nah. Even with no Brazilian (in the past) it was super popular

MK8

I'm an avid follower of the sport and there's no signs of it slowing in Brazil. The newest season of TUF Brazil had monster ratings, and UFC shows are still selling out in Brazil at a crazy rate.

If anything maybe its not as popular in your area but there's very little quantifiable evidence of the sport as a whole slowing down in Brazil.

monster ratings? I think you should change your sources. Anyway, let's wait for results of june NPD

Yes monster, many episodes averaging over 12 million viewers, maybe you should check your sources ?

http://www.mmafighting.com/2014/5/1/5669414/wanderlei-silva-blames-editing-process-on-brazilian-chael-sonnen

"The reaction in Brazil, where as many as 12 million viewers have seen the show in certain weeks on Globo, even though it doesn't air until after 11 p.m., and often after midnight onSunday nights, has been the big surprise.  It also airs on Fight Pass on Sundays in the rest of the world."

*Sigh*

Can't believe we even have to adress this... but... here goes.

http://www.vgchartz.com/preorders/41784/USA/  EA UFC Preorders= 47,480 with 4 weeks left.  We don't know the XBone numbers, but we do know that they'd be less than 29K as the game didn't chart.  With an optimistic 28.5K (the max possible for the game not to chart) we have just about 75K.  With four weeks left to go, Mario Kart 8 had about double that. 

Oh, and at this point before launch, Undisputed 3 had 92K on XBox and 80K on PS3.  First two weeks sales were about 450K according to VGChartz #s.  Going by that ratio, we would somewhere around 250-300K from June 17th-30th. 

The best selling sports games on PSonex4station is Madden.  First month sales of both versions totalled about 400K.  Those were launch titles so they didn't have the install base  in their favor, but they had the benefit of being launch titles.   We're also using 4 weeks instead of 2 to help balance things out. PS4 version had about 80K preorders 4 weeks prior to launch.  XBox One was <60.  Those were full months, not abbreivated months.  They were also holiday months.  To have a chance, UFC would have to be the biggest sports titles on the XBoner4.  Going by preorder ratios, we'd have sales of about 250K or so.

Ok, so there were launch games?  Fine.  Let's look at the show for PS4.

The show sold 160K US in its first two weeks.  If we buff that number up to account for XBOne numbers, we'd get something like 280K accounting for the fact that games have been selling better on the 4.  The show had 31K preorders at this point.  So, if we assume sales of EA UFC would be proportionate, an estimate based on preorders would be about 372K. 

For the sake of another comparison, Infamous 2nd Son had about 220K preorders at four weeks from launch.  So, assuming the maximum possible number of preorders for the uncharted XBone version, that means UFC has about 1/3 of the preorders of infamous.  If we assume 1/3 the preorders means 1/3 of the sales, that would lead to about 180k for the PSFortyOne SKUS of UFC.

For comparison's sake, Infamous sold about 480K in its first two weeks.  UFC would likely have to sell 4/5 as well to have a reasonable chance of beating out MK. 4/5 as well with 1/3 of the preorders seems unlikely unless the preorder figueres are not even in the ballpark of reality.

So that gives us a pretty broad estimate of the expectations.  It's a pretty broad estimate, 200-380K seems like a reasonable one.  That would not seem to me to be enough to take out Mario Kart, but, let's look at that too. 

 Pikmin 3 in its first month (I'm assuming NPD runs from the first to the 30th of the month), sold about 137 K.  Tropical Freeze about 175K.  Super Mario 3D World about 418K.  All of those games had relatively the same number of preorders (87K for Pikmin and about 100K for each Mario and DK).  Mario had a holiday boost.  MK8 is about triple those games in preorders.  So about 400K-430K would be a conservative estimate ignoring the factor of bundles.  Two days of sales however will be cut off.

To compare Mario Kart 8 to some non Nintendo games, we'll go back to Infamous.  Infamous has about 330K preorders heading into launch week compared to 280K for MK.  About 84%.  If we assume that Mario Kart has 84% of Infamous's first month sales, we'd have 472K.  If we instead use 70% (to account for the 2 days of sales in May), we have 394K. 

Mario Kart 7 first month sales were about 1.3 million.  Preorders were about 423K.  Using that ratio we'd have 840K sales for MKate.  Using a hardware ratio instead, the 3DS had 4.1 million sold at the end of the year.  The Wii U has sold 2.67. If we assume the games have a roughly equal attach rate, first month sales at about 650K. So, a range of 650K-840K.  Holidays play a factor in this as well.  If we assume holidays double sales, we'd have a range of something like 325K-420K.    That being said, the figure of 325K seems exceedingly low for a game with 280K preorders.  Assuming the VGChartz numbers are worth anything (which they may not be), 350K would seem like the most pessimistic estimate within the realm of possibility.

So yeah.  I threw out a whole lot of numbers there.  Just giving a variety of perspectives based on preorders, past entries in the franchise, preorder figures, and install bases.  No one estimate can really incorporate all of the factors (and none of them facored in hardware bundles).  But through our various estimates, it seems that a good guess for MK June sales would be 400-500K.  A best case scenario would be about 6-700K.  A worst case scenario would be 300-400K.

