UFC 108 PPV Prediction: 275,000
by GregS123 on Jan 2, 2010 12:09 PM EST
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PrintRashad Evans became a household name among MMA fans with his coaching role on The Ultimate Fighter Season 10, and now is consistently near the top ten fighters for drawing fan interest and buzz. His participation in the main event of UFC 108 has saved the day for a card that has had to deal with a string of high profile injuries and replacement fighters. While an intriguing night of fights has been salvaged, a low build-up of online interest surrounding the event may lead to UFC 108 performing near the bottom-end of recent history for pay per view performance. Online activity from the past few days suggests a buy rate in the neighborhood of 275,000 which, all things considered, may still be looked at as a success given the trouble this card has had.
Tapology translates the volume of online interest for the main and co-main event fighters into an absolute “buzz score” in order to model a pay per view forecast. The higher each individual fighter’s buzz score, the more people who have been searching and reading about that fighter online in the days leading up to the event.
Rashad Evans leads the group with a score of 13.0, and the co-main event participants come in admirably with 11.0 for Paul Daley and Dustin Hazelett with 8.6. Ultimately the card lacks a true buzz for any particular fight: for comparison sake, Diego Sanchez had a score of 27.3 leading into his UFC 107 bout with BJ Penn.
| Fighter | Pre-Fight Buzz Score |
|---|---|
| Rashad Evans | 13.0 |
| Thiago Silva | 10.8 |
| Dustin Hazelett | 8.6 |
| Paul Daley | 11.0 |
| Total | 43.4 |
The combined score for the four main and co-main event fighters is 43.4, just below the score seen for the UFC 102 event featuring Randy Couture and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. While that card surpassed many expectations with a reported 435,000 buys, it may still have been benefiting from the spillover wave of interest from UFC 100. Subsequently, UFC 103 and 106 had pre-fight scores near 60, and yet performed even worse than UFC 102 with 375,000 buys apiece.
As a result, when we plug a score of 43.4 into the model, we get an estimate of 275,000 pay per view buys, much lower than the 435,000 for UFC 102 despite the similar buzz score.
| Event | Main & Co-Main Event Pre-Fight Buzz Score | Reported/Estimated Pay Per View Buys |
|---|---|---|
| UFC 100 | 156.9 | 1,600,000 |
| UFC 101 | 83.1 | 900,000 |
| UFC 102 | 46.6 | 435,000 |
| UFC 103 | 56.2 | 375,000 |
| UFC 104 | 81.1 | 500,000 |
| UFC 106 | 63.9 | 375,000 |
| UFC 107 | 67.5 | 620,000 |
| UFC 108 | 43.4 | 275,000 (pre-fight forecast) |
Post-event pay per view numbers are based off of the great analysis that can be found at MMAPayout.com, which in turn frequently source the reporting of the Wrestling Observer newsletter.
Tapology’s buzz rankings are a measure of fan interest and activity. Tapology uses data from Compete Inc o measure the level of internet users checking out over 800 of the biggest names in MMA. Activity is aggregated across multiple websites and represents United States fans only.Source version:
http://www.tapology.com/2010/01/ufc-108-pay-per-view-prediction-interest-slow-to-build/
The FanPosts are solely the subjective opinions of Bloody Elbow readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bloody Elbow editors or staff.
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The question is: What if UFC108 hits the 350,000 mark ? That would be amazing considering the lack of star power on this card. I think if UFC 108 is sucessful it is because of the brand name not the fighters. Rashad Evans is coming off of the Ultimate Fighter so his popularity is at in all time high. Do you believe Rashad Evans can sell an entire ppv by himself alone. ? People will come to watch because it is the UFC. I will predict that UFC 108 will do 325,000 buys.
"I was not impressed by your performance"
I wouldn’t argue with your 325K prediction. I don’t put any personal opinion into the numbers above… I just take the number that our model spits out (and it’s not very sophisticated – the online buzz score gets plugged into an equation and out pops the prediction).
