UFC Fight Night 98 was headlined by a lightweight division contest that saw Tony Ferguson defeat former UFC Lightweight Champion Rafael Dos Anjos by unanimous decision. The show's viewership, however, didn't reflect their classic bout.
The event drew an average of 860,000 viewers, which is below the average viewership for “fight night” events in 2016, that average is 932,000. One major reason that the numbers were below the average is that the Alabama/LSU college football game that aired on ABC was the second-highest rating NCAA Football game of the year.
The most watched fight on the main card was the opening bout, a women’s strawweight division fight between Alexa Grasso and Heather Jo Clark, which saw 997,000 people check in.
The preliminary card, which featured Erik Perez and Felipe Arantes in the top spot, averaged 668,000 viewers.
The pre-fight preview show featured an average of 245,000 viewers and the post-fight recap show averaged 323,000 viewers.
The only other major MMA event that weekend was Bellator 163, which became the second lowest rated event of the year from the promotion, averaging 507,000 viewers.
