Ratings Report: ‘UFC 183: Silva vs. Diaz’ Edition

‘UFC 183: Silva vs. Diaz’ was a pay-per-view success, and it’s preliminary card drew well on FS1 as well.

Ratings expert Dave Meltzer broke down Saturday’s numbers for MMAFighting.com.

Check it:

“…nearly two million viewers tuned in for the Miesha Tate vs. Sara McMann fight.

The fight delivered 1,992,000 viewers, the largest number for a prelim fight before a pay-per-view on Fox Sports 1. In the arena, based on crowd reactions and anticipation, it appeared Tate vs. McMann was the second biggest fight on the show and Tate was the show’s third-biggest star.

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While prelim ratings don’t always correlate with pay-per-view buys, more often than not a strong audience for the prelims is going to translate into a similar level pay-per-view. The earliest indications are that UFC 183 will fall short of UFC 182, with the Jon Jones vs. Daniel Cormier light heavyweight title fight, but will finish well ahead of every other show since UFC 168, likely falling between 600,000 and 700,000 buys. That would be one of the highest totals in company history for a show that didn’t include a championship match. With two shows in the month, it will likely wind up as the third-most pay-per-views buys in a calender month for the UFC, trailing May and July 2010.”