STRIKEFORCESTRIKEFORCE is an American professional kickboxing and mixed martial arts promotion company based in San Jose, California. STRIKEFORCE has recently aquired the assets of the now defunked, ELITEXC.
Early ratings for the CBS broadcast of Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Rogers fell short of a home run, but showed strong numbers in demographics where the sport has historically fared well.
In the event’s headliner, Fedor Emelianenko knocked out Brett Rogers in the second round, while co-headliners Jake Shields and Jason “Mayhem” Miller went the distance with Shields emerging as the new Strikeforce middleweight champion.
The primetime portion of Fedor vs. Rogers (9 p.m. to 11 p.m.) drew an average of 3.79 million viewers, down from CBS’ last foray into MMA with EliteXC’s “Heat,” which averaged 4.3 million viewers in the same time period, according to TVbythenumbers.com.
The primetime numbers for Fedor vs. Rogers don’t include the main event fight. The event ran long with that bout clocking in following the primetime portion of the broadcast.
Even so, in key male demographics, the Saturday fights came in first, edging college football on ABC with a 2.2 rating for males 18-34 and a 2.3 rating for males 18-49.
Overall, the primetime broadcast led in adults 18-34 and 18-49 with 1.7 ratings.
The 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. portion of the Saturday broadcast was the third most watched show on network television.
The 10:00 to 10:30 segment, which featured the bulk of Shields vs. Miller, is at the moment the only fight to crack the Top 20 most watched fights in MMA’s history with U.S. television, coming in at 18th.
Compared to ratings for CBS’ regular Saturday night programming, the event showed marked improvement in male and adult demographics, but shaved 2.33 million total viewers from an average audience of 6.12 million.
Kelly Kahl, Senior Executive Vice President of CBS Primetime, said the strong numbers in key demographics outweighed the decline in overall viewers.
“Typically, we tend to get an older audience on Saturday night,” he said. “We know MMA is probably not your cup of tea if you’re in an older demographic, so that’s hardly surprising.
“Demographics are the reason you put this sport on. You’re not putting this on to get a huge household number, you’re putting it on to try to tap into a younger audience, and it looks like we were successful doing that.”
At the moment, EliteXC’s “Primetime” remains the most watched MMA event in U.S. television history, garnering 4.8 million total viewers.
The Sears Centre Arena, which hosted the event and seats up to 12,000, was a reported sellout, though the official attendance has yet to be released.
“I think we had a really terrific card,” said Kahl. “In every fight we had, there were changes in momentum back and forth. No fight was completely one-sided for the entire duration.”
The ratings for the complete broadcast will be released Tuesday.
“We’ll hope for the best and re-visit and see if we can’t come back around and get another one of these scheduled at some point,” said Kahl.
nice, now i wanna see those Spike numbers for Main Events.
Which main event? How is that comparable at this point ? I dont think that would be a fair comparison . Seeing how the average joe thinks mma and ufc is one of the same and any other org is also ufc fighting.. So as of right now in this point of time its not fair to compare the two .
Live right and every other day is a good one to die.
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: The Big Island, BC.
Posts: 1,597
'Main Events' was the name of the UFC counterprogramming for the CBS event. I'm interested in seeing how much attention they leeched away from the CBS show since, as you mention, the casual fan identifies UFC with MMA and would probably be more inclined to watch the UFC branded event than the live, new event.
'Main Events' was the name of the UFC counterprogramming for the CBS event. I'm interested in seeing how much attention they leeched away from the CBS show since, as you mention, the casual fan identifies UFC with MMA and would probably be more inclined to watch the UFC branded event than the live, new event.
Ah gottcha I wasnt aware it was named anything but a rerun.. lol.. I was in a Fedor trance everything was blocked out.
Great numbers, with as little advertising as they did they killed.
I think we all won on saturday because now a ton of people know Fedor and want to see him fight next. I'm sure Mayhem and Mousasi got a ton of fans too.
I think 3-4 more cards like this and by 2011 Strikeforce can have some consistent high number PPVs.
Great numbers, with as little advertising as they did they killed.
I think we all won on saturday because now a ton of people know Fedor and want to see him fight next. I'm sure Mayhem and Mousasi got a ton of fans too.
I think 3-4 more cards like this and by 2011 Strikeforce can have some consistent high number PPVs.
Agreed 100%, Fedor + Moussasi + King Mo + Nick Diaz + Overeem on a PPV card...would sell!
I have worked in TV for about 12 years now and what I just read was an executive trying to make lemonade out of lemons... Those ratings are not good at all for a primetime network show and when a show on a SMALL cable channel with fighters that have no clue what they are doing gets better raitings than their TOP fighters that is very bad news.
Sure, they did okay in specific demographics, but advertisers are VERY reluctant to advertise to that demographic on a Saturday night. Young males in bars, or at home with buddies drinking beer and getting rowdy DO NOT pay attention to commercials!
I just don’t see Strikeforce sticking around on Network TV for very long!
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Dan The Ju
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I have worked in TV for about 12 years now and what I just read was an executive trying to make lemonade out of lemons... Those ratings are not good at all for a primetime network show and when a show on a SMALL cable channel with fighters that have no clue what they are doing gets better raitings than their TOP fighters that is very bad news.
Sure, they did okay in specific demographics, but advertisers are VERY reluctant to advertise to that demographic on a Saturday night. Young males in bars, or at home with buddies drinking beer and getting rowdy DO NOT pay attention to commercials!
I just don’t see Strikeforce sticking around on Network TV for very long!
QFT
they can only blame themselves, the promotion running up to the event was almost non existent until the last week.
they can only blame themselves, the promotion running up to the event was almost non existent until the last week.
I bet it sticks on Showtime at worst though and maybe another cable station will snag em? Spike promotes UFC really well if Strikeforce can sign with USA or TBS they will be much better off.
Ratings
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