UFC on FOX Results: 5 Ways the UFC Can Improve Ratings for UFC on FOX 2

Original estimates put the first UFC on FOX card on a mediocre 4.64 million viewers for last night’s event, headlined by the heavyweight title fight between Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez. Those numbers have since been disputed by another report indicating that the number is actually closer to 5.7 million.

This is a huge discrepancy, and obviously, the correct number will give us a lot of information about just how successful the first UFC on FOX event was, but either way, the UFC and FOX were likely hoping for better numbers.

As Dana White has repeated many times, this is just the beginning of what is a long-term deal with FOX. In fact, according to him, last night’s event wasn’t even part of the deal. That’s right, a heavyweight title fight was pretty much just an appetizer. We won’t be served our main course until 2012!

It appears as if the first event was a success, but the UFC and FOX still have some things to improve upon on for their next fight card. If they can complete these five steps, they should see their ratings rise significantly for UFC on FOX 2.

5. A Full Fight Card

As stated before, the first UFC on FOX event was actually not even part of the deal between the two parties. Velasquez-dos Santos was simply set up to be the beginning of the relationship, almost a show of faith from the UFC to FOX, showing them that they are willing to put a potentially huge-money pay-per-view fight on free television for the network.

Unfortunately, somehow, this potential 25-minute fight led to there only being one bout on the one-hour long broadcast. Even a very important and obviously expected-to-be extremely entertaining fight between Clay Guida and Benson Henderson didn’t make it onto the main broadcast in the United States.

It is believed that the UFC will have a more full-length fight card in the future, but we won’t really know what is going to happen until it is officially announced.

Velasquez-dos Santos lasted just over one minute, and it sure would’ve been nice to have at least one other fight on the card.

4. Better Advertising During Other Sports

The FOX network is among the leaders in just about every major sport. Of course, the biggest of these is their relationship with the NFL, whose games the network hosts multiple times each week.

FOX can’t be blamed for not advertising the first UFC on FOX event—they did—the problem is that they just didn’t seem to do it enough in the prime-time hours when potential “casual” MMA fans might have been watching.

As for the advertisements themselves, as fun as they were, they didn’t really capture the magnitude of what the fight meant to the UFC. They only vaguely mentioned the fight being for the heavyweight title, but why not also mention that dos Santos is 7-0 in the Octagon? Why not mention that Cain Velasquez is coming off of a victory over Brock Lesnar? Grab the fans’ attention!

3. Pre-Show and Preliminary Fights on an Actual Channel

If you’re anything like myself or thousands (perhaps even millions) of people who tuned in for the pre-fight festivities, you were probably wondering the same thing that we were...

What the hell is “Fuel TV?”

Fans were supposed to tune in on Fuel TV to watch the red carpet event, a channel that most people had never even heard of, let alone watched in the past. In fact, the largest cable TV provider in the United States, Comcast, does not even offer Fuel TV.

If they’re going to do this kind of thing in the future, the UFC and FOX need to make sure that they make the product available to as many fans as possible. Why not just put it on FOX? Or at least on FX?

Throw us a bone!

2. Don’t Have UFC on FOX 2 on the Night as a Pacquiao or Mayweather Fight

The UFC probably won’t admit that boxing is a direct competitor, but the reality is that UFC on FOX 1 being on the same night as a Manny Pacquiao fight could not have been good for ratings.

As we saw last night, even though Pacquiao vs. Marquez was on pay-per-view and Velasquez vs. dos Santos was on free TV, the boxing contest still dominated trends on Google and Twitter after the events were over.

Of course, the controversial nature of the outcome from the Pacquiao-Marquez fight probably played into that a bit, so it’s not necessarily completely accurate to say that people cared more about the boxing fight than they did the MMA fight. Still, the free vs. pay-per-view aspect should have played a bigger role than it did.

Certainly the UFC doesn’t want to come right out and say that they are scared of competition, but it would be smart to try to avoid putting a UFC event on the same night as a Pacquiao or Mayweather fight in the future.

1. Have Bigger a Household Name in the Main Event

As I mentioned in a previous article this afternoon, Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez certainly became bigger stars tonight after their battle in the main event at UFC on FOX. However, if we’re being completely honest, neither of these two fighters were even in the top five among the biggest stars in the UFC coming into Saturday night.

Yes, the heavyweight title was on the line. But if it wasn’t, how much would casual fans have really cared about this event?

It’s great to get these two young stars on the map, but if the UFC wants immediate return on investment, they might be wiser to put a more established star in the main event.

If Velasquez and dos Santos did 5.7 million viewers, just imagine what a fight between Georges St-Pierre and Nick Diaz, Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen or Brock Lesnar and...well, anyone...would’ve done!

I’m certainly not trying to complain about the Velasquez-dos Santos fight because it was very entertaining while it lasted, but the ratings could have been better if there was a different main event involving a fighter or two that more fans had some knowledge of.

Be sure to stay tuned to Bleacher Report for all things UFC on FOX. B/R is your home for post-fight analysis of the Cain Velasquez vs. Junior dos Santos fight card. Also, be sure to check out our fight card hub page for news and opinion on the entire UFC on FOX fight card.