Going against a plethora of college football games, the prelims for UFC 203 on Saturday night did 870,000 viewers.



The number was fifth among the eight UFC prelims this year.



ABC, FOX, ESPN and ESPN2 all had major college games going head-to-head with the UFC broadcast totaling more than 14 million viewers. The UFC also finished behind a NASCAR Sprint championship race on NBC Sports Network that did 2,706,000 viewers.



The UFC number was notable because the show peaked strongly with the Jessica Eye vs. Bethe Correia fight, which did 1,374,000 viewers in the final quarter hour. The lower than average number for the two-hour broadcast from 8-10 p.m. was because of a low start, with the opening match with Jason Gonzalez vs. Drew Dober only doing 590,000 viewers.



If there is something to be gleaned from this, it's that if C.M. Punk brought a unique audience to UFC that night, for a large percentage tuned in at around 9:30 p.m., unlike with Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor's unique audience that was more likely to watch all five hours of the prelims through the pay-per-view.



The numbers were well up from a similar show last September, but that's to be expected since last September's pay-per-view was headlined by Demetrious Johnson vs. John Dodson. Overall viewers were up 31 percent, and the 18-49 demo was up 51 percent.



The pre-fight show did 289,000 viewers. The post-fight show on FS 2 did 88,000 viewers. The weigh-ins on Friday did 139,000 viewers.



The Nik Lentz vs. Michael McBride fight did 788,000 viewers and the Caio Magalhaes vs. Brad Tavares fight did 876,000 viewers.