The UFC White House card was already viewed as one of the biggest events in combat sports history, and now the ratings back that up.
On Thursday, Paramount+ — the exclusive broadcast partner for the UFC — released viewership numbers for the special event that took place on the south lawn of the White House. Across the U.S. and Latin America, the UFC White House card reached 17 million total viewers, according to Nielsen and Adobe Analytics.
The card marked the biggest exclusive live event in Paramount+ history with 8.2 million viewers on average across both markets. The full global numbers for the event are expected to be released next week by the UFC.
In the U.S. alone, the UFC White House card averaged 7 million viewers with another 1.2 million coming from Latin America. In overall viewership numbers, 15.26 million came from the U.S., with another 1.67 million in Latin America.
Following the conclusion of the show on Sunday night, UFC CEO Dana White said he spoke to Paramount CEO David Ellison, who was in attendance for the historic event, and said he was overjoyed by the early numbers for the card. Topping out at 17 million viewers across those two markets, including over 15 million viewers in the U.S. alone, is a huge win for the UFC and Paramount.
To put that in comparison with other marquee events from the past, the first-ever UFC card on FOX — headlined by a heavyweight title fight between Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos — averaged 5.7 million viewers in the U.S. and peaked with 8.8 million viewers.
That was the most-watched MMA event in U.S. history until the recent MVP MMA card headlined by Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano averaged 9.3 million viewers in the U.S. and peaked with 11.6 million viewers.
It must also be noted that Netflix has over 325 million subscribers globally, while Paramount+ has 79 million subscribers.
The UFC is in its first year of a seven-year, $7.7 billion deal with Paramount after the promotion moved there from ESPN. As part of the new broadcast rights deal, the UFC now airs every event — including the cards previously sold as pay-per-views — on Paramount+ at no additional cost to subscribers.
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