I'm not quite willing to admit its true -- I'll wait until Meltzer reports on the PPV numbers -- but all indications point toward Affliction's maiden event being a financial success. First, the gate nearly covered the enormous payroll. This is huge not just for the money, but also for creating an atmosphere of a big event for those watching live. But read the bit below -- Affliction may have bought almost 25% of those tickets itself.

More importantly, Affliction VP Tom Atencio is now claiming that they exceeded more than 100,000 PPV buys. That is great and combined with the strong gate could put Affliction in the black on their first event.

So far, that hasn’t occurred. Saturday’s show did a gate of nearly $2.1 million, though a source close to the situation said Affliction purchased $500,000 of those tickets itself. Affliction vice president Tom Atencio conceded the company did purchase a large number of the best seats for use for friends and family of the fighters and the company employees, as well as VIPs, but he would not confirm an amount.

But he said the pay-per-view results, which most analysts were expecting to come in around 75,000, was well better than expected.

“I don’t have everything on that yet, but for the people who felt this was going to be a total flop in that regard, I have news for them,” Atencio said. “It’s already done a lot better than what I’ve heard people speculating. I’m not going to release the (official) number, but it’s already well beyond what people have been saying. Well beyond.”

Atencio would only say the final number “definitely” would be beyond 100,000.

Despite what many BE readers think, I at least have been rooting for Affliction to be a success from the get-go. I also think the WAMMA belt is a promising development, even if they could be relevant in at most two divisions. And I even think there may be a place for the Muhammad Ali act in MMA.

Hopefully, I'll have some time to write up my thoughts on thse matters and more soon.

But one thing I'll say about Affliction -- they know how to put the fix in and score some PR victories. Buying that many tickets was a very smart bit of accounting trickery. Being a music geek, it makes me think of a certain Brian Epstein, manager of a young Liverpool group called the Beatles, who pressured his father's record store into ordering more than 10,000 of the obscure group's first single, thereby insuring they would at least break into the top 20. From there the group made it on its own. Maybe Affliction can do the same.

Also, if they made money on this first event, expect many fools to rush in to promote MMA. The single league model will not last.

Update: MMAPayout's Robert Joyner puts the numbers in perspective and points out that Affliction will still lose money on the event:

It is up to some debate how large a hardcore MMA fanbase there is to draw from in the US. A basement figure would be the 60,000 buys range that marked the high water PPV mark for Japanese promotion PrideFC in North America. The basement level for the UFC would seem to be in the 200k range, generally the level at which their B-show UK cards sell on PPV. A number somewhere in between would seem to be the sweet spot that represents a good starting point for a fledgling fight promotion, operating on a national level. Most prognosticators put the probable sales for Banned on the lower end of that spectrum, but that looks to have undersold the growth in popularity of MMA, not just UFC. Affliction’s mix of former Pride and UFC fighters may have struck a chord with this hard core audience, spurring buys.

Another possible reason for the increase could be the effectiveness of Affliction’s marketing. Affliction used some nontraditional avenues for their promotion of the Banned PPV, foremost among them their partnership with retailer Buckle. Buckle used very prominent window displays to advertise the show and offered discounted Affliction merchandise that pushed the PPV as well as giving away Affliction: Banned literature with each purchase with information on the card. With a national reach and a demo (18-34) that hits the sweet spot for MMA fans, the marketing efforts by Affliction with the retailer may have paid off. Another marketing effort not spoken of much prior to the card was significant local radio buys for the show, many in rock formats that the Affliction brand is popular with.

Even with a higher than expected number of PPV buys, the card is almost certain to come in in the red, a fact not lost on Atencio. Atencio can justify a money losing first card, but seems to be talking fiscal sanity as it relates to future cards: