The UFC’s first pay-per-view preliminary card broadcast on ESPN got a huge bump in viewership courtesy of the Duke vs. Virginia college basketball game.
Nielsen numbers pegged UFC 234’s prelims averaging 1.34 million viewers on ESPN, and a 0.53 rating in the 18-49 demographic, good for third among all Saturday cable programming. Virginia vs. Duke, featuring two of the top-five teams in the nation and Duke superstar Zion Williamson, topped the ratings with a 1.05 and an average of 3.3 million viewers. The debut of Alliance of American Football and the NBA thriller between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Houston Rockets was notable competition at the same 8 PM ET timeslot.