As the years go by, Mixed Martial Arts is becoming more and more popular. The sport’s main stage is the UFC, i.e. the biggest and most popular promotion that has been around for almost three decades.
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UFC boasts the world’s greatest fight library. Not only do the main cards in the promotion have some of the best fighters in the world, but the preliminary cards also often have some great fighters and former champions.
While the UFC’s main card pay-per-view numbers are undoubtedly massive, the pay-per-view numbers for the preliminary cards are also no less. Here are the statistics :
2021 UFC PPV prelims averaged 999.7K viewers. Doesn't incl ESPN+ figs, the 2 events, 266 & 268, that aired on ESPNews, or early prelims. Also, didn't factor in when prelims began on a different channel. Ex, 259 was on ESPN2 for 17 mins. For this, only used the 103 mins on ESPN.
The prelims alone hit almost a million views. This is great news for the UFC and it is definitely only the start, as the UFC will undoubtedly want to eclipse these numbers in 2022.
2021’s main cards also resulted in an insane amount of traffic for them. UFC 257’s Dustin Poirier vs. Conor McGregor 2 boasted a buy rate of 1,600,000 buys. (Source: Tapology)
Dana White on UFC’s success
Dana White shared his happiness on the success that the UFC has had this year. In an interview with ESPN MMA, he said, “You know what’s incredible? The most incredible thing is, every year, we beat the year before. We’re still doing it.”
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When is the next UFC event?
The company’s next event (UFC Vegas 46) will be on the 15th of January 2022 at a TBA location. The maiden event of 2022 will feature a featherweight bout (Calvin Kattar vs. Giga Chikadze) in the main event. Muslim Salikhov will take on Michel Pereira in a welterweight bout in the co-main event.