Republican National Committee chairman Joe Gruters said more people watched UFC Freedom 250 than the Super Bowl, a claim questioned because the event streamed exclusively on Paramount+ doesn’t come close to the Super Bowl’s audience reach.
A claim landed with the blunt force of a political soundbite: Republican National Committee chairman Joe Gruters said he “think[s] more people watched [UFC Freedom 250] than watched the Super Bowl.”
The setting for UFC Freedom 250 only added to the confusion. The event was staged on the White House lawn, and the idea that it could rival, or surpass, the Super Bowl’s viewership has immediately run into a numbers problem.
Paramount+ is the exclusive platform for UFC Freedom 250. Yet Paramount+ doesn’t have enough global subscribers to match the Super Bowl’s audience size, which makes Gruters’ comparison difficult to square with how streaming reach typically stacks up against broadcast juggernauts.
Gruters’ remarks were highlighted by Drew Lerner of Awful Announcing, who pointed to the mismatch between Paramount+ subscriber reach and the Super Bowl’s much larger viewership.
The deeper tension behind the statement isn’t only about a single UFC card. It comes from a broader discomfort with how claims get treated in a post-truth. post-sanity. post-democracy environment—where. as the writer of the reaction notes. events can be accompanied by “alternative facts.” The reference goes back to the 2017 inauguration crowd. described as being inflated with the help of “alternative facts. ” and it frames Gruters’ UFC-versus-Super-Bowl comparison as something that belongs to a universe where audiences can be rearranged with words.
Whether people take Gruters’ line as a miscalculation or something else. the central fact remains the same: UFC Freedom 250 aired exclusively on Paramount+. and Paramount+ does not have enough global subscribers to come close to the Super Bowl’s audience. The claim therefore collides directly with the scale of reach implied by the comparison.
UFC Freedom 250 Joe Gruters Super Bowl viewership Paramount+ White House lawn
UFC on the White House lawn sounds kinda cool tho.
I don’t buy that. Paramount+ is not even everywhere and the Super Bowl is like, everyone’s grandma watching. Unless they’re counting like 12 guys in a bar as “the country.”
Wait so he’s saying more people watched UFC Freedom 250 than the Super Bowl… but it was on Paramount+ only? That math ain’t mathin. Maybe they added up all the replays from people who “watched” it later on their phone while also streaming something else. Still sounds like PR spin.
This is just like that other crowd thing where politicians said huge numbers but it was probably inflated. I swear they just say whatever makes their side look good and people move on. Also why would the White House lawn matter at all? Like the grass makes the ratings higher? I don’t get it.