Quote of the Day: Jose Aldo vs Urijah Faber Could Headline First WEC PPV
by Anton Tabuena on Jan 11, 2010 10:27 AM EST
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"I would think that as we move towards that, that would be a great pay-per-view. I think the fans would pay to see that fight... The other thing we have to look at though is we need to do more than one good fight on that card. We want to put together a card where people are basically saying they cannot miss it."
"Don't have a date or location, but I'm going to tell you it's going to happen. We're looking at the first half of 2010. We're looking at dates, locations, all that. There's a lot of things that we look at that go into this, and we want to make sure that our first one is very, very successful."
-WEC General Manager, Reed Harris, talks about a featherweight championship bout between Urijah Faber and Jose Aldo headlining their first Pay Per View show. Faber, the WEC's biggest draw, beat Assuncao last night in front of over 10,000 fans in his hometown of Sacramento.
HT: mmaweekly
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"We want to put together a card where people are basically saying they cannot miss it."
so, i’m guessing…
faber/aldo
henderson/cerrone2
maybe mike brown vs someone
but they probably want torres/bowles 2 (or pulver) on there too, which would mean they couldn’t do this card until may, right? (since 47 isn’t til march)
still don’t see the necessity for this, unless it means more money in the pockets of the fighters, which i’m all for.
Not Smart
I don’t understand why they would want to move to a PPV model for WEC. Their last 3 shows have drawn an average of 387,666 viewers on free television.
Grow the brand. Put the mega card on VERSUS and just let yourself grow. PPV will stifle that growth.
"You don't come to have your fingernails or your toenails painted. Goddamn, you come to fight, not to be a fairy."
Don Frye
by keyboardwarrior on Jan 11, 2010 9:30 AM EST reply actions
Could be cool to let the fighters earn more money on PPVs once in a while, but they cannot support selling PPVs with WEC fighters constantly. I certainly am not going to keep up with WEC PPVs in addition to the already too many UFC PPV’s.
They really just need to combine WEC and UFC somehow, maybe form WEC into a lower league for all fighters and let the top guys from all the weight classes fight in UFC so they can earn some good money.
"A champion is someone who gets up when he can't." - Jack Dempsey
Terrible
Two ideas if the WEC wants to be more profitable:
1.Stop having events at the Pearl at the Palms. 2,500 seats (a lot comped tickets) means your live gate is going to stink.
2. Get WEC on a real network, like on NBC. Think of it as a test: if it works then UFC can be next. If not, nothing is lost.
My prescription is for 'medicinal purposes' only
+ 1 move away from the Pearl
Palms is way off the strip and inaccessible without motorized transportation so event attendance suffers. They could use the WEC to grow the brand in other venues and states. Putting it on PPV will have it competing with 3 month old king of the cage shows.
maybe WEC should have it’s own place with about 3000 seats, like the old Monday Night Raw
We're just a million little gods causin' rain storms, turning every good thing to rust.
by Anthony Pace on Jan 11, 2010 1:49 PM EST up reply actions
How much would you guys pay for this?
I hope they don’t do something silly like $45 in SD.
I'd pay something like
$10 but no more than $15 to see a really stacked card with a minimum of two title bouts. $10 a couple times a year wouldn’t be bad and those guys could pull in some extra dough. I’d still think they should stay out of PPV for the foreseeable future.
i would pay
the full 45 dollars. The card they are talking about is amazing…much better than most UFC cards.
by Infinite_Jest on Jan 11, 2010 12:05 PM EST up reply actions
I want to see the viewership
I think the last 2 Faber cards did close, if not more than 1 million viewers.
IMO, Varner was right. The WEC is relying too much on Faber to carry the promotion. No one really cares much about all the other talent because they aren’t promoted like Faber. Torres, may be close but when both of them lost it hurt ratings. If they want a PPV to work then they need to be a machine in promoting Bowles, Aldo, Fabiano, Njokuani, Cerrone, Varner, Henderson, etc…
I think the PPV would end up being around 29.95 and IF the card is stacked then it would be worth it IMO.
Some of the viewer numbers
WEC38: 700,000
WEC39: 531,229
WEC 41: Brown Vs Faber 2: 1,300,000
WEC 42: Torres Vs Bowles: 670,000
WEC 43: Cerrone Vs Henderson: 419,000
WEC 44: Brown Vs Aldo: 411,000
WEC 45: Cerrone Vs Ratcliff: 330,000
this is all I could find in a quick search
"You don't come to have your fingernails or your toenails painted. Goddamn, you come to fight, not to be a fairy."
Don Frye
by keyboardwarrior on Jan 11, 2010 10:52 AM EST up reply actions
jose also
s is next to d on the keyboard
http://mixedmartialartsblogger.wordpress.com/
by Cory Braiterman on Jan 11, 2010 10:16 AM EST reply actions
I’m not sure I understand Zuffa’s logic with this one. If I’m Zuffa, now would not be the time that I’m trying to make people comfortable buying a PPV that doesn’t have the UFC label (or, for that matter, showing Pride fights on Spike and making people comfortable watching MMA that isn’t fought in a cage.)
I would think...
that somewhere they have a plan that states the rating that the WEC should consistently achieve before attempting PPV becomes a smart idea.
