While ominous clouds gather, there might - might - be some life left for at least one last hurrah:
As reported in Part 1, the average viewership was 9.0% with a peak of 13.4% during the Akiyama-Minowa match.
Sasahara stated, "These are not numbers we can be optimistic about. The end of the year is when MMA attracts the most attention and we should be able to pull good numbers on that day. I want to think of an event that will bring us good numbers for NYE."
In other news, Japanese media is reporting the live attendance as 20,929. Compared with DREAM.5, with an attendance of 11,986, it showed reasonable growth.
However, a number of reasons could be behind this - the fact that 6 was held near Tokyo while 5 was held in Osaka, the holiday Tuesday on which DREAM.6 was held, it being the finals of the tournament, a stronger collection of matches made for Japanese fans, the end of summer, etc.
Sasahara's comments, and the fact that a number of matches are being talked about (Sakuraba vs. Tamura, Akiyama vs. Yoshida, Fedor vs. Ishii or Kharitonov, etc.), do hint that DREAM should at least survive through NYE, and there is speculation that the contract with TBS ends at year-end, so the numbers from one more televised event may convince TBS to continue with DREAM.
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