Will UFC 119 Be the Worst Performing UFC in Years?

I’m not buying 119 because I simply can’t afford to buy all of the PPVs. Most of my friend’s aren’t into MMA, and the closest sports bar to where I live is approx. 50 miles away. Despite the fact that I really, really want to see 119, it’s just not feasible for me, especially after buying 117 and 118 in August.

going to penn state vs temple, a live penn state game beats this card any day

It has the set up to be a really exciting night of fights.

I was pumped for this card until cro cop said he messed up his eye.
It’s still a great night of fights.
We get a bunch of new guys with momentum(bader dunham cb) vs older front runners still trying to hold their spot(sherk, nog).
A slugfest with Melvin and Stephens.
Probably another slugfest with serra and lytle.
I still am waiting for a cro cop head kick tho.
And there’s a bunch of money to be made on the lines.

neither does anyone here. Who cares about labeling this a “filler” card?? What happened to enjoying great fights? Cro Cop/Mir could turn out to be the best fight ever, noone knows. This is when the whole pro wrestling factor comes into play: are people watching the sport to see amazing action or are they little fanatics for their favorite fighter? I’ll thoroughly enjoy Saturday night.

A couple of points.

First, this has always been a mediocre card and would likely have always done worse than most people would have expected. Even at its best, I think this was an effort by Zuffa to see if Mir or Big Nog could sell PPVs as a headliner. Some people on here have made a case for Mir being a draw (including truck, who threw up some impressive numbers), but I don’t see it. My guess is 250-350,000 buys, which isn’t bad but certainly isn’t impressive.

Second, that seatgeek chart is really questionable. I’m sure it’s accurate given their methodology, but you really have to ask how tickets to a Lesnar card are doing 3rd out of 4. I don’t know what UK UFC ticket prices look like, but the pound (GBP) is usually pretty damn strong against the dollar, so the exchange rate may explain that one. As for Penn-Edgar II beating Brock-Cain, I can only hope that’s due to (i) these prices being based on the secondary market (i.e. ticket resellers), (ii) the Penn-Edgar number contains all the numbers, while we still have to wait to see the final prices on Brock-Cain tickets, and (iii) very few resales of tickets to the Brock-Cain fight (since people lucky enough to get tickets are keeping them).

As for Nate’s comments,

The UFC has stubbornly refused to lower ticket prices in the face of recession. Where once the UFC would go to a new market like Columbus, Ohio and post a huge sellout, now they go to a new market like Indianapolis or Portland or Boston or Austin and have trouble moving all the tickets. Sure they’re putting up some impressive financial numbers at the gate, but I argue they could be making more money and building a bigger bond with more fans if they lowered ticket prices and sold out every event.

Couple of things here. The main one is that you need to keep in mind that Nate is thinking of the short term, while Zuffa is (hopefully) thinking of the long term. Lowering tickets now would increase sales, but it’s not clear that it would increase profits. Second, you have to think about what happens after the recession is over… Zuffa should be trying to protect the long-term value of ticket prices, and slashing them now sends the message that the tickets are only sometimes worth a higher price. On that last point, it also extends to keeping ticket prices high on mediocre PPVs… lower prices sends the message that it’s a shittier card, which may then lead to lower PPV buys (since Zuffa has implicitly admitted the card is shitty enough to lower ticket prices, so why don’t they lower the PPV price?). That last point was also part of the strategy of not having a lower price on the WEC PPV, since it would send the message that the card is worth less than a UFC card.

Also, don’t forget that Dana buys some goodwill by giving away free tickets to the local heroes (such as firemen and policemen), but he mainly does so because the seats would otherwise go unsold and be empty. So the unsold tickets become a source of cheap (but not quite free, since he could have sold them for a lower price) publicity.

And let’s not forget that Zuffa has to build new stars. Two of the bigger draws, Couture and Liddell, are on the way out in the relatively near future. It’s not clear how many new faces can carry a PPV by themselves. Zuffa is likely taking a chance here to test the waters with Mir and see what he can do, and they’ll likely be happy if he can put up Rich Franklin numbers (which are lackluster compared to other UFC PPVs but still profitable).

or are all of the Kid Nate’s post “Will [something bad about the UFC] happen now or possibly in the future??”

The main event isn’t all that great and that’s its biggest problem. The undercard is pretty bad but the main card besides the main event is pretty solid. I’ll watch this ppv and I’m fairly sure it’ll be a solid night of fights.

Wait seriously there’s a fight this weekend?

It’s normal. Here’s why.

1. Champs/huge draws can’t fight on every card.
2. Injuries. The best plans always are ruined by them.
3. Fans come and go. Football or other things take their attention away from MMA.
4. MMA is unique because it’s a year round sport. Other sports go away for a while and fans get a break. The break helps interest for the return of the sport.
5. Market buiding: UFC might go to a new market and risk not selling out. They do it to build up the market for them.
6. Fighter buiding up: Think Jon Jones. Have him headline cards so that they can build up his name.

*The UFC has continued to do great despite the recession. Taking a couple weak events out a good year and saying that the UFC is in trouble is nonsense. Kid Nate is the king of that. UFC 121 will probably do monster business. What will Kid Nate write then? They didn’t sell enough t-shirts. Zuffa in trouble.

1-1.5 mil at the gate
12-15,000 fans
450-525,000 on the PPV

Evans vs. (Thiago) Silva got all of 300,000 buys. I don’t think this one will do worse.

UFC 119 was never going to be a huge card as far as sales go i’ll say the same thing I said to the people in Portland. I get that it’s tough but if you love mma and want the UFC to come to your town you show up and support the product period.

This card actually is one of my favorites overall and Mir vs. CC is much more interesting than Nog vs. Mir because I already saw Mir destroy him. Not to mention that Bader vs. Nog, Dunham vs. Sherk and Serra vs. Lyttle 2 will all feature guys that are contenders in their divisions. There is nothing filler about this card and the fact that the UFC was able to put on such a quality card and people still bitch really says alot to me.

Actually, 350k was not the floor. UFC 80, 82, 85, 90, 93…all of these did less than 350k. 80, 85 and 90 all did less than 300k. The bad times of late 09 and early 10 did not see them hit record lows by any means.

Weak cards do low numbers, it has been that way for the last few years. Nothing new here. The sky is falling no more than it was in early 08 when 80, 82 and 85 all took place.

According to the Observer, they have sold 11,500 tickets thus far.