Dave Meltzer: UFC 136 Did 250,000 Pay Per View Buys
by Tim Burke on Oct 20, 2011 10:01 AM EDT
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The PPV buyrate for UFC 136 has been the subject of much speculation over the last few days, and with good reason. Despite the card having two title fights (Frankie Edgar vs. Gray Maynard and Jose Aldo vs. Kenny Florian) and generally being considered one of the most exciting events of the year, all of the trending statistics leading up to the event indicated that the buyrate was going to be, quite frankly, miserable. And while the early estimate isn't as bad as some had speculated - it's still pretty bad. Dave Meltzer discusses it in his Wrestling Observer newsletter (subscription required):
The early estimate for UFC 136 on 10/8 from Houston is about 250,000 buys.
There had been rumors that the early estimate was as low as 175,000, which is nothing short of terrible. Not that 250k is much better. Meltzer puts it in perspective:
This would be the lowest number on PPV for a title match dating back to probably 2005, and this was a show with two title matches and Chael Sonnen’s return against Brian Stann . Two weeks between shows, and coming off a show with what to the public was a far stronger main event (the 9/24 show did almost double this one) also didn’t help.
There's no real way to defend this number. It's just more proof that it takes a very special guy (B.J. Penn) to be a true draw at the lighter weights. Better promotion would certainly help, and the UFC will definitely learn something about card building from this failure, but it's a bit worrying to say the least. And as a guy that is a huge fan of the lighter weights, it's disappointing.
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That sucks!
I loved this card.
Opulence, I has it.
by Psychic Octopus on Oct 20, 2011 10:03 AM EDT reply actions
The main card was very strong. The undercard was a mixed bag for me, but I felt that the main card was probably one of the better main cards of this year.
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It was a fantastic card.
It’s PPV that is at fault here, not the fighters. The UFC needs to keep reducing the amount of PPV’s they have, and IMO they also need to lower the price. $55 is ALOT of fucking money, especially for someone who is already paying for premium cable necessary to order PPV’s, who dropped a ton of money on an HD TV in the middle of a god damned recession.
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by ElliotMatheny on Oct 21, 2011 4:14 AM EDT up reply actions
The Ale House
Was empty that night and it was overflowing for Jones/Page. The number doesn’t surprise me at all.
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by dedstrk316 on Oct 20, 2011 10:11 AM EDT via mobile reply actions
It also shows it's silly when people intimate that Jon Jones has no drawing power
With that said this is very sad. Man this card was great on paper
I don't think it says much about Jones
People know Rampage. Finding out he’s “got a real chance” at taking the belt was more than enough to get some casuals to tune in.
Business as Usual has a STACKED team. I mean, we could win with just me, but you know.
college football, MLB Playoffs
In addition to being the lighter weights, the other sports being played that day plus the earlier time slot. I think all are big contributing factors. Oh and the oversaturation of fight cards. Im in the camp of less is more. This year I have skipped more cards than I have in the previous 11 years combined.
"I think all are big contributing factors"
They made a difference, but hardly a big one. UFC has killed in years past going head-to-head with the exact same circumstances. They did so with bigger cards with bigger stars with more promotion.
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by Luke Thomas on Oct 20, 2011 10:22 AM EDT up reply actions
I don't know why anyone is surprised
I really don’t understand the surprise surrounding the low numbers of this event. I actually predicted it would do in the neighborhood of 275K buys. Maynard/Edgar II only did 275K buys and it was the New Year show. All the hype generated from the excellant first bout was long forgotten by casual fans, it was sandwiched between Jones/Rampage and GSP/Diaz/Condit so people who need to save money were skipping this card, Aldo under-performed for 129 and lost a lot of his hype with the casual fans so he added no drawing power, there were 2 free events in the month leading up to 136 with a BW title fight on free tv the week before…and then throw in the competition of college football, MLB playoffs, and it being on the Canadian Thanksgiving drawing many fans to the nroth to be with family instead of with beer buddies buying a fight and I am lost why anyone is really surprised by this numbers at all.
by rtwil on Oct 20, 2011 10:50 AM EDT up reply actions 4 recs
Don't forget that the NHL season had just started too! Lot's of free entertainment for all, leaving only 250k devoted mma fans.
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These numbers are US only though, right?
My understanding were they were domestic, so Canada had no impact on the number. Could be wrong though
Head conductor of the Charles Oliveira hype train.
