UFC owner Lorenzo Fertitta not concerned with dip in ratings for UFC on Fox 3, says it's still a learning process

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

The UFC's third event on Fox saw a massive dip in ratings from their previous two ventures on network television. In fact, the Nate Diaz vs. Jim Miller-headlined card was the lowest rated MMA event on network television, behind the Strikeforce and EliteXC events on CBS.

However, despite a poor showing against a lot of competition on Saturday night, the UFC is far from panic mode in reaction to the ratings.

"Would we like to see the numbers be trending differently? Yes, of course," UFC owner and CEO Lorenzo Fertitta said in an interview with Yahoo! Sports. "But we're not concerned and we don't think it's an overall reflection of our business. There are reasons for it. If you think about it, for the first [Fox] fight we had a massive amount of promotion within the NFL on Fox. And we led with our big show, the heavyweight championship, so of course, we were going to draw a much broader range of viewers."

"The fight in January in Chicago actually performed pretty well, even though it was a little below the first one. It was still super solid. This last show, I'd say it was a moderate performance. Really, what we're looking at is, 'How did we rank within the competition compared to what was going on that night?' And in hindsight, going on Cinco de Mayo may not have been the best thing to do."

The event on Saturday night went up against Floyd Mayweather's return to pay-per-view against Miguel Cotto, the NBA playoffs, Cinco de Mayo, and the largest movie opening ever with The Avengers, which broke records with over $200 million at the box office for the weekend. While there are certainly things the UFC could have done differently for the third event, Fertitta still attempted to spin the numbers into a positive.

"If The Avengers did [a box office of] over $200 million for the weekend, unfortunately for us, there were a great number of our potential viewers sitting in a movie theater somewhere," he said. "Or, they were out that night celebrating Cinco de Mayo. Listen, I'm not trying to make excuses. Hats off to HBO and Bernard Hopkins. That's a great job and a great number they pulled. But when you say, 'Are we concerned,' I'd say no. We're excited."

"We had a situation where 2.5 million people, which I would say is still a substantial number, got to see what I would say was a tremendous product," he continued. "All four fights were great fights and in the main event, Nate Diaz showed he's potentially a breakout star who down the road could move the needle for us on pay-per-view. The playbook is playing out for us exactly the way we wanted it to..."

"It's a learning process for all of us, but we're not at all concerned. We feel things are progressing according to plan and whatever issues we have are things that aren't insurmountable and which we can fix."

Penick's Analysis: The numbers were alarmingly low compared to other previous events on network TV, but there were a lot of factors that led into lower viewership on Saturday night. A lot of that was the UFC's doing and booking a main event fight that wasn't going to draw a massive audience in general, let alone against the other entertainment options on that night for their demographic. But as Fertitta says here, the issues they have aren't insurmountable, and they can fix them, now we'll just have to see whether they're willing to recognize what some of those issues are on their end.

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