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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
The UFC's first year with Fox came with a number of growing pains, none of which hurt worse than The Ultimate Fighter's move to Friday nights on FX. Though by all accounts, Fox and FX executives were more than happy with the numbers the long-running reality show garnered on Fridays, the same couldn't be said for the UFC.
With the show experiencing all-time lows during its most recent 16th season, the UFC wanted to move off that night. That's just what they'll do in January, with the Jon Jones/Chael Sonnen-coached 17th iteration of the series coming to Tuesdays at 9PM ET. On Thursday, UFC President Dana White took full credit for the Tuesday night move, but thanked FX once again for sticking to their word on moving the show off a bad night for the UFC.
"That was me – 100 percent me," White said after the UFC 155 pre-fight press conference on Thursday (transcribed by MMAjunkie.com). "What I love about those guys is, and I've said this to you guys a million times – FX loved us on Friday nights. They're good partners and they promised me – they said, 'Let us try to build this Friday thing to where you'll be happy with the numbers, and if we don't, we'll move you to another night.' And they did. They kept their word. The Fox group, they're the best people in television to work with."
"I think that Tuesday nights are a better night for us. Tuesday nights at 9 o'clock (Eastern), we're leading into 'Justified' – I just think more of our people are home watching TV (on Tuesday) than there are on Friday nights at 10."
Penick's Analysis: The move to Tuesday nights will certainly help, and they'll probably get a slight bump from Jones and Sonnen as coaches, but there are problems with The Ultimate Fighter that won't be fixed with a new night and more well-known coaches. One of the main reasons there's been a steady decline of viewership for the show is a lack of true prospects coming through. The talent pool hasn't been producing fighters who fans want to see, nor is it producing fighters who are going to move towards the title picture once they get to the UFC. Because no one from the show's sixth season and beyond have legitimized themselves as title-worthy opponents - the lone exception being John Dodson with the introduction of bantamweights and featherweights to TUF in season 14 - fans don't have any reason to expect the next crop of fighters to be worth investing in. There's no incentive there. It's asking fans to commit time week after week to watch a bunch of fighters who don't necessarily belong on TV or on the big stage, and so fans have begun tuning out year after year. Until something changes to start enticing a higher level of fighter to the TUF house, this move to Tuesdays may only be a temporary fix to their ratings woes.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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