Sunday's Junior dos Santos vs. Ben Rothwell fight scored strong numbers, setting records for a live UFC afternoon show on FS 1.



The main card averaged 781,000 viewers, airing between 2 p.m. at 5:20 p.m. Eastern time. The UFC led FS1 to first place in viewership among all the sports cable networks in the time slot.



The audience was larger than several shows in 2015 that aired in prime time, as UFC ratings continue to be significantly up from last year's levels.



It was the most-watched UFC Fight Night show that aired outside of prime time on FS1 to date. It more than doubled the previous afternoon show one year ago that did 389,000 viewers, a show headlined by Chad Mendes' win over Ricardo Lamas. UFC had done three previous afternoon shows on FS1.

Dos Santos using his boxing skills to win a five-round decision in a battle of top ranked contenders. The main event peaked the rating in the bout's early rounds with more than 1 million viewers.



The prelims, without much in the way of marquee names, with Nicolas Dalby vs. Zak Cummings at welterweight as the featured fight, averaged 443,000 viewers from noon to 2 p.m. It was also the best prelims airing in that time slot thus far on FS1, beating last year's number of 304,000 for a similar time slot show by 46 percent..



The show did its strongest numbers with males between the ages of 35 and 49, which by percentage beat the 18-34 numbers by 75 percent and the numbers for those over the age of 50 by 50 percent. In the 18-49 demo, the male vs. female breakdown of viewers was 73 percent to 27 percent.



The pre-fight show did 119,000 viewers and the post-fight show did 310,000 viewers.