November is behind us, and Fox Sports 1 had a good month – in fact, a *very* good month.
November 2013 featured FS1's two most-watched weeks, and the network's two most-watched events: Oklahoma-Baylor on November 7th and the Oregon-Oregon State Civil War on November 29th. The Civil War just edged out the Big 12 matchup, drawing 2.179 million viewers compared to 2.11 million viewers. The Civil War also won the day for sports programming on cable TV – including ESPN, which aired the finals of the NIT Tip-Off between Duke and Arizona.
Over the month, FS1 averaged 134,000 viewers, a double digit increase over both October (115,000) and September (101,000). In prime time, their 457,000 average viewers were more than double October's viewers (215,000) and close to double September's viewers (246,000). Last week also drew the highest average viewership total in FS1's brief history, drawing 192,000 viewers, up 22% from the previous high last month (157,000 viewers for the week of November 4th).
Finally, some focus on the UFC. The finale of The Ultimate Fighter last Saturday drew 1.129 million viewers for the main card and 938,000 viewers for the prelims, the second and fourth most-watched UFC telecasts on the network. Those prelims were up a whopping 150% over the average preliminary card that has aired on FS1 (375,000).
Just more evidence that it's going to be live events that drive FS1's ratings as they inch forward in their battle for recognition.
