Saturday night’s prelims before UFC 222 did 905,000 viewers on FOX Sports 1, and another 12,029 streaming, both major increases over the show three weeks earlier.
With the top pay-per-view matches being Cris Cyborg vs. Yana Kunitskaya and Frankie Edgarvs. Brian Ortega, the prelims topped the UFC 221 show headlined by Luke Rockhold vs. Yoel Romero by 30 percent in television viewers and 49 percent in streaming viewers
The streaming numbers were the second-largest ever for a UFC pay-per-view prelim show, trailing only UFC 217, the show headlined by Georges St-Pierre vs. Michael Bisping.
The numbers were almost identical to UFC 220, which also did 905,000 viewers and 11,009 streaming. But that was for, what was on paper, a far more attractive pay-per-view show, with the Stipe Miocic vs. Francis Ngannou heavyweight title fight and the Daniel Cormier vs. Volkan Oezdemir light heavyweight title fight. It’s also not far off from UFC 219, with Cyborg vs. Holly Holm, where the prelims did 914,000 viewers.
A key to the numbers may have been the UFC debut of Mackenzie Dern, since her fight with Ashley Yoder was the high point of the show with 1,076,000 viewers.
Mackenzie Dern’s UFC debut draws most viewers on UFC 222 undercard
