Joe Rogan touted quite the viewership number for the UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House last weekend.
It's "bogus," though, according to critics.
UFC held its first-ever (and, according to president Dana White, its last) event at the White House in Washington, D.C. on Sunday, June 14. The fights were held on the lawn of the White House. UFC built a custom 4,000-seat arena with a canopy overhead, welcoming various fans, military members and celebrities.
However, while a lot of fans tuned into Paramount Plus, Rogan's number - 150 million people - is being shot down as false.
Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images.
Joe Rogan made the claim on his podcast.
“It is one of the most-watched sporting events in the history of the world. I don’t know what the total overall views are as of now, but I know that it was like well over, I think it was 150 million just by Monday. Just by Monday. So that’s like the night of and then people that watched the replay that weren’t there when the fight took place because they heard about it. But between then and now, now we’re dealing with Tuesday. It’s probably another 50 or 60 million people,” Rogan claimed.
Rogan's claim quickly shot down as 'bogus'
There's a difference between unique viewers - which is what TV ratings are - and "views," which can be counted as someone scrolling past a video on social media and not even really watching it.
"He's using whatever metric they use when they describe Power slap views. Dana will say that Power slap has gained 20 million views but that doesn't mean 20 million actual viewers, they just want it sound like it does," one fan wrote.
"Rogan referred to views (including replays, streams, highlights?) rather than unique live viewers or average audience. Paramount+ (the streamer) has ~79-80 million global subscribers. Views not viewership," one fan added.
Awful Announcing called out Rogan, too.
"You want to tell us the moon landing is fake, the earth is flat, or that ivermectin is the cure for every ailment known to mankind; that’s one thing. But don’t mess with our sports viewership numbers. That’s one alternative fact too far," they wrote.
Perhaps we'll never get the real number.
