UFC 250 prelims land at No. 2 overall for Saturday cable ratings but last among PPVs for 2020

The UFC 250 prelims ended up at No. 2 overall in cable ratings for this past Saturday night, but the card ended up dead last among all the pay-per-views for 2020 thus far.

According to the Nielsen Ratings System, the UFC 250 prelims averaged 775,000 viewers over the four-hour broadcast from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET.

The UFC 250 prelims earned a .29 rating in the coveted 18-49 demographic, which was good enough to take the No. 2 spot overall for the night with the CNN/Sesame Street Town Hall event getting the best ratings for cable programming on Saturday.

While the second-place finish among all cable programs is good news for the UFC, the overall ratings for the show didn’t perform nearly as well as the promotion’s other pay-per-view prelims this year.

The second lowest rated was the UFC 249 prelims in May with 1.154 million viewers on average.

Now there are a few notes attached to the lower ratings for the UFC 250 prelims.

First, the show ran for four hours, which can typically result in lower average ratings for the entire card. A usual UFC pay-per-view prelim broadcast runs for two hours from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET.

Second, the UFC 250 prelims were simulcast on ESPN+ and those ratings are not available so that could have easily added more average viewers over the four-hour broadcast. UFC 249 faced the same issues for that card in May.

The highest rated UFC pay-per-view prelim this year came January at UFC 246 with the card averaging 1.767 million viewers. That pay-per-view featured the return of Conor McGregor.

The next UFC pay-per-view prelim card will air on July 11 as the promotion kicks off a series of shows on “Fight Island.”