MMA popularity bubble
MMA is in a popularity bubble. Boxing had one decades ago. People who think its growth will last are the same ones who bought houses in 2006-2008. The UFC should be thankful this got 250K buys.
I disagree
I think we will see a growth once the UFC will have its first show on Fox. TUF was the catalyst FOX is the next.
Average PPV buys haven't changed much in 5 years
The UFC does more events which translates to more overall buys but there hasn’t been any real growth aside from a brief Lesnar boost.
There’s honestly a limit to PPV and how many people will buy. Even if you can increase the high water mark with big money 1,000,000+ buy ppvs, you have a hard time increase average buys because casual fans just save up for the bigger events. It doesn’t mean MMA isn’t getting more saturation, it just means that people have a finite amount of money to spend on entertainment.
by Steadiest Pink on Oct 20, 2011 2:20 PM EDT up reply actions
Simply not true
I have been tracking the reported ppv buys for a long time and decided to work the spreadsheet to see if you were right about the average PPV buys not growing much over the past 5 years…And to be blunt, that is simply not true:
The average buys per event:
In 2007 were 448,636
In 2008 were 532,083
In 2009 were 551,923
In 2010 were 616,667
In 2011 so far they are 385,833
The increase of over 168,000 buys per event between 2007 and 2010 accounts for roughly a 37.5% increase of ppv buys per event. If I have time I will create a fan post about the numbers today.
I don't see how this contradicts me statement
You ignore 2006 where the average was about 525K. The only Data point in your numbers that shows any real improvement is 2010 and that was on the back of 2 million selling Brock Lesnar as champion PPVs.
by Steadiest Pink on Oct 24, 2011 1:33 PM EDT up reply actions
Main factor I see is saturation.
There are too many PPV in too short a time span. People had to make a choice with their wallets. Either Jones v Rampage or Maynard V Edgar. People chose the brothers. This is the same problems that pegs the WWE. How many PPV is too many and if you grow to big too fast are you over feeding your fans. I consider a 1 PPV per month strategy with Free TV fights in between, more over give people 4 to 5 weeks at least in between PPV so they have the desire to spend money. And for a big PPV buy on the New years card. Have the November card during the 2nd week of that month and give the New Years/ Year end card the last week of December. Thus providing a 6 to 7 week period to build up the year end finaly as an extravaganza; a Wrestlemania if you will. Finally keep making PPV specials with Title fight and promoting the heck out of every PPV.
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Surprising card
The only reason why I got this card was because of Aldo Vs Florian, I have never liked watching Edgar fight, and people already knew what was going to happen in that fight (exactly what happened. I think the reason why this card’s numbers were down is because of the Edgar maynard rematch that I honestly was not interested in, and the fact that alot of mainstream type fans do not know who aldo is yet. The lighter weights are still new to the UFC, if they keep marketing them they will be just as popular as the heavier weights.
Also Lauzon….HOLY CRAP I love you. (Guillard hater)
by supermanpunch7 on Oct 20, 2011 10:12 AM EDT reply actions
Perhaps now
this will shut up people that say Sonnen is a draw and people will pay to watch him.
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by Cory Braiterman on Oct 20, 2011 10:12 AM EDT reply actions
So blame this on Sonnen?
He wasnt in the main event was he? Was he a co-headliner? Did anyone think a guy with virtually no ground game could handle Chael? The answer to all of those are NO. The #s are far from being Chaels fault. Plus he didnt pull the normal trash talk that gets some fans pumped up.
Chael, Anderson
I’ll Pay to see that again, no one else can contend with Silva so why not?
by supermanpunch7 on Oct 20, 2011 10:19 AM EDT up reply actions
Sonnen wasn’t in a position to hype up this card… he was only 3rd billing, not on the posters, and he was facing Mr. America who he couldn’t personally attack with anything.
This
How many interviews did he give about this card. It also didn’t help that he wouldn’t go “full Chael” on Stann.
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by Dave Strummer on Oct 20, 2011 10:27 AM EDT up reply actions
I don't think anyone says Sonnen is a draw
I think people say Sonnen is a draw WHEN HE’S FIGHTING ANDERSON SILVA. There’s a difference.
by MichaelDavidSmith on Oct 20, 2011 10:55 AM EDT up reply actions
A lot of people did
Hence my post. It’s being defended with a bunch of variables and buts.
