A look at the TUF 9 Finale Ratings

In the aftermath of The Ultimate Fighter 9 Finale the UFC has been promoting their ratings by comparing them to MLB and the U.S. Open.

the main event, got 663,000 viewers in the male 18-34 demographic -- the demographic that advertisers covet most -- compared to 384,000 for the U.S. Open on NBC and 184,000 for Major League Baseball on Fox.

Overall the event pulled in 2.2 million viewers. This finale was also the top rated since the TUF 6 finale.

There are couple of things about these comparisons. First, I wasn't aware 18-34 year olds watched golf (play golf maybe, watch golf definitely not) or that the U.S. Open depended on that demographic to make money. I thought the predominate golf watching demographic are the types who are cashing Social Security checks. Personally, the U.S. Open comparison seems incredibly disingenuous. Then comparing the TUF 9 Finale to a regular season baseball game on Fox also doesn't seem like a telling statistic. Look there are  2,430 baseball games every year. Comparing a sporting event, like the UFC, which holds approximately 16 events a year, to a single regular season game out of two-thousand, is not an accurate reflection of the interests between the two sports. No self respecting statistician would use that comparison.

Fightlinker also bursts the bubble on some of the propaganda surrounding just how successful the UFC is when compared to other sports.

It's not just their attendance which averages much better, but they have so many more games ... across all the teams, there are over twelve hundred NHL games per season. The UFC still has to do the travelling circus game to keep interest high enough for people to shell out a few hundred bucks for tickets to the ~20 events they're doing this year. Every hockey team plays 42 times at their home arena over 7 months and most are still selling more tickets than the UFC, which still gives away a few thousand tickets per event when their sales lean more towards 10,000 than 15,000.

Just to put the overall TUF 9 finale ratings in perspective real quick Jon and Kate Plus 8 pulled in 2.9 rating in their last episode, before their special announcement, and that was considered a poor showing.