UFC Fort Lauderdale didn’t exactly hit a home run in terms of preliminary viewership, but the sky isn’t falling.
On April 27, UFC Fort Lauderdale took place inside the BB&T Center in Sunrise, Florida. Headlining the ESPN+ card was a middleweight clash between Jack Hermansson and Jacare Souza. Hermansson won the bout via unanimous decision. The co-main event saw Greg Hardy pick up a first-round TKO win over Dmitrii Smoliakov.
UFC Fort Lauderdale Preliminary Viewership Revealed
The UFC Fort Lauderdale prelims brought in an average of 720,000 viewers on ESPN (via MMAFighting.com). The prelims were up against an NBA playoff basketball game between the Toronto Raptors and Philadelphia 76ers as well as an NHL Stanley Cup playoff game between the Boston Bruins and the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The ESPN2 portion of the prelims took in an average of 288,000 viewers. The secondary ESPN network aired the first three bouts on the UFC Fort Lauderdale card. The ESPN portion of the prelims was headlined by a heavyweight battle between Andrei Arlovski and Augusto Sakai. Arlovski lost the bout via split decision.
MMA News provided coverage of UFC Fort Lauderdale this past weekend. Peep the homepage for results, highlights, and all the post-fight goodness.