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by Cory Braiterman on Oct 20, 2011 10:58 AM EDT up reply actions
Fair enough
If people think Sonnen is a draw in and of himself, I disagree strongly with those people. I do believe Sonnen vs. Silva is a fight that will draw but I don’t think Sonnen vs. anyone else is a fight that will draw.
by MichaelDavidSmith on Oct 20, 2011 12:07 PM EDT up reply actions
Silva vs. Belfort did more PPV buys than Silva vs. Sonnen
126 was a better card, but Sonnen’s effect is comically overrated.
Not afraid to nitpick
UFC 126 was a better card, and it had Forrest Griffin, one of the biggest draws in the UFC, still… In fact, Griffin is probably the reason why UFC 126 did decent numbers, and not Silva/Belfort. And also, UFC 117 was Sonnen’s coming out party. He was never put in a position to shine before. He had never even headlined a big show before.
I think Sonnen vs. Wanderlei Silva could potentially draw, as could Sonnen vs. Vitor Belfort.
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Many people already responded to you that he was third down from the card, hardly promoted, and wasn’t even on the poster. I think it is ridiculous that you are blatantly ignoring this.
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lol
When I talked to casuals about this card they were all meh about it then I talked about the Sonnen matchup and they were all like “Oh shit son Chael Sonnen is fighting? OMG I didn’t know that now i’ll watch”.
Casuals didn’t even know Chael Sonnen was fighting. So this number says nothing about Chael being or not being a draw, sorry.
Heard the same thing myself. Talked to a friend the day after he laughed when he told me he had no clue Chael was on the card until the first time he was mentioned on the broadcast. Even went to say that he was the highlight of the card.
by Empty Thoughts on Oct 20, 2011 11:32 AM EDT up reply actions
Doubtful, and I don’t think it should. He wasn’t promoted at all in any promotional ads reaching the casual fanbase. I had a house of friends who didn’t even know he was on the card.
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by Leland Roling on Oct 20, 2011 11:30 AM EDT up reply actions
I also don’t think he’s a draw… yet. He could become a slight draw in the future, although it is a bit late.
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by Leland Roling on Oct 20, 2011 11:31 AM EDT up reply actions
Abject Failure
Two title fights that had top p4p fighters, recognizable names, the return of Sonnen (who didn’t hype this fight at all) and only 250,000 buys? The WWE style promotion is only going to get worse. The consumer has spoken.
Fringe sport. On paper this event looked to have the best quality fights over any card in quite some time and it completely delivered. Too bad the buying public pays for names and personalities. This is the type of card the average sports fan could have become an MMA fan if they had watched.
by Eoghan on Oct 20, 2011 10:13 AM EDT reply actions 2 recs
I'm shocked
After a great second fight by Edgar/Maynard, then you have Sonnen’s return, I was expecting more numbers. Maybe MMa is finally peaking.
But I thought Chael was such a huge draw?
Anderson Silva, Edson Barboza, Jose Aldo, Charles Oliveira, Thiago Alves = Muay Thai wrecking machines!
by SentientAndroid on Oct 20, 2011 10:17 AM EDT reply actions 3 recs
I'd hardly say this was an accurate representation of Sonnens drawing power
Considering he was neither main, nor co-main event, never went out of his way to hype up this fight, and the UFC themselves preferred to focus on Maynard/Edgar and Aldo/Florian.
by YPG on Oct 20, 2011 10:19 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I like how it flies both ways
On one hand he’s the draw the casual fan cares about, but on the other hand apparently they only care when he goes full retard.
Or… they just don’t care about him either way? trollface.jpg indeed
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by Cory Braiterman on Oct 20, 2011 10:33 AM EDT up reply actions
How can you honestly blame Sonnen for the buy rates… his face, let alone his name, isn’t even on the poster. That’s just beyond ridiculous.
Chalk it up to the general Sonnen hate and step away. No point even discussing it with people anymore imo.
by Empty Thoughts on Oct 20, 2011 10:43 AM EDT up reply actions
How can you honestly blame Sonnen.....
because Sonnen is a cheater and a liar and whatever!
If something goes wrong and Sonnen is on it, I blame him.
Simple.
by Imaginary Enemy on Oct 20, 2011 11:43 AM EDT up reply actions
Chael didn't do any trash talk, and wasn't headlining in the first place.
