Brock Lesnar may be the pay per view king but he has once again failed to deliver when it comes to attracting viewers to Spike TV. The season debut of The Ultimate Fighter 13 posted a 1.0 household rating with an average of 1.5 million viewers. This was just short of the Season 12 average of 1.6million which has to be very disappointing given the expectation going in that Lesnar would bring additional viewers to the show.
This however is not quite the surprise that many are portraying it has as previous Lesnar hype specials have underperformed when compared with the level of business the pay per view they were promoting went on to do. It may be that Lesnar’s fanbase is more casual than the average UFC headliner’s and therefore his fans are less likely to watch UFC programming other than the big fights. Equally the change in start time and the lack of a UFC lead-in may have dented the rating as well. Either way in a vital year where its television deal with Spike is up for renewal the UFC will be hoping that viewing figures start to build from this low base.
