UFC Fight for the Troops 2 Prelims on Facebook: A Shrewd Technical Decision

by Bloody Elbow on Jan 24, 2011 4:58 PM EST in UFC Analysis

Facebook_logo_medium This is a guest feature by Zak Woods formerly of Watch Kalib Run.

While Zuffa's decision to stream several preliminary fights from UFC Fight for the Troops 2 on Facebook was met with much fanfare over the company's Web 2.0 mastery, the move was particularly shrewd from a technical perspective as well.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship wasn't the first MMA promotion to stream preliminary cards for free online, but they were by far the most successful as a vast majority of fans were able to easily access the a high quality stream with few technical issues. Zuffa utilized Microsoft Silverlight, which the company has been using for years to stream press conferences and weigh-ins through their website.

How was the UFC's first foray into free, online streamed fights a success where others resulted in failure?

Hosting. Plain and simple.

Take for example EA Sports attempt to stream the Jay Hieron/Joe Riggs fight of Strikeforce: Miami. The server couldn't handle the traffic and crashed, and that was with the an e-mail registration gate.

While the UFC's website is significantly more trafficked than EA Sports' website, the UFC brand is also significantly more popular than Strikeforce. Thus it stands to reason that the UFC website was facing a significant risk of a traffic spike sinking their servers. If a server crash would to occur it would leave many fans bitter (being promised something only to see it not work typically makes consumers grumpy).

That's why hosting the prelims on Facebook was such a shrewd decision. In essence the traffic influx was pushed onto the second largest website in the world and their powerful servers rather than UFC.com.

Clearly there were other factors that motivated this decision, e.g. charity, public relations, etc., but it still represented a smart move by the staff of Zuffa.

We reached out to Zuffa for comment but had received no response by posting time.

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Wait…

Are we sure Facebook’s own servers hosted this event? I got the impression that the player was embedded into the Facebook page, thus working off of the UFC’s own servers, or at the very least… their own provider.

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by Leland Roling on Jan 24, 2011 4:20 PM EST reply actions 3 recs

That is the impression that I got as well.

by jammushi on Jan 24, 2011 4:25 PM EST up reply actions

Still pretty impressive

Surely they would have gotten a lot more views embedding on Facebook (for over two hours, no less) than if everyone had gone through ufc.com.

by ihateemo on Jan 24, 2011 4:30 PM EST up reply actions

More views… sure.

But I’m going to believe that there was some intention to pump up their numbers via their fan page, making people become fans of the page, thus putting them in the stream to receive constant updates and links.

Facebook is, after all, one of the largest link farms on the Web now. Corporations are even turning to it for self-promotion.

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"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein

by Leland Roling on Jan 24, 2011 4:36 PM EST up reply actions

No doubt true. However I would look at the number of fans on their facebook page as a way to gauge server requirements and traffic. May be the stream was nice because the streaming service had some good numbers to base demand off of.

by Reciprocity on Jan 24, 2011 5:08 PM EST up reply actions

UFC has been using the same content delivery system for about a year and a half now. Here’s an article from when it was first announced: http://richstreaming.com/?p=167

by PeteVR on Jan 24, 2011 6:21 PM EST up reply actions

This was hosted on the UFC’s servers. They just embed there player.

by zzwab on Jan 24, 2011 4:25 PM EST reply actions

Anyway, it still amaze me how much the UFC invest on the internet side.
I mean they provide live feeds of weight ins, press conf and it’s always really smooth. And now this.
A lot of people don’t realise that what the UFC is doing on the net cost a shitload of money. And it pays off.

by zzwab on Jan 24, 2011 4:29 PM EST up reply actions

Like when you link a youtube video right?

They see me rollin...

by spectaa on Jan 24, 2011 4:37 PM EST up reply actions

yep

http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/fbml/silverlight/

by zzwab on Jan 24, 2011 4:50 PM EST up reply actions

I was about to post, that certainly facebook did not host the stream itself…but it feels redundant now, reading these first posts. :)

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by KGNLuc on Jan 24, 2011 4:26 PM EST reply actions

Yeah it's like all those times where BE hosted live streaming of UFC weigh ins and press conferences, also using Silverlight

by Rob Young on Jan 24, 2011 4:35 PM EST via mobile reply actions

Maybe we should wait and see how many people actually streamed it before declaring victory. There are a lot of people that won’t take the security risks of signing up for facebook.

by fitefan on Jan 24, 2011 4:49 PM EST reply actions

Those people are a very small minority

A very loud minority but still a small one.

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by Worldisart on Jan 24, 2011 5:04 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs

Man, I remember the Hieron/Riggs fight. That was a battle of guys Strikeforce fucked with.

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Luke: That was a good one.

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by Derek Suboticki on Jan 24, 2011 4:51 PM EST reply actions

I get how it was a good move and everything

But I hope this doesn’t become a habit. Judging by the renewed Spike deal I’m guessing not.

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by xFenixKnightx on Jan 24, 2011 4:51 PM EST reply actions

Zak Woods?

At a certain point if he keeps guest posting over here, he might have to be considered on staff.

by SES 84 on Jan 24, 2011 4:56 PM EST reply actions

That would be a great thing.

Love his articles.

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by dedstrk316 on Jan 24, 2011 5:05 PM EST up reply actions

I don’t mean to be a dick, but unfortunately the premise of this article is just not true, so maybe it should be taken down or be reworked quickly. As pointed out it’s simply an embedded stream from UFC site.

By the way, the UFC website has every event available for live streaming online via this Silverlight system, and while I have no idea how many viewers they average it’s not the first time they are streaming fights. Of course you normally have to pay for it, so this is the first time there were some free fights, but then again these fights weren’t exactly must-see for most fans, so I don’t think they would get anywhere close to their normal SpikeTV viewership.

by Horselover Fat on Jan 24, 2011 5:07 PM EST reply actions

Don’t forget the UFC did the 124 prelims on their website, Zak.

MMAForReal.com

by Matt Bishop on Jan 24, 2011 5:10 PM EST reply actions

I mean, there are over 500 million facebook users.. It’s not a bad business move to air it on Facebook.. It comes down to a user-friendly interface for interested fans.. Only if things run smoothly should prelims be on facebook, the net…Otherwise I’m stoked for it on Spike..

by somnium on Jan 24, 2011 5:19 PM EST reply actions