This was the last of four consecutive events, two being ppvs, in four weeks, plus it only had one real week of promotion leading up to it. The public were tapped out on UFC and didn’t have very high anticipation. Neither of the champions, Maynard, nor Florian are major ppv draws so all of those reasons are why this card was below the usual 350K.
by amendamatrix on Oct 20, 2011 10:55 AM EDT up reply actions
Hmmm . . . . I love the pick, great choice!
Too bad the UFC didn’t make some really nice bread on a great card. I enjoyed it.
Well at least now, fans can surely but slowly stop fake, corny predictions concerning how well a card will do because:
- so and so is fighting and their last fight was a War! (see Edgar vs Maynard)
- People care about title matches
- Chael Sonnen is a marketing genius with a masters from
WWEHarvard Businesss School
Yes, we know Sonnen didn’t go bananas on Stann. Ok.
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So . . . Bernard Hopkins was stopped via single leg takedown?
by VeeisAnimated on Oct 20, 2011 12:17 PM EDT up reply actions
UFC Jumped The Shark...
Sorry, it’s true. From 2006-2009, I bought the majority of PPV’s. In 2010, I trailed off a bit. In 2011, I’ve bought maybe 2 cards.
My rule has always been that there need to be 3 fights that I’m interested in to buy a card. The cards are clearly spread too thin…the dropoff in fight quality is HUGE. Back in 2008, Diego Sanchz, Josh Koshcheck, and Andre Arlovski fought on undercards on occasion! That would never happen now.
Doesn’t help that the quality of Ultimate Fighter is down the toilet.
Personally, I think they should cut out 5 cards and stack the rest of the cards. Maybe since they are building up new fighters on Facebook/Prelims they’ll be able to fill the roster a little better later.
2012 will be better… more fighters (SF guys, one more weight class added, the flyweights), less PPV cards, more free cards, and new and much more interesting TUF format. Better all around for MMA fans.
Free cards on TV are the key to success, you cant interest new buyers without letting them sample the product
Spoen like a true drug dealer...the first taste is always free.
Unfortunately for Zuffa, Dana hasn’t figured out a way to combine opiates with mma.
Guess we all have to wait for UFC Paris 2012: The French Connection!
Featuring GSP, Diabate, Kongo, LeBanner and Carmont.
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Oh, and this just shows why the UFC doesn’t want to waste too many main card spots for lighter weight guys… nobody cares about them, this proves it.
Once again, chicken and the egg argument.
by discoandherpes on Oct 20, 2011 10:22 AM EDT up reply actions
Not in this case. This is a card where they put the best possible LW and FW matchups they could, and it flopped big time. How is it the UFC’s fault? They built a card around two lighter weight matchups, with high profile guys, and nobody wants to see them fight.
Edgar & Maynard Are Paying Penance For Boring Fights
People aren’t jumping on the bandwagon for one good fight. BJ Penn and Anderson Silva draw because they maul people and lick blood off their gloves.
by davebo on Oct 20, 2011 10:27 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
even penn barely did 300K in Australia no?
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Well, that’s in Australia though… shows outside of North America never do well. It’d be interesting to see how Lesnar or GSP would draw on a show in Australia, just to compare, but the UFC would never risk that.
how much was Penn drawing for his LW title fights?
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Because it was flawed thinking from the start that they could prop up PPV’s with title matches from divisions no one knows anything about. Division building leads to an emotional connection with the division itself, which makes the title belt more valuable. This is referring to Aldo/Florian, not as much Maynard/Edgar. In LW’s case, the UFC was just stuck with two guys that lack personality on top. LW is much more established and will draw again in the near future.
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Aldo had a ton of visibility at UFC 129 in one of the biggest shows ever… plus, the UFC paired him up with a long-time UFC fighter in Florian. What more could the UFC have done?
Again, it’s not about one guy or one fight. It’s about creating awareness from the ground up for the title belt he’s fighting for. And Kenny Florian has never been a draw in any way, shape, or form.
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I know.
Here’s what the UFC should do… not put lighter weight fights in its main and co-main slots for a while longer, and that includes LW. All they do is drag down the whole event.
If anything, they should flood main cards and TV spots with featherweight and bantamweight fights for a bit so people can get attached to contenders. Short term hit for long term gain, especially when the top guys are drawing the buys anyway.
