UFC on ESPN 10 lands at No. 1 for cable ratings on Saturday night, prelims in top 20

UFC on ESPN 10 may not have been the most star-studded card in history but the event still managed to land at No. 1 for all of cable programming this past Saturday night.

According to the Nielsen Ratings System, UFC on ESPN 10 averaged 908,000 viewers over the three-hour broadcast. While there were several shows that actually had more average viewers on Saturday, the UFC broadcast was tops in the coveted 18-49 demographic with a .33 rating with the next highest show pulling a .29 rating.

The main event featured Cynthia Calvillo winning a unanimous decision over Jessica Eye in a flyweight bout.

UFC on ESPN 10 averaging 908,000 viewers puts that card right at seventh place out of 10 total events dedicated to ESPN. The top-rated show of all time remains the debut card featuring Francis Ngannou against former heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez, which averaged 1.463 million viewers.

The rest of the top five on cable on Saturday was filled out by news network broadcasts on CNN and FOX News.

The most recent show on the network — UFC on ESPN 9 — averaged 1.021 million viewers with a main event that featured former welterweight champion Tyron Woodley against Gilbert Burns.

As for the prelims, that part of the broadcast landed at No. 16 in cable ratings for Saturday with 551,000 viewers over two hours from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

It also must be noted that the UFC on ESPN 10 card was simulcast on ESPN+, which is a subscription based service so those viewership numbers are not added to the Nielsen ratings report.

The next UFC on ESPN card goes down this Saturday night with Curtis Blaydes facing off with Alexander Volkov in the heavyweight main event.