The UFC is drawing large audiences to Fox Sports 1. Though the network averaged only 380,000 viewers in primetime, it recently drew 2.75 million for a live UFC match.
The all-sports cable network, which is only a year and a half old, has access to the mixed martial arts organization's live fights and shoulder programming rights as part of an eight-year Fox deal that runs through December, 2019.
UFC has made a huge contribution to our ratings and growth as a network, says David Nathanson, general manager and chief operating officer of FS1. It's a sport and a partnership that continues to grow and pay dividends for us.
And Nathanson adds that the network's UFC telecasts are opening the eyes of many advertisers, including some major marketers like Samsung and Reebok.
In January, the Fox Sports 1 UFC Fight Night match between featherweights Conor McGregor and Dennis Siver drew 2.75 million viewers, making it the most watched UFC event ever on FS1 but also the most watched mixed martial arts event on ad-supported cable since Dec. 2009.
On the nights when the UFC conducts pay-per-view events, FS1 televises all the preliminary bouts and four UFC preliminary telecasts in January averaged 977,000 viewers, up 90% from the January 2014 average of 515,000 viewers.
A women's bantamweight division match between second-ranked Miesha Tate and third ranked Sara McMann drew 1.5 million viewers, including 925,000 in the 18-49 demo.
Two of the most watched UFC postfight shows in FS1 history both aired in January, drawing 459,000 viewers and 318,000 viewers. And UFC Tonight, the network's weekly primetime show, averaged 150,000 viewers in January, up 178% from January 2014, when it averaged just 54,000.
All of that UFC viewing helped FS1 increase its January primetime viewing by 37%.
In total, under the programming rights agreement with UFC, Fox broadcast network televises four main events a year. In two of those instances, the preliminary bouts also air on Fox broadcast. In the other two, FS1 airs the prelims prior to the main event on Fox.
FS1 carries 11 UFC main event bouts and the preliminaries, while sister net Fox Sports 2 carries five main events and their prelim bouts. FS1 also televises 11 pay-per-view prelims, and two prelim bout telecasts will air on general audience cable network FX.
FS1 also airs two seasons each year of The Ultimate Fighter reality series, which follows athletes that train to compete for a UFC contract.
The depth of athletes in the UFC enables us to offer quality matches every month of the year, Nathanson says, adding that the live matches draw a young, educated, high-income and predominantly male audience.
While the network is right now getting a large percentage of viewers for its UFC programming, its Big East college basketball telecasts this season are up about 25% in the 18-49 demo, Nathanson says.
FS1 has already begun its NASCAR season coverage with some shoulder programming and Daytona 500 Speedweeks practice coverage, and on Thursday, Feb. 19 at 7 p.m. it will televise the Budweiser Duel at Daytona, the qualifying races that determine the starting positions for the drivers in the Daytona 500 on Sunday, Feb. 22. On the big race day, FS1 will televise the Victory Lane postrace show.
This summer, FS1 has another opportunity to expand its audience when it televises 30 2015 Women's World Cup matches from Brazil, including all eight in the round of 16, two quarterfinals and one semifinal match. Fox has broadcast rights.
There's no doubt that the Women's World Cup can draw enormous audiences and the U.S. women's team is in a position to attract a large following, Nathanson says. This will be the first opportunity for us to wrap the flag around our network and the sport.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
31/08/2025
Legrand | AV, a global specialist and industry leader in audiovisual solutions, returns to CEDIA Expo 2025, taking place Sept. 4-6 in Denver, with a powerful li...
31/08/2025
Global media technology company Backlight will unveil new capabilities in its Iconik, Wildmoka, and Zype product lines at IBC2025 (booth #1.D09), September 12 1...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
The UFC is drawing large audiences to Fox Sports 1. Though the network averaged only 380,000 viewers in primetime, it recently drew 2.75 million for a live UFC match.
