LOL...resorting to fabrications, distortions of statistics again in a desperate attempt to malign MMA?
You would do Kid McCoy proud...
The most watched North American MMA bout of all time was Kimbo/Thompson which had 7.21 million viewers in the United States. Factoring in MMA's other major markets it probably reached say 9-11 (and 11 would be
very generous) viewers across the world at best (I'm not sure how it was distributed in Canada for example). In fact, of the most watched North American MMA bouts, the top 10 virtually all fall within 2008. That's not surprising... 2008-9 was the current peak of MMA in North America with it finally reaching Network TV, something that since the EliteXC collapse has looked unlikely to happen (although things may change with the UFC purchasing Showtime). It may be worth looking at the fighters that caused these spikes: of the top 10 most watched bouts 8 were on two cards headlined by Kimbo which also contained Gina Carrano (both of which undoubtedly pulled in viewers) and two took place on the Tito/Shamrock free-to-air card (which also happen to be the only two not to fall in 2008). Considering Kimbo is basically gone from MMA, Shamrock has been relegated to the minor leagues, Gina is only
just making her return (and it's up in the air as to whether she stays long term or not) and Tito has basically lost his drawing power that's a lot of the stars responsible for MMA's growth gone with no-one stepping up to replace them.
Of course, "most watched" lists generally exclude PPVs and considering MMA is a PPV business in North America it would be unfair to simply dismiss them. The most watched MMA PPV of all time was UFC 100 in 2009 which drew about 1.6 million PPV buys. Since then no other PPV card has come close with the highest others generally only just breaking the 1,000,000 mark. Of the 3 PPVs since that have broken the 1 million buy mark 2 have been headlined by Lesnar. Factor in there his length absence from the cage and that his current absence may or may not become an enforced retirement. Cain has shown little of the same drawing power; his bout with Lesnar had less viewers than Lesnar's bout with Carwin and his bout with Nog headlined one of the UFC's worst performing shows in that period. Notably the last year contained two PPV's (UFC 125 and UFC 119) emanating from the US which failed the break 300,000 buys, something that hadn't happened since UFC 56 in 2005, the same year that the original Ultimate Fighter came out (it's worth noting that other cards failed to break 300,000 including UFC 110, UFC 127, UFC 89 and UFC 85 but these all happened outside the US (Australia for the first 2, the UK for the second two and so with tape delay and theI like I thought it unfair to include them). Also look at how the drawing power of the UFC's biggest stars have diminished as well; GSP used to regularly get a million+ PPV buys during that 2008-9 heyday but since UFC 100 he's yet to break that 1,000,000 figure... despite having a season of TUF for one bout and the mass hype about the UFC's stadium show and a stacked card for UFC 129.
Then factor in TUF ratings being down from their average (even excluding the Kimbo effect) despite including Brock...
And that's just North America...
Let's take a look at MMA's other most well known market, Japan.
In Japan's most watched ever MMA match around
35 million tuned in to watch Krazy Horse take on Ken Kaneko. That figure is a little distorted due to Kaneko being a celebrity so if we go for pure MMA matches that
didn't feature a tv personality then Rulon Gardner vs Yoshida has around
33 million viewers. Still too celebrity? Yoshida vs Ogawa had around
32 million viewers. Still too celebrity? Saku vs Akiyama had around the same amount. That's without including the mixed rules JLB vs Sapp bout or any of the K1 Kickboxing bouts that took place on mixed shows.
Now?
Now Dream and Sengoku basically have to beg to even be allowed on the air because their ratings have collapsed so much. The bottom has absolutely fallen out of the Japanese MMA market and even if MMA in the US was growing instead of at best plateauing and falling at worst it wouldn't make up for how much it has disappeared in the Land of the Rising Sun.
That's without getting into issues such as domestic MMA in the UK still having not recovered from Cage Rage's collapse in the wake of EliteXC's passing etc etc.
MMA went through a huge growth spurt, in Japan in around 2003-2005/6 and in the US from around 2006-2008/9. Since then Japan has collapsed, EliteXC fell apart (and their huge TV ratings with it) and the UFC has essentially plateaued at best in popularity. Less people are watching MMA now than they used to... how can that be translated into any way other than MMA being less popular than it was a few years back.
Which happily, is exactly what I said...
Yes, MMA is clearly flourishing...
Wait... MMA is less popular than it was a few years back?
How can that be?
:icon_chee
