Is showtime, for business, put this shit behind the and move forward

ESPN was advertsing this, CBS during huge football games was advertising this, sports talk radio talked about this, and newspapers talked about how he is the Tyson or Ali of the mma worlds.

Plus every hardcore fan that comes on to sites like this pretty much made sure their friends watched him.

It helped that it was on free tv. If you told your friends hey spend 50$ to watch this guy fight because he is the best your friends probably looked at you like your fuckin insane but since it was free your friends decided to throw you a bone and watch this guy you ramble on about.

I have my doubts on how big his next fight can be. People in america for whatever reason have never really gotten into 2 foreigners fighting. Maybe Overeem can do better but Werdum would not surpass these ratings.

Nobody in the advertising business takes the overrun seriously on a network station.

The relevancy of the 5.5 million viewers watching Fedor is the exposure he got… Not really what he drew.

If you wanna know a more reliable number in the overrun look at the 18-34 demo and see how much that increased during the 11 to 11:15 frame and then you know what the relative number is.

But we can argue this is just one spin versus the other… CBS knows what this generated so they will make a decision accordingly – they don’t need to fool themselves.

Very solid , I’m very glad the sport is getting exposed with someone who is really one of the best ever (with all do respect to Kimbo Slice or Gina Carano). I hope all Fedor fights will be on CBS . Too bad there isn’t someone more interesting than Werdum though for Fedor , I thought maybe they could throw a Werdum vs Lashley for the title – that way if Werdum wins he comes from another “big” (at least rating wise) win and if Lashley wins then hey – it’s a fight that will sell . Right now I don’t really care if it’s Werdum or Lashley , I think both have the same chance of winning – zero. So if the fights have zero interest for the hardcore fans , at least please the casuals and give Lashley a chance by pitting him against Werdum.
Well , of course I’m saying all of this because I’m guessing Overeem ain’t gonna fight any time soon.
And if they do decide to put Fedor vs Werdum then put Lashley on that card. I know hardcore fans will frown upon this suggestion (no one wants a former pro wrestler with 5 fights to get a shot at one of the greatest fighters ever …AGAIN (Lesnar)) but my point is that I want as many people to watch Fedor as possible. A fight between him and Werdum or him and Lashley will have about the same “artistic” value , I’m sorry I just can’t see what on earth Werdum could do here against Fedor.

Any news on what UFC Main Events got for rating? The effect of counter-programming hasn’t been mentioned yet, and I’m curious to see if Spike got a ratings boost above their Saturday night average which could have been detrimental to the CBS ratings.

Note: I have no intent of using any information regarding counter-programming as an apology for Strikeforce’s ratings, nor do I think that would be a valid claim to make even if there was a measurable effect. It’s a competitive market, that’s the nature of the game, and both promotions need to work with that. I’m just curious if it’s a valuable strategy for the UFC, or they waste their time.

I think with the fight being exciting he would have done even better on a second show but not that he is out for so long that might kill the momentum

The Casual Fans are what will make-or-break this. If the Casuals thought Fedor was being handled by a scrub, which it kind of looked like he was getting beat on, they might think he sucks and got lucky.

People are going to argue that viewers tuned in for the news, but it’s an irrelevant point. The viewership numbers are an average from 11:00-11:15. If someone tuned in for the news and it wasn’t on, they’d turn the show off.

You’re reaching hard here, the idea that Fedor drew all of these people after they gimmicked his fight to go on after the 11 PM hour says all you need to know about the rating. If Fedor draws those numbers in the 10:30 to 11 PM hour then this is great news and something to celebrate but just like the Kimbo rating was inflated so was this one.

Even if I concede the argument you still have to put it in context, ok you got good ratings what now. Elite got great ratings and it didn’t help them do anything, SF payroll is massive as compared to what Elite was at the same point so how are they going to turn a “successful” show into a money making one like the UFC.

Until the can answer that, inflating your payroll and being at the mercy of Showtime and CBS ain’t doing anything for them that it didn’t do for Elite and we all know how that ended. Because in the end when you go all in like SF did on Fedor they better have the bankroll and longterm plan to make it work or they’ll be just another name on Dana’s tombstone and nothing that happend Saturday has changed that simple fact.

As a fan im glad this many people tuned in and hopfully Fedor can finally put some asses in seats but to say they people turning in to see the news means nothing is a streach. When the world series was on i would go to fox and wait for simpsons to come on and for that 15 mins i would see the game on and realize that nope no new cartoon and then turn off the station. Alot of people could have just left the fights on thinking “god i hope this crap is soon over i need my latest update on the H1N1” and who knows maybe they did tune in to see the fight but to say that it means nothing that the fight ran into the News time slot is a bit unrealistic

but how many people are actually regularly tuning into the local news on a Saturday night at 11:00pm?

I can see the argument for this being an issue on a week night when there’s a lot of coverage and news bits going on, but I feel like Saturday night local news is generally pretty tepid and I’m not sure how many people are actually tuning in, in droves to watch it.