• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 6 hours ago

Was the UFC Freedom 250 on the White House lawn a big deal? Sort of.

Paramount says it tallied 8.2 million average viewers in U.S. and Latin America for the seven-bout card on its streamer Paramount+, with 7 million coming from the U.S. 

This is according to Nielsen and Adobe Analytics.

Looking more broadly at the number of viewers “reached,” the event, which ran live last Sunday, pulled in 17 million total viewers. 

Adobe data is census-based -- counting actual streams, video sessions and authenticated users from publishers' servers. 

Nielsen has traditionally used its 40,000-plus nationally based-panel for measurement. But over the past year, it has added in set-top-box pay TV data, and ACR data -- automated content recognition from smart TV sets. That measurement is now called Nielsen’s Big Data+Panel.

Overall, the result shows a healthy performance for a one-time sporting event. But was it Super Bowl-like ?No. Not yet, anyway, despite projections.

"We’re expecting Super Bowl-type numbers for this fight,’’ UFC CEO Dana White told UFC on TNT Sports, for the June 14 event.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio predicted “a billion people all over the world will be watching America celebrate its 250th birthday with the White House in the background and some of the best athletes in the world in that Octagon.”

Well, the U.S. 250th birthday is actually July 4. What was June 14? President Trump’s birthday.

Paramount says it will release a more complete picture of the event’s global data soon.  

In the U.S., the most recent Super Bowl LX in February took in 125.6 million average viewers.  

UFC needs a bit more to rise to a super level.