Spike Officials Pleased with Bellator 360 TV Ratings
Bellator MMA made its Spike TV debut on Thursday night with a couple episodes of the new series Bellator 360.
The TV ratings for the first two episodes of Bellator 360 are in with the series premiere kicking off with 461,000 viewers, while the second episode drew 513,000 viewers.
The average of the two episodes clocked in at 487,000 viewers per episode.
Only time will tell how much of a success that Bellator is or isn’t on Spike TV, but those numbers are easily two to three times better than most of Bellator’s live events drew on its old television home MTV2.
Spike TV officials, however, are happy with the initial numbers.
“We drew just under a million viewers (in total) without heavy promotion,” Spike TV senior vice president of communications David Schwarz told MMAWeekly.com on Friday. “We are very encouraged by it… especially with the growth in the second hour.”
Bellator 360 is an original series highlighting the biggest fights in Bellator history, while previewing upcoming Bellator world title fights.
Thursday night’s premiere episode featured Bellator lightweight champion Michael Chandler reliving his submission victory over Eddie Alvarez, while looking ahead to his next title defense, slated for Jan. 17 against Rick Hawn.
The second episode rehashed Bellator’s middleweight class, and previewed the upcoming clash between Alexander Shlemenko and Maiquel Falcao, who battle on Feb. 7 for the vacant middleweight title.
Stay tuned to MMAWeekly.com for all the latest Bellator MMA news and updates.
