UFC 196 had two late replacements in its main events. It had two tremendous upsets of its headliners. And it all added up to UFC 196 becoming the second-highest pay per view event in the company’s history. There was a lot of pre-fight buzz especially about Conor McGregor who graced the cover of Sports Illustrated in advance of the card.
UFC president Dana White announced that the event had 1.5 million buys putting it just behind UFC 100 which garnered 1.6 million. And White says people even bought the fight after the event to watch it again. White says there’s a chance that it could surpass UFC 100 when all of the final numbers are tallied, but for UFC 196 to do that well is pretty amazing.
And FS1 saw some incredible numbers for the prelim coverage. The prelims for UFC 196 averaged 1,843,000 viewers which is the second-highest viewership for such coverage. The previous high for an FS1 prelims show was UFC 194 in December which had 1,931,000 viewers.
For the weigh-in, FS1 averaged 358,000 viewers breaking a record for previous weigh-ins.
So UFC 196 certainly reasonated with fans and it resulted in some very good numbers for both the prelims and the pay per view event. White told ESPN Radio’s Max & Marcellus show that the fight captured people’s imaginations and it certainly brought eyeballs to the TV with people buying in almost-record numbers.
[Fight of the Night/MMA Fighting]
