The fight between Vitor and Hendo did not repeat Brazil's good audience performance in the USA. Photo: Buda Mendes/UFC
At the beginning of this week, the impressive numbers achieved by Rede Globo with the UFC Sao Paulo, led by the victory of Vitor belfort about Dan Henderson in the early hours of Saturday to Sunday, they attracted attention. However, the same did not happen in the North American market and the Brazilian event ended up losing the direct dispute to rival Bellator, held the day before and which saw the Brazilian lose the featherweight belt. Patrick Pitbull as the main fight.
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Bellator 145, which in addition to the Pitbull fight also featured a lightweight belt dispute between champion Will Brooks and challenger Marcin Held and the announcement of the fight between Royce gracie and Ken Shamrock for 2016, reached the mark of 814 thousand viewers on the “Spike TV” channel, a former Ultimate partner, with a peak audience of over 1 million people.
Already UFC Sao Paulo, which was broadcast on the “FOX Sports 1” channel, Ultimate's current partner on North American cable TV, recorded an audience that was almost 15% lower, with 722 thousand viewers following the fight night, which, in addition to Vitor's knockout, also was marked by the victories of Glover Teixeira e Thominhas Almeida by technical knockout.
The UFC's numbers, however, can also be explained by another factor: time competition. While Bellator ended up being the third most watched sporting event on Friday night, with no other significant opponent, UFC Sao Paulo went head to head against one of the biggest games of the year in college football, between great rivals LSU and Alabama, which was broadcast in the United States on the free-to-air channel CBS and whose audience reached an incredible 10 million viewers.
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