UFC Freedom250 may have had plenty of people talking, but Dave Meltzer isn’t buying the wild viewership numbers being thrown around.
During Wrestling Observer Radio, Bryan Alvarez brought up the fallout from the event and joked that he figured the numbers probably weren’t exactly Super Bowl-level. That opened the door for Meltzer to address the claim that Joe Rogan had heard the event pulled a monster audience.
Meltzer said Rogan claimed he had been told UFC Freedom250 did 150 million viewers on the first day and another 50 million viewers on the second day. Meltzer didn’t dance around his reaction.
“No, it’s wrong.”
Meltzer said there were no real public numbers to support that kind of claim. He then pointed to what he said was actually known about the event’s performance on Paramount Plus, noting that it was not even the top show on the platform in the United States that Sunday.
“There are no numbers. But the one thing and it’s funny that this hasn’t come out because it’s like it’s out is that on Sunday, this was in the United States, it was the number two show on Paramount behind Dutton Ranch.”
Meltzer also pushed back on the idea that UFC Freedom250 was anywhere near Super Bowl territory, especially after some people started comparing the event’s reach to massive historical TV events.
“The idea that like people are talking about like this beating the super bowl and this beating the moon landing and things like that. The moon landing, yes. Come on.”
The big issue, according to Meltzer, is that people were treating “downloads” like actual viewers. He said a claim was floating around that downloads were up 279% above an average Paramount Plus day, but he argued that still did not mean millions upon millions of people actually watched the event.
“The downloads of the show were 279% above the average day. So four times the average. Almost four times the average day of Paramount Plus. Now this is what the whole thing is, was so stupid. They didn’t mean the number of people who watched it more. Not at all. What they meant was the download.”
Meltzer compared that kind of number to inflated social media metrics, where clips, shares, short views, and platform activity can get rolled into one giant figure that sounds way bigger than the real audience.
“Whenever you hear that, when you don’t hear the rating and they say downloads or, you know, and often when it comes to that stuff, it’s just totally made up numbers.”
Meltzer also said people were passing around claims that UFC Freedom250 did 150 to 200 million viewers and beat the Super Bowl, but he said the math didn’t work. In his view, the event may have done well for Paramount Plus, but that is a totally different conversation than pretending it reached Super Bowl-level numbers.
UFC Freedom250 was always going to be a major talking point because of the names attached and the way it was promoted. Still, Meltzer made it clear he believes the giant viewership claims being pushed around are way out of line with what is actually known.
What do you think about Dave Meltzer shutting down the UFC Freedom250 viewership claims? Do you believe the event really pulled monster numbers, or are the totals being inflated? Sound off in the comments.
