That was an increase of 176,000 viewers from the promotions ‘Evolution’ show in December, headlined by Cung Le and Scott Smith, though still 60,000 short of the viewership for the Gina Carano Vs Cris Cyborg event back in the summer of last year.

Strikeforce On Showtime:

Strikeforce: Shamrock vs. Diaz 365,000 viewers
Strikeforce: Lawler vs. Shields 275,00 viewers
Strikeforce: Carano vs. Cyborg 576,000
Strikeforce: Evolution 341,000 viewers
Strikeforce: Miami 517,000 viewers

Strikeforce’s decision to give Herschel Walker his MMA debut certainly benefited the event in the days leading up to the fight, with a significant increase in media exposure being generated by the 47 year old star. It came at a price however, with Walker’s salary (which will be donated to charity) believed to be north of $100,000.

The Strikeforce event was counter-programmed by the UFC, who re-aired their recent UFC 107 event on Spike TV, pulling in 2.2 million viewers.

Throughout this week he has been talking to the media about the event which aired on CBS. Let’s first take at what he’s had to say, both before, and after the show aired on Saturday night.

Pre Fight Press Conference Interview with Ariel Helwani:

Key Quotes:

“The bar for success on a Saturday night really isn’t all that high, so if we can improve, say our male demographics a little bit, that’ll be a success.”

“We try to do a little better than our Saturday night average. Yeah it’s a real question mark. We hope for high ratings. I think the potential here is we should really have every MMA fan in the country watching this. On the other hand the question mark is – we don’t know how many people know about Fedor, outside the MMA hardcore fans. If we can peak a little interest hopefully we can make that into a slightly bigger audience than just MMA fans.”

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Post Fight Interview for Fox Fight Game:

Key quote:

“In the case of Fedor, we sell the myth, we sell the legend, and that was kind of the goal going into this…and we’ll see whether we’re successful or not.”

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After word of the early viewing figures were released on sunday, Kahl gave his reaction to the numbers and what they mean for CBS:

“Typically, we tend to get an older audience on Saturday night,” he said. “We know MMA is probably not your cup of tea if you’re in an older demographic, so that’s hardly surprising.”

“Demographics are the reason you put this sport on. You’re not putting this on to get a huge household number, you’re putting it on to try to tap into a younger audience, and it looks like we were successful doing that.”

Speaking of the ratings for the main event, which won’t be known until Tuesday he said, “We’ll hope for the best and re-visit and see if we can’t come back around and get another one of these scheduled at some point.”

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Though Kahl doesn’t give much away it’s clear from his pre and post fight interviews that CBS were not expecting astronomical viewing figures on Saturday night.  At the same there is a feeling that the viewing figures we have seen so far are at best, ‘OK.’

Tomorrows figures will reveal what happened after 11pm, which is when the main event took place.  As we discussed in a previous article, CBS focused the vast majority of their time in the lead up to the night promoting the main event of the evening, so the hope is that there will be a marked increase in the viewing figures for that time slot.

Just how much of an increase there is, if it all, will give us a clearer picture of just how marketable Fedor currently is in the US, and how likely Strikeforce are to have another opportunity to appear on CBS in 2010.

The site also notes that the show claimed, “a 1.7/6 rating share with adults 18-49.  It did win the 10pm-11pm hour with adults 18-49 and had better results with men 18-34 where it won every half hour.”

Of course the main event of the evening between Fedor Emelianenko and Brett Rogers will have drawn the largest number of viewers, and the information for the time slot between 11pm to 12pm when this fight took place will not be announced until Tuesday (Edit: See the final figures HERE).

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How does this rating compare with CBS’s previous events with EliteXC?

First EliteXC on CBS: Averaged 4.85 million viewers
Second EliteXC on CBS: Averaged 2.57 million
Third EliteXC on CBS: Averaged 4.56 million

First Strikeforce Event on CBS: Averaged 3.79 million viewers (remember: does not yet include the ratings for the main event!)

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Let’s compare the viewing figures for every half hour between the Strikeforce event and the first EliteXC event:

Strikeforce: Fedor Vs Rogers CBS TV Ratings (Nov.2009):

• 9:00 p.m. – Viewers: 3.50 million
• 9:30 p.m. – Viewers: 3.53 million
• 10:00 p.m. – Viewers: 4.12 million
• 10:30 p.m. – Viewers: 4.01 million

EliteXC: Kimbo Slice Vs James Thompson CBS TV Ratings (May 2008):

• 9 PM – Viewers: 3.38m
• 9:30 PM – Viewers: 3.66m
• 10 PM – Viewers: 4.68m
• 10:30 PM – Viewers: 5.53m
• 11 PM – Viewers: 5.84m
• 11:30 PM – Viewers: 6.51m

It certainly looks like it won’t surpass the figures seen on that night, but it was not expected to.  Fedor is a major star within the mixed martial arts community, but is not the sports top draw and does not have the crossover appeal of someone like Kimbo Slice (few, if any fighters do).

It does however already comfortably surpass the average of 2.5 million viewers who tuned in to see the weakest of EliteXC’s CBS cards, headlined by Robbie Lawler Vs Scott Smith, and that will be a relief to all involved.

All things considered this so far would appear to be a solid first outing for the Strikeforce promotion on CBS.