Strikeforce Challengers Live Broadcast Draws Strong Ratings on SHOWTIME®

Lindland, Woodley, Bowling, Saffiedine and Healy all winners on SHOWTIME at Strikeforce Challengers 8 in Portland, OR

Roger Bowling scored a unanimous decision victory in his Strikeforce debut and was sponsored by Intimidation Clothing, makers of MMA apparel & clothing including Bowling's Strikeforce walkout t-shirt. Photo by Esther Lin

After a disappointing set of ratings for Strikeforce's Heavy Artillery earlier this month, Showtime and Strikeforce must have been pleased to see their numbers for Strikeforce Challengers 8 which took place on Friday, May 21st at the Rose Garden in Portland, Oregon. Featuring a main event with hometown hero Matt Lindland and rising stars Tyron Woodley, Roger Bowling and Tarec Saffiedine. The Strikeforce Challengers event drew an average rating of 249,000 with a peak of 294,000 viewers. In comparison, the Heavy Artillery event on May 15th which was headlined by Alistair Overeem's heavyweight title defense against Brett Rogers, drew an average of 308,000 viewers with a peak of 448,000. Considering the much heavier marketing around the Heavy Artillery event and the Saturday night 10 pm ET time slot (Challengers 8 had a Friday night 11 pm ET time slot).

To compare Strikeforce's Challengers events, Challengers 7 averaged over 300,000 viewers during a free trial of Showtime which opened the network to nearly 4 times the number of households. In an apples to apples comparison, Strikeforce Challengers 6 averaged approximately 150,000 viewers, nearly 100,000 less viewers than the Challengers 8 event.

Strikeforce returns to Showtime in June with two events including Strikeforce: Los Angeles on June 16 marking their first mid-week (Wednesday) event and Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Werdum on Saturday, June 26 in San Jose, California.