Ratings Report: UFC Vegas 23 averages down from first ABC card, ONE Championship debuts with 196K on TNT
The latest UFC card on ABC failed to live up to the ratings for the debut show back in January but overall still gave the promotion a solid number for a Saturday afternoon.
According to the Nielsen Ratings System, UFC Vegas 23, which was headlined by a middleweight fight between Marvin Vettori, drew an average of 859,000 viewers with the card airing at 3 p.m. ET.
The debut card that saw former featherweight champion Max Holloway earn a five-round decision win over Calvin Kattar in the main event averaged 1.22 million with a similar time slot.
Overall, the UFC has not found as much success on network television with a pair of daytime shows on ABC compared to the ratings received when the promotion was airing events on FOX. Of course the biggest difference so far has been the two UFC shows have aired during daytime hours versus primetime on FOX, which is typical for viewing numbers on television.
The UFC Vegas 23 prelims on ESPN earned 377,000 average viewers with that broadcast starting at noon ET.
Both the prelims and the main card were also simulcast on ESPN+, which is a subscription-based streaming service and those ratings are not made available publicly.
Meanwhile, ONE Championship had its first taste of American ratings during primetime hours after the Asian-based promotion debuted with the ONE on TNT 1 event this past Wednesday.
The card featured former UFC champions Demetrious Johnson and Eddie Alvarez in two of the three featured bouts that aired at 10 p.m. ET in the United States with the card actually taking place in Singapore.
The ONE on TNT 1 card averaged 196,000 viewers over the course of the two-hour broadcast after All-Elite Wrestling served as a lead-in to the show with 688,000 average viewers for that broadcast.
ONE Championship will have three more cards airing in primetime in the United States in April starting with ONE on TNT 2 this Wednesday with a lightweight title fight between Christian Lee and Timofey Nastyukhin headlining.