultimately a reflection of the quality of the fight card. Interesting fights will bring a crowd. No disrespect to McGee vs. McCray or Hamill vs. Jardine, but neither was a fight that anyone had a great deal of interest in seeing. This is especially true when you consider that the last Spike card featured Florian vs. Gomi and the next free television card (on Versus) will feature Jon Jones vs. Vlady Matyushenko. There’s a huge discrepancy there.

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Where does the UFC go from here? It would seem that more of the status quo is in order:

-Two big name coaches: Team St-Pierre vs. Team Koscheck

-No big format change: the talk within the industry is that it’s more or less the same format (nothing drastic)

-Same promises: once again, officials are already leaking bits of news that it’s the most exciting TUF ever.

I’d obviously like to see them make a change. I tend to side with being proactive rather than reactive, but I’m not sure it’s that simple, either. If the company is planning to leverage TUF as a component of its international expansion strategy, then it can’t very well change the entire format right now.

With that said, I do think that each show is going to require some tinkering to fit in with its local market. Some of the crap that happened on the show in the US won’t fly in the UAE and China – or even markets like Australia.

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