UFC 171 prelims numbers are out, and while they were down from the average due to a late change in networks (moving from FS1 to FS2), the change still provided some relatively decent numbers for FS2. MMA Payout reports the average viewership numbers at 305,000. They received a 0.56 rating in the adult 18-49 demo and 0.90 in the male 18-49 demo.

College basketball was the bigger winner of the day on FS1, with it's two broadcast games garnering 702k and 680K viewers for the Big East and Pac 12 tournament finals, which aired at the same time as the prelims. To give our readers some perspective, I'm including a link to Saturday's TV By The Numbers for comparison purposes.

The takeaway from this is that after several watered down, sometimes boring cards, we finally get a good one, with an absolute barn-burner in Rick Story vs Kelvin Gastelum and it's only seen by 305K people. Historically, if the prelims had aired on FS1, it stands to reason that they would have drawn stronger numbers than the basketball tourney finals did. The outer limits of FS2 have proven to be a black hole of desolation for viewership numbers, so the decision makers may want to rethink any future cards airing here.