WEC 41 Ratings

by lovingmma25 on Jun 12, 2009 4:21 PM EDT Comment 23 comments

NEW YORK, N.Y. (June 12, 2009)—VERSUS, the exclusive television home of World Extreme Cagefighting® (WEC®), garnered a 1.1 national HH rating and was the top-rated cable network in the country among all key male demos for its live WEC telecast on Sunday, June 7, featuring the most-anticipated featherweight championship re-match in MMA history between Mike Brown and Urijah Faber.

The fight lived up to the hype and featured five full rounds of intense action in the cage with Brown proving to viewers that he is still the #1 featherweight fighter in the world. Faber, who broke his hand in the first round, battled it out until the very end, but without full use of both hands, Faber was unable to overcome Brown and win back his belt. VERSUS re-aired the entire Brown vs. Faber II fight card immediately following its live telecast on Sunday and, due to overwhelming demand from fans, twice again on Wednesday, June 10. In total, the bout was seen by more than six million viewers.

Great News for the WEC - Eugene add this to your charts.

http://www.tournamentguidemag.com/2009/06/brown-vs-faber-wec-title-fight-lived-up-to-hype/

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Woot. Here is the old one.

If I could only find WEC 40.

sweat sweat cause i'm a poisonous pill

by Eugene Schelfaut on Jun 12, 2009 4:27 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Eugene, it’s safe to say WEC 40 was below a .7 because that was the highest rated show in the top 15 that week according to a bunch of searches I did. Furthermore, Versus’s PRIMETIME average was 412,000 viewers during the week, so I doubt it hit a million, otherwise the average would have been higher. I would say it was around WEC 36 and 39’s numbers. But that’s a guess. Definitely below .6 – .7 I believe.

Follow my analysis of all things MMA on BloodyElbow.com

by Leland Roling on Jun 12, 2009 5:02 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Agreed.

I wrote below that Versus releases the ratings when they do well, if they didn’t, it means they did somewhere around the 0.5 mark. When you can’t find ratings, its probably not a good sign. Networks let you know right away if they did well. =)

by MMASuPreMaCy on Jun 12, 2009 5:05 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I looked for a long while, getting narrowly closer to the Nielsen release from that week. The highest rating in the top 20 was like .7 or .6. So, it didn’t crack that.

Follow my analysis of all things MMA on BloodyElbow.com

by Leland Roling on Jun 12, 2009 5:07 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yup, nice research.

by MMASuPreMaCy on Jun 12, 2009 5:24 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Or they have Meltzer float a 150,000 PPV number without ever substantiating it.

Oh I’m sorry, you said ‘networks’, not ‘Affliction’

by subo on Jun 12, 2009 5:45 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yup, I said networks. Good thing you corrected yourself.

by MMASuPreMaCy on Jun 12, 2009 6:00 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Nice.

sweat sweat cause i'm a poisonous pill

by Eugene Schelfaut on Jun 12, 2009 5:38 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

As per Pro MMA

World Extreme Cagefighting’s telecast of "Faber vs. Brown 2″ on Sunday, June 7, garnered a 1.1 national HH rating and made Versus the top-rated cable network in the country among all key male demographics according to a press release received by PRO MMA (promma.info) on Friday.

In Sacramento, Faber’s hometown and the fight’s location, the live telecast on June 7 garnered a 2.2 HH rating, making VERSUS the top-rated cable network in the city for the time period.

http://promma.info/index.php/2009/06/12/brown-vs-faber-2-attracts-more-than-six-million-viewers/

"My job is a decision-making job, and as a result, I make a lot of decisions." --George W. Bush, The Decider, Lancaster, Pa., Oct. 3, 2007

by lovingmma25 on Jun 12, 2009 4:30 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, I have no idea what happened to the WEC 40 ratings, can’t find them either.
You think it didn’t do that great since Versus didn’t release them.

by MMASuPreMaCy on Jun 12, 2009 4:54 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

A million less people watched WEC 35 than watched WEC 34, but the numbers still came out.

sweat sweat cause i'm a poisonous pill

by Eugene Schelfaut on Jun 12, 2009 5:19 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Some are released by Versus (good ratings), some are taken from Meltzer/MMA Payout, etc.
I am not sure who’s not doing their job here.
=)

by MMASuPreMaCy on Jun 12, 2009 5:23 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

It Did Well

Above a 1 rating but not as much as the 1.4 they got for WEC 34.
Airing at the same time as the NBA finals really hurt them though.

Their ratings should go back down to the 0.5 -0.6 range in the near future since Faber will be out several months after his hand surgery. With Pulver contemplating retirement, it looks like Torres, Brown, and someone like Aldo will have to carry the ratings for a while.

by MMASuPreMaCy on Jun 12, 2009 4:52 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

It appears that it competed well with the nba playoffs

"My job is a decision-making job, and as a result, I make a lot of decisions." --George W. Bush, The Decider, Lancaster, Pa., Oct. 3, 2007

by lovingmma25 on Jun 12, 2009 4:58 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Awesome.

It makes me smile that many people saw a card that good.

"I see him beating Anderson Silva. I see him picking him apart. Him at a 131 years old...(trails off)." - Tito on Belfort at Affliction:DOR

by Rundownloser on Jun 12, 2009 5:00 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Yup

Great card!

by MMASuPreMaCy on Jun 12, 2009 5:02 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I’ve been alluding to this for two weeks. It’s a hollow victory with the Faber loss. The WEC’s highest rated, most profitable events came with Faber headlining in home town Sacramento. He can’t headline every card, he got hurt, he can’t beat Brown and the WEC has no one else like him. The rest of chart is what the WEC is without Faber. Mike Brown isn’t getting a bump in viewership for this victories and Torres makes Anderson Silva look like a draw.

WEC doesn’t even get credit for building Faber, they just get credit for putting him on tv. The guy was already mega popular in NorCal before UFC management created the WEC.

by bignerd on Jun 12, 2009 8:22 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

No one cared about Faber until he fought Pulver so let’s stop the crazy talk there, WEC deserves all the credit for any fame or popularity for their fighters considering that until they got on Versus no one would think twice about who Urijah was.

by Raker on Jun 12, 2009 11:25 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Faber deserves all the credit for carrying the WEC, the evidence is right there in the graph above.

by bignerd on Jun 12, 2009 11:59 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

After Miguel’s amazing last fight, plus the fact he’s getting his face out more, and he continues to climb p4p lists, i only see the numbers climbing for his fights . I don’t see bowles as the right opponent but if aldo drops down as rumors keep hinting at the possibilty, then that could be hyped into something special.

by Corey N on Jun 13, 2009 1:25 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

WEC rules

The cards they put out have better fights than most UFC PPVs, and they are free! It makes me very happy that it is gaining popularity.

by Rob Borer on Jun 12, 2009 9:02 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I think many view the WEC fights in such high regard as they do because they are free. They are still great cards and I watch every WEC event, but if everyone had to pay 50 dollars for the card I don’t think everyone would still see it as so great.

by xDieseLx on Jun 13, 2009 12:59 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs