UFC on FOX 3 took place on Saturday night and was headlined by a terrific fight between Nate Diaz and Jim Miller. It was the third event for UFC to be broadcast on prime time on a major network and as usual, the company was hoping for big things with the national exposure.
Brent Brookhouse over at Bloody Elbow gathered the final ratings data for UFC on FOX 3 and the results aren't pretty. The event did a 1.6 in males aged 18-34, which is down 50% from UFC on FOX 2 and pulled in 2.4 million total viewers, which is down 48% from UFC on FOX 2.
The show was only No. 6 out of the eight network programs that ran at the same time as the event. To put things in perspective, UFC on FOX 3 pulled in about 34% less total viewers than the average 2012 episode of COPS, which normally airs in that Saturday time slot.
The main explanation for the dive in numbers is due to a lack of star power, but UFC will need to tread extremely lightly for UFC on FOX 4 in August, as networks have previously shown -- as they showed with EliteXC and Strikeforce -- that they are perfectly happy to drop an MMA promotion from their schedule at a moment's notice.
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