To beat that, UFC would have to sell about as well as Infamous and UFC Undisputed 3 did in their first weeks did to have a good chance of beating out Mario Kart.  That seems very unlikely given the relative number of preorders, and in the case of Undisputed 3, the relative install base.  At the same time, we'd need the worst case scenario numbers for Mario Kart of less than 400K.  That would mean that we'd need Mario Kart 8 to vastly underperform compared to games with similar preorder figures, underperform compared to similar entries in its franchise relative to install base, and not receive any benefit from bundling.

So, we've learned 2 things today.  1, your prediction is silly.  2, having  insomnia sucks.

Maybe you should double check your sources.  Dave Metzer is not exactly known for journalistic integrity.  He's more of a wrestling guy usually, and is considered a tabloidish kind of guy. 

Monday Night Football tends to average about 13-14 million viewers according to Nielson (http://variety.com/2013/tv/ratings/espns-monday-night-football-finishes-season-at-three-year-highs-1201000469/).

So... if you're telling me that a reality show that airs past midnight (according to the same article) has 12 million viewers or so... I would have a few questions.

1.  Why is this show airing at around midnight if it's drawing those kinds of numbers?  Or do Brazillians just watch so much TV that 12 million viewers is no big deal?  Cause that's about as popular as America's number one sport.

2.  Does that figure seem to make sense? Does any source more reliable than Dave Metzer with no backing evidence confirm this?

3.  Is the Ultimate Fighter Brazil bigger than actual MMA fights in the US? http://www.cagepotato.com/good-to-know-the-20-most-watched-mma-fights-in-us-history/

4. Do these figured make sense?

Bro research my friend,

Yes it averages between 10 - 12 million an episode here's more sources

Yahoo Sports

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/wanderlei-silva-s-bizarre-heel-turn-on--tuf--offers-cautionary-tale-to-veteran-fighters-233510372-mma.html

Also the fact that you are shocked at these numbers show you don't follow the sport. You ask if TUF is bigger in Brazil than MMA in America. Yes, there is zero debate on that. Brazil is utterly massive and UFC draws 19 - 20 million viewers reguraly.

UFC 147 - 20 million

http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2012/6/25/3116442/report-ufc-147-seen-by-20-million-brazilians

http://www.cagepotato.com/mind-blown-ufc-147-draws-over-20-million-viewers-and-16000-fans/

http://www.mmamania.com/2012/6/25/3116490/ufc-147-attendance-20-million-fans-globo-tv

UFC 148 - 19 million 

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1254211-ufc-148-anderson-silva-vs-chael-sonnen-draws-19-million-viewers-in-brazil

The event with Wanderlei vs Chael coming up who are the two coaches on TUF Brazil 3 is believed to be viewed by 20+ million in Brazil according to early estimates.

UFC in Brazil is incredibly massive.

The figure of 12 million again is given without source.  As the language is similar and the date is so close, the source may be Metzer's article.  

The only sort of source for 12 million viewers is Dana White himself.  That was only the debut, and Dana didn't seem too sure.  

“It was actually 12 (million). I’m happy,The problem is down in Brazil is for some reason, I don’t know what the deal is, but networks won’t give out the ratings. They won’t tell you what the ratings were, so we know, but most of the other people have to figure it out.”

This figure was 2 years ago.  I'm not sure if the timeslot or anything else has changed. It's very common (here in the northern part of the Americas at least) for shows to take a significant hit in the ratings after debuts. Other sources put the figure at 8 million.  In any event, I'm not sure how you came to the point that many episodes average more than 12 million viewers.  That's a huge leap in logic.

That's especially confusing due to the fact that you're using present tense.  A more recent article comes from about a year ago.

http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2013/4/30/4285946/ufc-report-ultimate-fighter-brazil-cancelled-nogueira-vs-werdum-mma-news

In this article they claim viewership is around 1 million per episode.  Certainly makes more sense for a show airing at a midnightish time slot.  The number is hard to confirm, but UFC's response was telling.

"The information is inaccurate," officials said in a statement sent toMMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). "The Ultimate Fighting Championship and Globo are happy with this successful partnership, which includes broadcasts of a few of the UFC's main events and exclusivity for the reality show in Brazil."

TUF was not cancelled, but the statement still tells us something. Now, IF TUF was actually scoring ratings in the realm of 12 million, why not say something like "Dude, you guys are fucking crazy.  10 million viewers a week mother fuckers.  Why would they cancel it?!"

Then let's combine what we know with a healthy dose of common sense and logic.  You can correct me if I'm wrong, but 12 million would be huge numbers in the US and I'd assume it would be huge in Brazil too.  Like I said, that's what Monday Night Football averages, and Monday Night Football has been the number one rated show on cable for eight years. http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2013/12/26/espns-monday-night-football-cables-most-watched-series-for-eighth-straight-year/224949/

So, I don't see how a show that airs at 11:00PM to midnight with rumors of cancellation (even if untrue) in a country with a smaller population than the US would see those kinds of ratings.  It just doesn't make sense unless Brazillians watch WAY more TV than US, and, from what I've heard, we Americans are pretty solid in the TV watching category.  Don't believe everything you read on the internet.

As for the UFC numbers, I don't know enough to comment.  I wouldn't doubt that it's more popular in Brazil than the US, but I would of course question if the popularity gap was so massive that a reality show featuring mostly amateurs in Brazil would consistently CRUSH actual pro fights by such a large ammount.  

Going to have to go with Mario Kart since it appeals to more people than UFC.