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2008-05-04 02:54:03
Is "The Ultimate Fighter" In Trouble?
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The UFC will always have a special place in their heart for the "Ultimate Fighter". This was the show that propelled the promotion from underground popularity to a full-fledged international phenomenon.
While the rest of the UFC's business is doing extremely well right now (live gate receipts, merchandise, PPV revenues), the ratings for their "Ultimate Fighter" show are falling off at an alarming rate. For a company that is "in negotiations" to have a show on a major television network, this has to be a fairly worrying statistic.
Dave Meltzer, in an article on MMA Junkie, reported that the rating for the April 30th "The Ultimate Fighter" show was just a 0.91. This is down substantially from previous seasons. When you compare the ratings from the first four "seasons" of the show compared to this current seventh season, you can see a very substantial drop-off.
Season 1 did an average of a 1.6 rating (not including the finale). Season 2 was 1.4, Season 3 was 1.7, and Season 4 was a 1.2. The fact that the April 30th episode of the show did a 0.91 rating has to be fairly alarming to the company, as this was the show that helped to "make" the UFC in the first place.
The UFC have tried to liven up the show this year by introducing the concept of "fighting your way" on to the show. Instead of 16 fighters automatically qualifying to appear on the show, 32 fighters appeared on the first episode and were told that they had to win a preliminary fight in order to stay. This created a temporary spike in interest which has rapidly worn off.
The problem that the UFC has is that "The Ultimate Fighter" is used to promote upcoming PPV bouts. If ratings continue to fall off then there will be less viewers that are made aware of PPV events, which is where the promotion makes most of their money.
Many people are finding that the show is becoming stale. The UFC, as mentioned, have tried to liven up the show a bit, but there is only so much that you can do without completing altering the show.
In the end, business is business, and if ratings continue to tumble then you can only assume that SpikeTV will do something about it. The last thing that the UFC wants or needs is to have their "Ultimate Fighter" show cancelled, so you can likely expect more changes in the show as we head towards the eighth and ninth seasons.
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