UFC Vegas 24 produces highest Fight Night ratings on ESPN in 2021, ends Saturday as No. 2 program on cable

UFC Vegas 24 wasn’t the most star-studded event, but the card still managed to finish at No. 2 overall for cable ratings this past Saturday.

The card headlined by former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker and Kelvin Gastelum ended the night with 953,000 average viewers on ESPN after the event started at 10 p.m. ET. The preliminary broadcast that kicked off at 7:24 p.m. on ESPN pulled in 879,000 viewers on average and that was good enough to close as the No. 3 rated program across all of cable on Saturday.

Overall, the UFC Vegas 24 card was No. 2 behind only the NBA basketball game that also aired on ESPN earlier in the day with the event also earning a .36 share in the coveted 18-49 year old demographic.

As it stands, UFC Vegas 24 is the highest rated Fight Night card for the UFC on ESPN so far in 2021, besting the two previous cards that aired on the network so far this year.

The ratings have to be viewed as a massive success for the UFC, especially considering the competition on Saturday night where the event was going head-to-head with the Triller Fight Club pay-per-view featuring Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren in the main event. That event sold over 1 million pay-per-view buys with the card running simultaneously opposite the UFC with only the main event ending slightly ahead of the mixed martial arts promotion.

The UFC has continued to produce consistent ratings on ESPN for both the dedicated Fight Night cards as well as the pay-per-view prelims.

The next major card to air on the network will be the UFC 261 prelims on Saturday night with the early prelims airing at 6 p.m. ET followed by the regular prelims at 8 p.m. ET with welterweights Alex Oliveira and Randy Brown meeting in the featured bout ahead of the pay-per-view.