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No way they do that. They could put the kids on free cards while they put the big boys on PPV cards, sure… but no way they intentionally take a hit on many PPV cards just to see if people will start liking Edgar, Aldo and Cruz.
They wouldn’t be taking a hit, because the bottom two fights on a PPV aren’t drawing cards anyway. Jorgensen this weekend would be a perfect example. It literally makes no difference to the buyrate if Jorg or Tavares is on the card. But they continually go with TUF guys, thinking that the previous TV exposure means people might be interested. Well, they aren’t, so they’ve got to try something different.
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The UFC needs to do less cards per year
and fill these cards with quality match ups.
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So they make cuts?
It’s not that complicated…
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by Chad Raynard on Oct 20, 2011 11:02 AM EDT up reply actions
No… More free shows, less PPV shows, and a lot more fighters… the quality of PPV shows has no choice but to increase.
That doesn't sound even remotely logical
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by Chad Raynard on Oct 20, 2011 11:20 AM EDT up reply actions
Why not? The UFC’s adding a lot of SF fighters soon. And they’ll go from a total of 27 shows to 34, while the number of PPV shows will go from 16 to 12. So, they now have only 12 shows to put title fights and meaningful fights on, while the other 22 free shows will have whatever else is available. And let’s not forget the new Flyweight division… that’s another bunch of fighters. Sure, they won’t headline shows anytime soon, but they’ll still support big cards.
I think part of the problem is too much content
Casual fans can’t keep up and generally don’t have the interest to tune into smaller cards. I think focusing their talent around fewer cards could help this issue and draw more interest.
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by Chad Raynard on Oct 20, 2011 11:32 AM EDT up reply actions
Casual fans don’t watch every single NHL/NFL/NBA/MLB game… they pick and choose what interests them. Why can’t it work for MMA, too? Say there’s a show every saturday night, on TV, or on PPV… they don’t need to watch every single one of them. They can pick and choose which ones they want to watch, and that’s fine.
It can’t work for MMA because there’s no offseason. Casuals need their break from certain sports and MMA doesn’t give them that respite. With that, if they feel like they have to watch every week or too often, they just tune it out. That’s what a lot of my friends did this last month. They saw four fight cards on the schedule with another not long after and decided it wasn’t worth it to follow it all. They probably have tuned the entire sport out until the Fox card at this point.
This card was filled with quality matchups and didn’t draw. Clearly that isn’t a good enough answer.
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by Rundownloser on Oct 20, 2011 11:50 AM EDT up reply actions
It's also the free undercard fights killing the PPVs
I still maintain that a big factor – besides buyer fatigue – is that now you can see every single prelim either on facebook or free cable TV, and by the time the PPV comes on you’ve already seen 5 to 7 free fights. Then you’re expected to pay more than $10 per fight for the main card? And you’re supposed to maintain interest over the course of almost 6 hours? Sorry, I don’t see casual fans having that kind of stamina. They can get their fight fix early in the evening if they want one, then head out to enjoy the night doing other things.
Once the Fox stuff takes hold, I think UFC can let the newer, less-committed fans get their free fights on Fox and increase the number of fights on the PPV portion of the card. If they’re not going to drop the price of the PPV, they should increase the number of fights you get for your money.
.....
by Scabby Knuckle on Oct 20, 2011 10:28 AM EDT reply actions
This very much. I’ve actually deleted my account, but when it was active I’d remind people before every event and it was always a “OMG I totally forgot” or “They show UFC fights on Facebook” landslide of comments.
by Empty Thoughts on Oct 20, 2011 10:45 AM EDT up reply actions
I'd buy more PPV cards if they showed the entire event in HD on the PPV channel.
I love FB Fights, but i don’t get fatigued from it. It’s better than NFL Sundays, in my opinion.
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by dbcb on Oct 20, 2011 10:33 AM EDT reply actions 3 recs
The sport itself isn't drawing.
Blaming specific fighters is a waste of time. And banking on specific fighters is a mistake.
It will be interesting to see if the move to Fox can somehow revitalise the product.
Maybe an idea would be to put the best fights on the PPV
Like, why was Pettis-Stephens on free TV on this one while Phan-Garcia was on the PPV? Same thing again with Tavares-Jacoby on the next one while Cowboy-Siver is on for free. It’s all good if you’ve got good enough fights to be like hey, this card is so fucking good that we can give these shit-hot fights away for free, but if you haven’t then you need to be smarter with what goes onto the PPV and what doesn’t, especially if you don’t have a main event that hooks casuals by itself.
