Well, it is an significant increase for that prime time slot from 3-4 % to 7.5%, almost double.
It is simply a new reallity.
MMA numbers are in significant dropping & decrease all around the world. In USA too, UFC and Bellator also, numbers are nothing like 10 years ago.
What Quadros and Rutten called the fastest growing sport on planet 15 or 20 years ago, seems to have allready reached it´s zenith.
At first MMA was something new and interesting to general public, since that kind of free and brutal combat and fighting was never seen on TV before, but over time it proved that general audience, families, women, children, seniors do not want to watch intensive violence on TV, and they rather watch something else. There is also saturation with many promotions around the world. At the end of the day, MMA became a niche sport with small precentage of interested audience around the world who are actually interested and follow it.
So numbers that PRIDE had 15 years ago with world´s best fighters in most attractive divisions HW and LHW while the sport was in it´s growth phase and new sensation, should really not be expected today.
Sold out Saitama with more than 30 000 audience on NYE, and 27 000 in september, with multiple millions watching on TV, and solid interrnational interest indicate that significant audience and fan base exist for RIZIN, who like to watch something different than cage and unified rules.
We should hope that RIZIN will rise, grow and establish itself over the years, increasing quality and size of roster, and number of events, and keep ring and PRIDE/RIZIN rules japanese version of MMA, that is unique and different from american cage version that can be seen in the rest of the world, alive and present on the important scene.