Perhaps they are eying the possibility in the framework of the possible changes we have all heard are coming to Verses with the Comcast purchase of NBC. If Verses restructures to become a true competition for ESPN, the the visibility for the WEC on Verses could push the promotion’s visibility to the point that PPV is viable.
i’m tired of faber/connection to the title. he lost. twice. hands or whatever, he lost. he lost the belt by KO/TKO…got to rematch…lost that. fights one fight, and now he gets another chance to fight for it. blaise.
Gatti. Dekkers. Pele. Aoki. Kang. Vanderlei. Basillio. Harry Greb.
by theworldsoldestsport on Jan 11, 2010 11:02 AM EST reply actions
nah even if he wasnt the wec superstar id say he deserves the title shot
i wanna see mike brown beat someone a little better than the can he just destroyed id say one more win from him and he deserves a shot and as of right now who else is more deserving of a shot than faber? faber just convincinly beat the #5 featherweight in the world
manny gamburyan has to get another quality win before he desrves a shot, wagney fabiano shot himself in the foot with his loss to semezier (and i think he dropped to bantam weight) and semezier just lost to taurosevicious who is a few wins away from a title shot so faber is the obvious canidite for a shot
This is a very stupid business move
Faber is hands-down the #1 drawing fighter in the WEC by far. Even his show’s on Versus draw a significant amount. However, by putting him on Pay Per View for his next fight is very stupid because it is not maximizing his earning potential.
The best way to do this is by first showcasing some upper echelon WEC fights on Spike TV or UFN. They should of had Urijah Faber take on his Assuncao during the TUF 10 finale, while giving Jose Aldo a cakewalk opponent to showcase his amazing striking. This would open up Faber over to over 5-6 million fans, many who are not hardcore MMA fans but just turned on the TV to see Kimbo. Through this method, Zuffa can simultaneously build much bigger stars in the WEC. Sure, the main events of WEC fights are going to suffer, but the WEC wasn’t racking in a lot of money to begin with when compared to the UFC. Riding on the UFC’s back will increase the marketability of WEC stars many fold over. Basically, I believe that over the long run (2 yrs) the opportunity cost of keeping WEC stars to headline events under WEC is greater than the profit they actually generate for Zuffa through WEC events, since they cannot be showcased on UFC cards.
After doing this, only then should they think about headlining a pay per view with Faber and Aldo. Mainstream fans need more exposure to these guys before handing over some good money to buy a PPV, even if the PPV is offered at a reduced price (which is probably going to happen). If they just jump directly into PPV, it would be too early and the baseline would be set very low, as only the hardcore fans would probably pay for it. Nonetheless, A PPV may earn more money per event than a show broadcasted on Versus, but even a slight increase in exposure can lead to relatively pretty big jumps in revenue through the PPV
by TyTy on Jan 11, 2010 11:20 AM EST reply actions 1 recs
honestly the ufc should just merge the wec and ufc
they should still have the wec events on versus though letting them keep all the fighters on the roster and only have the championships on payperview cards while mixing in some nice ufc fights onto the versus cards
this way u can market the little guys if boxings taught us anything its that the little guys can be stars (oscar de la hoya, floyd mayweather, manny pacquio)
$20-25 sounds fair for an ubercard. Faber-Aldo, Bendo-Cowboy 2, Torres-Bowles 2, MTB-Assuncao, and either Varner, Pulver, or Mizugaki against someone decent sounds EPIC.
by inadvertentgroinstrike on Jan 11, 2010 11:42 AM EST reply actions
Agree that UFC and WEC need to merge
UFC clearly has a problem filling out it’s many, many PPV cards. The WEC doesn’t have the drawing power that the UFC brand does. On top of this, the two organizations still overlap in their lightweight divisions.
The fan awareness of the WEC brand is low.
The promotion is not ready to go to PPV. They should have their fighters fight on UFC PPVs and create more awareness of their brand/fighters. They’ll be embarrassed by their PPV numbers.
Besides, I can’t afford a UFC and WEC PPV in one month.
by snakecharmer1340 on Jan 11, 2010 1:24 PM EST reply actions
would they throw a UFC name fighter on this card? Diego Sanchez vs. whoever?
We're just a million little gods causin' rain storms, turning every good thing to rust.
I’d buy this card if they have aldo vs. faber, preferably torres on the card, and i’d like to see some LW superfights btw the WEC and UFC, like a crossover card
by Austin Martin on Jan 11, 2010 2:39 PM EST up reply actions
What they should do...
They have two options as far as I’m concerned.
1) Merge the two. It is silly that they don’t.
2) If they aren’t going to merge the two, then kill the UFC Lightweight division and move all those guys into the WEC. Then you can start selling PPV’s with BJ Penn, Kenny Florian, Diego Sanchez, etc… Not to mention that it is just stupid that WEC has a “LW champion of the world” that would get smashed by 5-6 guys in Zuffa’s other promotion.
At USC we're not snobs, we're just better than you.
but my first choice would be to merge the two because then they can literally have a title fight on every card. No more Rashad-Thiago main events...
At USC we're not snobs, we're just better than you.
Dana wants to be able to throw people in jail for watching WEC for free as well.
by brad23 on Jan 11, 2010 3:14 PM EST via mobile reply actions 1 recs
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