If this card goes above 350K, that will be damn impressive, and I wouldn’t really know what to attribute it to. Maybe the post-new-years-eve weekend where a lot of people are still hung over and just stay home and order the show.
www.tapology.com | twitter @tapology
Obviously it’s not only the UFC brand that sells their ppvs, otherwise a Brock and GSP cards would do the same numbers as the other shows,instead of the 1.7 mil, 800,000, and 900,000 of their last 3. It’s a symbiotic relationship.
by John Nash on Jan 2, 2010 4:33 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
One interesting is finding the base number of buys that would sell for any card carrying a UFC label regardless of quality or depth. There are quite a few individuals and bars that will buy any UFC card any time it is on. Finding that number and then finding the ability of a star to bring in viewers above that is the tricky part.
There is a corollary concept of “value over replacement player” (VORP) in baseball statistical nerdery… instead of comparing a player to a general average to determine how good he is, you compare him to the kind of player who would replace him if he went down. So if you want to understand A-rod’s value to the yankees, don’t compare his numbers to league averages, compare him to the best non-starting third baseman in the league.
this card will help identify that base.
a few things muddy it up though: rashad just coming off of the ultimate fighter might have a little carryover effect. and the “new year’s eve weekend” effect, if there is one.
otherwise 108 is just about as vanilla as it’s gonna get.
www.tapology.com | twitter @tapology
I remember not too long ago looking at the ppv numbers for fights where both main event fighters were coming in off losses and they were exceptionally low… even for Couture-Nogueira which had arguably the most marketable star in the UFC coming off the UFC’s biggest main event ever with Lesner at 100. Franklin-Wanderlei was the other recent example, again with a terrible buy rate.
Silva’s win over Jardine makes this a different scenario, I suppose. But each man’s Machida loss is still their most recent memory for a lot of viewers.
With the general lack of hype and coverage I don’t see it doing 250. I am still buying it but there is no hype to follow really. This card features a lot of very solid fighters/fights, just what the hardcore should like.
Tonight (for those of you watching) I am betting on 1 very nasty tko and some incredible ground work.
this will make around 325k buys...
no way it goes bellow 300 even in a card without much star power.
It would help if you had your pre-fight predictions in that second chart. It is hard to evaluate the accuracy of your method without seeing the data.
You mention that 102 had a similar buzz score and did 435K buys. What was your pre-fight prediction for 102?
Just doing a quick search through fanposts, I found these numbers.
Event His estimate Real estimate
104 500k 730k
106 375k 510k
107 620k 540k
108 275k
So for those 3 events, they averaged almost 150k off the estimated buys.
yup using the online search/pageview data to predict buys has been hit or miss. currently just playing it by ear whether or not we keep posting predictions.
was thinking about stopping after a couple of bad ones, but then the UFC 107 prediction did pretty well. even though our estimate of 540 was well below the actual of 620, most people had been expecting under 500. so i look at that one as a success.
we’ll see if it’s worth continuing… i’m certainly not trying to sugar-coat it.
www.tapology.com | twitter @tapology
Dude, keep doing it.
Nothing’s a wasted effort. Hell, baseball teams only really understood the value of a walk in the 1990’s. There are bound to be blind spots in any analytical model, but the longer you stare at it, the better and more accurate it becomes.
I like this component and think it’s got a place in the ’sphere.
There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.
Brand name is a big part of it.
If i want to watch football i watch the NFL because I know that they produce the best football product. Same thing goes for MMA. If you want to watch mma, then the UFC is the best place to go. I think UFC 108 buyrate will be a great judge on how much the UFC brand can sell by itself. I think UFC 108 will bring in all the hardcore and casual UFC fight fans.
"I was not impressed by your performance"
Eyeroll-inducing as it might be,
there is a major point here. We shouldn’t forget the upward driving force the positive brand image can have.
There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.
Under 300,000. Originally thought it would do the new bottom of 350,000 but the new bottom is the old bottom. Reasons: not a lot Internet chatter; FOTN and other awards were only $50,000 instead of $70,000, a sure sign that Zuffa didn’t expect it to do well; non-title cards averaged 375,00 this year but many of those earlier cards were coming after 1 mil (UFC 92), 800,000 (UFC 94), and 1.7 mil and 900,000 (UFC 100 and 101) cards while this is coming behind a string of smaller sellers. Hence, less than 300,000.
by John Nash on Jan 4, 2010 2:58 AM EST via mobile reply actions
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