Final Ratings: Fox Deportes Benefits From UFC; NESN Earns Season High For Bruins

The premiere of UFC on Fox last Saturday (5.8 million viewers) was a gain for the net’s normal audience in that time period, but Fox finished below ABC (aired Oregon-Stanford) and CBS for the night among total viewers. Fox also finished below ABC in the 18-34 demo. However, Fox did beat NBC in primetime, which had the Maryland-Notre Dame game. The UFC event also had positive returns on other Fox Sports media platforms. The pre-fight show on Fuel TV from 7:00-9:00pm ET averaged 83,000 viewers, marking the net’s top audience this year-to-date and best audience among males 18-49 since the net became nationally rated. Fox Deportes averaged 487,000 viewers for the Junior Dos Santos-Cain Velasquez bout, marking the best audience for any fight in Spanish-language cable history and the net’s best audience overall since a Chelsea-Manchester United EPL match on Sept. 18. On FoxSports.com, the UFC event marked the highest levels of activity outside of Super Bowls (Austin Karp, THE DAILY).

NOTES: CBS averaged 2.6 million viewers for Florida-South Carolina in the 12:00pm window last Saturday, marking the net’s smallest SEC football audience in at least the last five seasons. The game was below ESPN’s record-setting Nebraska-Penn State audience (5.4 million viewers) in the window, but did beat ABC’s regional coverage (2.4 million viewers)….Versus averaged 1.3 million viewers for TCU’s upset of Boise State last Saturday afternoon, marking the net’s most-viewed Mountain West Conference game ever and third-largest college football audience overall....Golf Channel averaged 667,000 viewers for last week’s Australian Open event, which saw Tiger Woods leading the event after two rounds. That audience marks the net’s second-best audience for a non-PGA Tour event this year, behind only the European Tour’s Dubai Desert Classic last February. The four-round average is also up 273% from the comparable Australian Masters in ’10, a tournament in which Woods also played…. NESN earned a 5.3 local rating for the Devils-Bruins game on Tuesday night, marking a season high and the third-best regular-season Bruins rating ever for the net. Bruins games on NESN are averaging a 3.9 rating, up 46% from the same point last season (Karp)....Over 7.1 million Canadian viewers "watched some CFL playoff action" during the opening round last weekend. TSN and RDS combined for an audience "exceeding 1.6 million viewers" for the Tiger-Cats OT win over the Alouettes in the East Semifinal last Sunday, while the Eskimos-Stampeders West Semifinal "drew an average of 1.4 million" (CP, 11/14).

The chart below lists final Nielsen ratings from recent sports telecasts. All ratings listed are U.S. ratings.