UFC 109 Prelims on Spike Boom

We are now getting the numbers from the prelims on Spike TV this past Saturday and they are very good. This very well could lead to more pay-per-view buys for future events. My only question is why did they not do it sooner?

UFC 109 Prelim fights on Spike TV pulled in an average of 1.7 million viewers this past Saturday. This is an increase from all the previous Prelims shown on Spike which started at UFC 103. The average number of viewers for each event are as follows:

UFC 103: 1.4 million
UFC 104: 1.4 million
UFC 106: 1.3 million
UFC 108: 1.5 million
UFC 109: 1.7 million

The Prelims have been gaining steam and of course many viewers are those that already planned on purchasing the pay-per-view. The question is how many of the 1.7 million did not have plans to purchase the event and ended up doing so after watching the free fights on Spike?

Obviously the more exciting the Prelims are the more the casual viewer will be likely to purchase the main event pay-per-view. This leads me to my next question.

Why was this not done sooner? Many MMA fans have voiced their displeasure about buying the pay-per-event and not seeing the Prelim fights. It makes sense to show these for free. As the UFC is seeing , they will pay off in the long run.

I expect to see the numbers continue to rise a bit before leveling off. I also believe we will see these fights on Spike lead to higher buy rate numbers. For the time being we will just say congratulations to the UFC and Spike TV