Bellator 74 on Friday night kicked off the promotion’s seventh season with TV ratings drawing an audience of 190,000 viewers, according to industry sources.
That’s up from the 163,000 that watched Bellator 73. It is also an improvement over Season 6’s opener, which drew 169,000 viewers.
Bellator 74 took place in Atlantic City, N.J., and featured all four quarterfinal bouts for the promotion’s new welterweight tournament. The opening round winners included former Bellator champion Lyman Good, former Dream champion Marius Zaromskis, Michail Tsarev and Andrey Koreshkov.
Bellator is looking to build as much momentum as possible as it prepares to leave its current television home on MTV2. Beginning in 2013, Bellator will air on Spike TV and begin cross-promoting with TNA’s Impact Wrestling.
Stay tuned to MMAWeekly.com for more Bellator news and updates.