The Ultimate Fighter Season 15 Discussion Thread

[No More Sorrow]

Ratings for the first weeks show ware in

The heavily promoted season debut of "The Ultimate Fighter: Live" averaged a 0.95 household rating and 1.3 million viewers on FX.

MMAjunkie.com (UFC blog for UFC news, UFC rumors, fighter interviews and event previews/recaps | MMAjunkie.com) today confirmed the ratings information with industry sources.

Despite a new format and 16 live elimination-round fights during a super-sized two-and-a-half-hour run time, the "TUF: Live" debut fell short of the two million viewers Spike TV averaged for the first 14 "TUF" season debuts.

"TUF: Live" debuted this past Friday, March 9. With UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber serving as coaches, and with UFC president Dana White and UFC broadcaster Jon Anik taking the hosting duties, the show kicked off the series' new live format.

The first episode saw 32 UFC hopefuls whittled down to 16 official lightweight cast members following a slate of one-round fights. Beginning this week, the show will feature pre-taped content (such as training and in-house drama) that is followed by a live fight. The series is filmed in Las Vegas, which is home to the fighter house and UFC Training Center.

The series recently moved to the FOX-owned FX after seven years and 14 season on Spike TV. Most recently, the "TUF 14" debut earned 1.5 million viewers. The series' biggest season, "TUF 10: Heavyweights," debuted with a staggering 4.1 million viewers.

With the series' move to FX, Spike TV is now counter-programming the live shows with "The Ultimate Fighter Fridays," which features past episodes of the show. This past Friday's counter-programming efforts netted Spike TV an average of 653,000 viewers.

 

[Troy]

The two and a half hour run time would have hurt the ratings. It is tough getting people to remain tuned in for that long and if the show was only an hour long I am sure that the rating would have been a fair bit higher. We should start to see the true audience figures from this week onwards since I assume that the shows will be one hour each now.

 

[No More Sorrow]

Just got done watching the second episode of the show, they chose teams to start off and i thought that Urijah ended up with the better team. Because Urijah won the coin toss he chose to pick the first fight of the season and he chose James Vick (Team Cruz) vs. Daron Cruickshank (Team Faber). Also I felt bad that Mike's dad had passed away but it was nice of Dana to let him go to the funeral and come back to the show once he was all set.

Anyways the fight between the two, James Vick is a tall fucking dude 6'3 and is skinny as hell comes in with a 4-2 record. Daron is shorter but a little more muscular and is carrying a 10-2 record.

James Vick wins the fight in what i consider an upset, with a nasty fucking knockout Daron caught a knee right to the side of the head and he was down for awhile after that knee. Really good stuff, and it being live really added to this fight i think.

There was some production issues it seemed like though at the end of the fight, you could hear the producers talking in the background when they were supposed to be on commericial and for some reason it never cut out to the commercial not a big deal though.

They also announced the fight for next week, which was Justin Laurence(Team Cruz) vs. Cristian Marcello(Team Faber) Overall, i thought the show was good this week. The interaction between all of the fighters was good and Urijah and Dominick got into it a little bit. Looking forward to next weeks show.

 

[Slim]

I missed it this week. I dunno I just don't really feel into it this time around.

 

[No More Sorrow]

It's only two shows in, but I'm really into the show this season. I don't know if it's because of the live fights or just the quality of fighters involved in the show but it's enjoyable compared to previous seasons i think.

 

[Slim]

I dunno about me. I started in season 8 and been watching ever since. But probably one of the main reasons is cause I really wanted to see Wandy and Vitor coach and I can't see that. Its like... consolation prize to me seein Faber and Cruz.

I'll try to catch an episode and maybe that'll change my mind.

 

[No More Sorrow]

Well you'll be able to catch the show on UFC.com but still i get what you mean. Definitely check this one out next Friday though you won't be disappointed.

 

[Dale]

Just got done watching the second episode and I must say that with it being live, it really seems to add another dimension to the show. Can't really explain it but it just feels raw and I really like it.

Was really surprised to see Vick win aswell as Daron was looking real comfortable on his feet and starting to tee off while Vick didn't really return anything nor did he seem to use his long range. I think Daron can count himself unlucky that he caught that knee and i'd have expected him to gone on and win that fight pretty comfortably. Obviously there's a lot of time now between Vick's next fight for him to improve but i'd fully expect to see him get blasted because to say he was primarily a stand up fighter, he didn't really show anything at all.

 

[No More Sorrow]

Also, i noticed that Dominick Cruz let Urijah Faber pick who he wanted to be in the fight next week when Cruz was supposed to make the choice, I'm not sure if he just messed up because it was live or whatever but it was funny. Either way Cruz eventually picked because Urijah seemed confused and couldn't pick who he wanted right when he said it.

Even Dana was like Wtf are you doing?

 

[Troy]

I ended up catching the fight and I have to say that Cruickshank was unlucky to lose, he dominated the fight and got caught by a lucky knee from Vick. I don't think that Vick was even trying to go for that, Cruickshank went in for the takedown and kind of just fell right into that knee. Was a perfect hit in the end because he was out cold right away. Vick is going to struggle to go far on his current skills but this is a good chance for him to train with top guys and get some proper coaching.

 

[No More Sorrow]

Here's the ratings for this weeks show.

MMAJunkie has confirmed that the episode drew 1.1 million viewers in its second installment, a slight dip from the numbers pulled in by this season's debut episode. The TUF 15 premiere, which saw the original thirty-two cast members whittled down to sixteen, pulled in an audience of 1.3 million.

The numbers so far are consistently lower than the average pulled in by fourteen prior seasons that aired on SpikeTV and significantly lower than the audiences of three million predicted by UFC president Dana White.

 

[Troy]

Did Dana really predict that TUF would get three million viewers for each episode? That is ambitious for a show on a new network.

 

[No More Sorrow]

They've got that 18-34 male demographic, who aren't home on Friday nights usually. A lot of people are likely recording on DVR's and stuff. They used to be on Wednesday nights, which i didn't mind really but Friday night television can be tricky.

It's still decent numbers, but It's better to see them rise rather than fall from week to week. Another thing to take into consideration, is Spike TV. They counter program FX with there own UFC stuff on Fridays now while The Ultimate Fighter is live.

 

[Troy]

Yeah Friday nights doesn't seem to be a good night, Smackdown has been down ever since it was moved from Thursday to Friday and that is probably hurting TUF. I wonder why they went with a friday night instead of the normal wednesday night.

 

[No More Sorrow]

Not sure it might have been conflicts with other TV shows on FX, So they just settled for Friday. The Ultimate Fighter is the only show i watch on FX so I'm not too familar with their line ups.