Well it was supposed to be Russow/Herman on the main card… but when that got cancelled, they promoted Grispi/Grice, which eventually became Garcia/Phan.
And I agree that the Spike prelims should be more flexible so that the PPV card is as great as it can be, but it’s also understandable that Spike puts money into promoting its prelims and don’t want them changed at the last minute… Maybe they’ll have more flexibility with FX than they did with Spike?
the UFC brand isn't as powerful as it once was
its time for them to build stars instead…
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I agree that the UFC needs to build new starts, GSP and especially Lesnar can only fight for so long… Those are the only two guys that can put an event on their back and do great numbers without any long-brewing grudge matches or excessive amounts of hype.
But, the UFC brand has never been as powerful as it is now… they didn’t get a deal with Fox for nothing. I think it’s just a matter of people tuning in to watch specific fighters, guys they identify with, guys they like to hate, just plain like.
I guess hardcores really don't matter!
Srsly, we need to start actually paying for ppvs.
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edgar and maynard, aldo and florian= ZERO draw.
Lesnar and GSP are the biggest cash-cows of the ufc by far.
I’m tempted to say that Lesnar and GSP are the ONLY cash-cows in the UFC. Really, who else is a can’t miss draw, no matter their opponent? Everyone else relies on heavy marketing, grudge match BS, etc. Lesnar and GSP are the only real draws in the UFC. Let’s hope Jones develops into a draw, because the UFC desperately need someone to step up and take that role because Lesnar only has 2-3 fights at the most (IMO), and GSP only has a few more years before he hangs them up (IMO, also). What after? Pretty much everyone at LW is boring, especially Edgar. Cain is boring. JDS, should he win the belt, is brazilian and tanked on TUF because he’s pretty boring (not as much as Cain, but still pretty boring), Anderson Silva is way too inconsistent and doesn’t care to hype up his fights. The UFC’s in a tough spot if it can only rely on GSP and Lesnar to make big money…
None of their current champs are going to become draws imo outside of GSP, and he is only one because he was a champion back in the hey day of Chuck and people remember that. They simply just don’t have the same charisma as some of the old timers.
I mean Chuck’s sprawling of the arms while letting loose a primal scream was what drew fans. That raw emotion. The current champions are all breed to the business and show next to no emotion. Cain, Edgar, Jones, Aldo, Cruz… none of them have had that connecting moment with the fans. Silva did after his win over Chael and Okami by giving very emotional speeches, but if he goes back to his stoic self that will quickly blow over.
Personality. Without it we won’t be seeing another true superstar.
by Empty Thoughts on Oct 20, 2011 11:30 AM EDT up reply actions
That… and casual fans just don’t care about non-English speaking fighters, especially those who clearly don’t want to make an effort. There’s no excuse for Anderson Silva not to be functionally speaking in english after 6-7 years in the UFC. He shouldn’t need to have Ed Soares by his side at every moment by now. Look at JDS. He coached on TUF, and speaks very good English. If JDS beats Cain, he could easily become the 2nd best draw at HW, because of his personality and willingness to speak English and promote his fights.
no one was interested in edgar/gray before their fight where edgar returned from the brink of losing.
i never thought that 1 fight was enough to endear them to fans. aldo hasn’t shown the same killer instinct in his past few fights and i was less than interested in seeing the fight. i figured ken-flo would opt for his BJ Penn “press him against the cage” gameplan. he did.
Chael didn’t epic-troll leading up to the fight. hell, even the ufc countdown show for it felt a bit forced.
Edgar and Gray want to settle it. it will likely go to another decision. (go figure, edgar by tko).
Ken-flo talking about how explosive Aldo is (but really hasn’t been much lately).
Stann talking about how everytime he fights it’s for this fellow troops. great material, inspirational and all…..but it’s what he’s been saying since he was fighting in the wec. i’m kinda tired of it.
Chael not trash-talking and syaing it will be a tough 3 round grueling fight.
The whole coutndown show and the event itself just felt ho-hum.
Not to mention i just saw the entire free tv cruz/johnson fight. and before that i saw rampage/jones.
it was kinda overkill.
we are so spoiled these days as mma fans
Gatti. Dekkers. Pele. Aoki. Kang. Vanderlei. Basillio. Harry Greb.
by theworldsoldestsport on Oct 20, 2011 11:16 AM EDT reply actions
Could this possibly be the greatest mismatch bewteen
a card delivering (both on paper and during) and the number of buys? As far as I can remember, yes.
