Affliction: Round Two

I’ll mail you a bottle of Frank’s Red Hot Sauce. I hear it really adds flavor to a foot.

You betray your own smugness.

The 300,000 buys for UFC 90 had to consist mostly of hardcore fans – those who will buy a PPV without names like Couture, Liddell, Lesnar, Ortiz, or Hughes attached to it. Those are the same people who will be buying the Fedor-Arlovski fight.

This card needs to garner only 2/3 or 66% of the UFC 90 audience to hit 200k. The promoters just need to make sure that they spend advertising money in the right spots – meaning on SpikeTV, during commercial for pro wrestling, maybe during NFL broadcasts, and billboards and the like in big cities (see: Times Square). Even if Affliction2 doesn’t break 200k, which I think it will, it will be a big improvement over the first show – at least in the 170k – 180k range. I’m still sticking with 200k, though.

But frankly, I think I’ll be skipping the day after this fight (which I plan on buying :-)

PPV’s sell based on the main events. People dislike Tim Sylvia but not in a I-hate-Tito-and-will-pay-to-see-him-get-beat way but more of a I-dislike-Tim-and-don’t-care-to-watch-him-fight type way. Also, the overall audience for MMA is much bigger now than it was in 2006. The exposure the sport has received on CBS, ESPN, and by word of mouth has grown since the numbers you’re citing in 2006. That was more than two years ago.

And yes, the CBS advertising will help, as long as Affliction is able to follow it up with smart advertising the second go around. We live in a viral marketing world. People who tuned in to watch Kimbo on CBS and saw 30 second clips of this guy utterly destroying somebody they recognized from the UFC could very easily type “Fedor” in google and find out that this guy is the type of dominant Heavyweight they are used to seeing in boxing – you know, the type of heavyweight that becomes mythical and destroys at the box office.

I also think that they have no hope in getting the ESPN type coverage that 91 did. The UFC marketing machine will be swamping the airwaves and making enough noise about 94 to completely drown out anything that Affliction tries to do.

If you were making the decisions at ESPN on what MMA to cover, would you choose to cover a match between two champions from the established organization, or a chamionship promoted by a soon to be dead organization?

They need to cut down the payroll big time… plus they need to drop the music… that is a completely unnecessary expense and it really doesn’t add too much to the PPV.

If they keep getting reviews like they did in Maxim… their clothing line is gonna go down the toilet since Maxim called anyone who buys Affliction to be a douche bag that isn’t too fond of getting laid.

Meltzer’s estimate was between 50k and 85k which is quite a bit short of what Attencio was saying and for some reason Attencio never released any official numbers to prove what the show did, which can’t be a good sign.

I won’t have the money for any of these PPV’s either… financial responsiblities suck… I’ll just have to rely on all of you and hope you’re really good at writing about what happens..lol

Yep. Short of someone ELSE willing to throw millions into the works, this is their last PPV.

Rec’d.

So A2 will do under the 2.1 mil gate of A1?

GSP v. Penn II is a huge fight but it will not do over a million buys.

Good news that one of the best fight cards in a while got so many eyes.

I really think a few more monthly cycles of heavy ESPN coverage will really ramp these numbers up next year. Ordering the fights could replace obscenely expensive NBA/NFL tickets as a once-a-month expense for sports fans.

Think big, man!

Buy your boy!

let me rephrase because I don’t think optimism is the right word . . . I think maybe the current embargo on PPV over the last 6 weeks could be at an end come January just in time for this show.

The second show might, might, might hit 100, 120k. But to think it will a)double, b)be profitable, c)give Affliction enough juice to hit a third show or d)any of the above is a little farfetched to me.

That’s some good information right there.

That would of been a good point except that Affliction Banned was available on PPV in Canada (it was on Bravo in England)

Honestly I think everybody is harping too much on my assertion of 200k buys. What I said was:

If Affliction is able to refocus their advertising efforts and cut down on the cost of salaries, we could see a very profitable show. It is within reason that this show could break 200,000 buys which would have to be considered a massive success considering it is not being rubbed by Zuffa.

Basically, if the stars aligned and they managed their money and advertising efforts better, it is not beyond the realm of possibility. It’s a far reaching number that probably won’t happen but it was just a number I threw out there to indicate I think this show will be a big improvement over the first show. Whether that turns out to be 130k, 150k, or 200k remains to be seen. Based on some of the factors others have brought into the conversation thus far – namely the abundance of PPV’s during January that would hurt buys and the possibility that Affliction will be in more countries this time around that could help buys – I think the number will be considerably lower than 200k but higher than 100k.

Either way, the point is that this event has the potential to be more successful than the first if this company can improve upon what worked the first time (Fedor, Big name opponent, Times Square advertising) and diminish what didn’t (Unnecessary salaries, Todd Beard).

it’s not he predicted 1.2 million buys

Again, this is based on Affliction’s potential for success. That means they have to change certain things up in order to be more succesful. Only time will tell if they are able to do this.

Fedor isn’t a draw, he’s never going to be a draw unless he joins the UFC

Fedor has never been able to draw on PPV because he has never had the correct marketing machine behind him. The UFC would be that marketing machine so you are, in a sense, correct. But, if another entity came along that was able to successfully market MMA on a profitable basis, it could be a different story. My point here is that every person is writing off Affliction after this second show – no matter what. The fat lady hasn’t sung yet so we need to look at the other factors.

the ratings showed for Arlovski he is no where near as popular as he was when he was in the UFC.

Those ratings are entirely misleading and I’m glad you brought that up. That showed nothing for Arlovski’s drawing power but moreso of Gina Carano’s huge star power. Gina is a beautiful women and she can fight. Before the October card she had already established herself with the base of casual fans who were tuning in – many of whom did not know who Andrei Arlovski was. There is no doubt that Arlovski gained from that show. He’s a marketable, explosive fighter who was put on network TV and displayed to hundreds of thousands more people than have seen him – and he won decisively.

The UFC should counter program with a free showing of the Couture/Lesner PPV. Wonder how much the Affliction top brass will spend on ulcer meds in January.

Wow, you’re even more pessimistic than me. Awesome. I think the show will happen, hit maybe 110-115 buys, and Affliction will settle with the UFC.

I think you have some points but, yeah, you’re being as pessimistic as I would like to be. I think the guys running Affliction are douche bags and all they have done is keep Fedor out of the UFC for longer, lure Arlovski away from the company, and give Tito another place to say he might be signing with.

Hypothetically, I would like to see Affliction get through their third show and turn Fedor, Arlovski, Barnett, Babalu, and Lindland into bigger stars then they were beforehand. At which point they fold and the aforementioned names get sucked back into the UFC so I can bear witness to the MMA monopoly.

My point in the article is that there is the possibility that ::gasp:: this show could be successful if they tweak a few things. Teh scenario you’re bringing up is entirely possible as well but I think both sides need to be looked at before we all decide exactly what will happen. The thing about MMA is that this shit is unpredictable.

In 2006 Affliction apparel’s revenue was $7 million, even if they have tripled that since then they are still not going to be able to support the kind of losses they are taking on these events. They are a small boutique clothing company they just don’t have that kind of extra cash floating around for these kinds of expenses, that’s why Trump’s and Golden Boy’s supposed involvement was so important to them.