UFC 232 Prelims peak at 1.46 million viewers for Andrei Arlovski vs. Walt Harris

By Chris Taylor - January 5, 2019

Early indications suggest that last weekend’s UFC 232 pay-per-view event in Los Angeles was a success in terms of sales.

Andrei Arlovski

While early estimates for the pay-per-view portion of the card are still being gathered, the ratings and viewership for last Saturday’s UFC 232 televised prelims were very strong.

The four-fight televised preliminary card included a lightweight contest between MMA legend BJ Penn and Ryan Hall, a featherweight contest between Megan Anderson and Cat Zingano, a bantamweight bout between Peter Yan and Douglas Silva de Andrade, and was headlined by a heavyweight fight between Andrei Arlovski and Walt Harris.

Cat Zingano

The UFC 232 televised prelims averaged an impressive 1.15 million viewers. Those ratings were the second highest of the year falling short to only UFC 229’s Conor McGregor vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov prelims.

The UFC 232 prelims peaked at 1.46 million viewers during the featured heavyweight bout between Andrei Arlovski and Walt Harris.

The news comes from MMAFighting’s Dave Meltzer who shared the following information.

“The prelims peaked at 1.46 million viewers for the Walt Harris vs. Andrei Arlovski fight, the last UFC fight on any FOX network for at least the next five years.

No pay-per-view estimates are out this early, but going in, it was expected to be the second largest of the year behind only UFC 229. Good ratings usually lead to large pay-per-view numbers.

The best predictor for pay-per-view numbers are Google searches, and the show did 2.4 million, a number in the range of what Jones’ previous fights with Daniel Cormier did.

FS 1 was second on cable during its time period, and ranked second among everything on both cable and broadcast networks during that time period overall among viewers 18-34, as well as all key men’s demos under the age of 50.

UFC on FS 1 trailed only the Alabama vs. Oklahoma football game which was a ratings monster, averaging 19.4 million viewers head-to-head.”

UFC 232 took place from The Forum in Inglewood, California. The fight card featured Amanda Nunes defeating Cris Cyborg via first-round knockout to become the promotions first ever women’s “champ champ” and included Jon Jones defeating Alexander Gustafsson to capture the UFC’s vacant light heavyweight title.


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Andrei Arlovski UFC UFC 232