I am surprised
that the card tanked in PPV’s. I predicted much more than this, based on the quality of Edgar-Maynard II, but I think it was the hammock low point in between 135 and 137, as far as marquee value, and so people voted with their pocketbook (and missed a great fight, again). I think that flat out, there are just too many PPV’s, and next year it’ll get back on track.
You realize UFC 125 did terrible numbers, right?
I respect your opinion even though it's wrong.
by SSreporters on Oct 20, 2011 12:45 PM EDT up reply actions
PPV's are way down this year, even in Boxing
They should consider dropping their prices imo. $49.95 is a little much. I wonder how much more they’d sell if they slashed it in half and made PPV like $25.00.
Has Dana ever had an oppinion on PPV pricing, sure it’s been brought up in the past.
Yep, apparently the rumor why the Mayweather numbers haven’t been released is because they seem to have done about 500k less than thought. They are waiting in hopes that they can drum up more.
by Empty Thoughts on Oct 20, 2011 2:03 PM EDT up reply actions
I doubt they'd double their PPV numbers if they halved the price
I’d imagine they’ve done all kinds of sensitivity analyses and $49.95 is profit maximizing……..at least in the short term.
Not afraid to nitpick
Where did everyone get this idea that there are too many PPVs?
2010 will have had one less PPV than 2011 and posted good buyrates for UFC 111, 113, 114, 115 (with a 600 year old Chuck Liddell headlining), 116, 117, 121, and 124.
The problem is the PPVs are not headlined by their big draws. And they stubbornly refuse to promote their other top fighters for whatever reason.
It’s highly likely that the UFC doesn’t reach 500k again until Bones vs. Machida. UFC 137 will not sell well. UFC 139 may sell well because casuals know Shogun and Hendo but I am cautious about that.
I respect your opinion even though it's wrong.
They should put a sure fire exciting fight on the Spike prelims
and promote the hell out of it. Then when the casuals are all kinds of hyped after watching an awesome fight, say, oh by the way, the PPV starts in 5 minutes.
Also, a price cut would help as well, I know my broke ass can’t afford $50 bucks for a couple hours of entertainment.
I JUST WANT MY BASKETBALL BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
by Sean in Vancouver on Oct 20, 2011 12:50 PM EDT reply actions
It definitely feels more like an economy thing. gsp getting hurt saved me from having to fight with my wife to by yet another card.
This habit is expensive and I have bought all but 2 cards this year and may only be able to buy one more. So, I’m going to have to be more discerning than I normally am.
by troyd on Oct 20, 2011 1:03 PM EDT via mobile reply actions
Shitty economy and free streams
That’s what’s killing the PPVs
"If you say Chael Sonnen I will light you on fire." -- Farthammer.
Meh I don't think the streams matter at all
I think those people just wouldn’t be fans if they somehow cut off the streams (which they really can’t btw). Either they don’t have the $50 to blow or it’s not worth $50 to watch.
Not afraid to nitpick
I just wish Chael would finally teach Anderson
How to really sell ppvs like he does. Hes such a money making draw #sarcasmFael
If your not ready to fight shut your $@&%ING mouth! - BJ Penn
by warren305 on Oct 20, 2011 1:30 PM EDT via mobile reply actions
Not surprising, but a crying shame anyway. A lot of people missed a great card.
Twitter - @pud333 Follow me and I shall lead you to the promised land!
Probably already been mentioned, but the lighter weights can absolutely draw – but they need marketable guys.
Aldo – doesn’t speak English, also hasn’t been exciting to watch lately.
Frankie & Gray – two most boring fighters on the planet, personality wise. Generally speaking their fighting styles don’t excite much either, aside from both their title fights.
Cruz – goes to a decision every time, always fights the same fight. Not marketable. If Faber were to have dominated him, Faber would be headlining PPVs no problem, kid is just marketable.
It’s too bad Guillard faltered against J-Lau, Melvin would be a polarizing, charismatic contender/champ. Same with Pettis, or Cerrone, or Guida. Possibly Bendo. Melendez for sure.
I think the lighter weight classes will be just fine – the low PPVs are just a product of poorly marketable current champs right now.
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