UFC Fight Night: Hunt vs. Mir does 1,149,000 viewers, ninth best overall in FOX Sports 1 era

Even against the NCAA basketball tournament, UFC on Saturday night did strong numbers for its show from Brisbane, Australia.

The card, headlined by Frank Mir vs. Mark Hunt, did 1,149,000 viewers. It was the ninth most watched UFC Fight Night ever on FOX Sports 1. The prelims, with Alan Jouban vs. Brendan O'Reilly in the top position, did 766,000 viewers.

Both the main card and the prelims went head-to-head with basketball tournament games on TBS and TNT, with the night's marquee game, Providence vs. North Carolina, doing 4,055,000 viewers going against the end of the prelims and the first half of the main card.

The prelims and the first few matches of the main card went head-to-head with the NCAA Division I wrestling tournament from Madison Square Garden, which did 655,000 viewers, including a heavily promoted Kyle Snyder vs. Nick Gwiazdowski heavyweight final. The latter fight was considered the biggest heavyweight final since 1949, long before such events were on live national television. But the numbers were actually down from last year's tournament final, built around Logan Steiber going for his fourth NCAA title, which did 694,000 viewers.

The UFC Fight Night main card peak rating was 1,294,000 viewers during the latter stages of the Neil Magny vs. Hector Lombard fight.

The pre-fight show did 323,000 viewers, making it the fourth best number for such as show before a live Fight Night in the history of FS1.

The post-fight show did 386,000 viewers.

Digitally, this was the fourth most-watched UFC broadcast on FoxSportsGo.

With Saturday being the last UFC show of the first quarter, ratings for Fight Nights are up 13 percent from last year, even though last year's shows included a record-setting Conor McGregor vs. Dennis Siver show. The numbers are up 45 percent from two years ago.

All ratings are based on Nielsen Media Research.