For the past few years, UFC President Dana White and his fellow executives have been hyping up the UFC and mixed martial arts as a whole as the fastest growing sport in the world.
With a new network television deal on FOX, top-level sponsors and a global marketing plan that has included events in seven different countries over the past six months, the sky seems to be the limit for this blooming sports organization.
However, lost in the success is a glass ceiling which the promotion hasn’t been able to break through as of late despite the popularity of the sport growing by leaps and bounds. I’m talking about pay-per-view buyrates.
UFC 121: Lesnar vs. Velasquez—this was the last time that a UFC pay-per-view event reached one million buys. Not coincidentally, it was also the last time that Brock Lesnar—the biggest pay-per-view name in the promotion’s history—held the UFC heavyweight championship.
With Lesnar now back with the WWE, it’s not surprising that the promotion has struggled to reach even close to those numbers.
In 2011, two events tied for the most pay-per-view purchases with 800,000—UFC 129 (St-Pierre vs. Shields) and UFC 141 (Lesnar vs. Overeem). While 800,000 is nothing to scoff at, it is definitely a significant drop-off from the numerous million-buy events that the company had, the majority of which were headlined by Lesnar.
So now with the former heavyweight champ out of the picture, it’s beginning to look as if the UFC might never get back to that magic number.
Perhaps the biggest test of this will come on July 7, 2012 when Anderson Silva battles Chael Sonnen at UFC 148.
The first Silva-Sonnen fight drew in over 600,000 buys and that was before the feud developed into the worldwide story that it is today. Now that the rivalry has grown to where it is today, it will be interesting to see whether the event can reach that historical 1 million mark.
Intense rivalries have been very successful in generating large buyrates in the past, even ones which were never as intense and long-lasting as the Silva-Sonnen feud. Both Rashad Evans vs. Rampage Jackson at UFC 114 and Chuck Liddell vs. Tito Ortiz at UFC 66 narrowly reached the 1 million buy milestone.
Then again, that was before the days when the UFC averaged more than one pay-per-view event per month.
UFC 148 was originally stacked with not only the Silva-Sonnen fight, but also the rubber match between Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber. Unfortunately, with Cruz having been forced out of the event due to an injury, it is now unlikely that there will be that extra boost of buys from fans who are long-time fans of the former WEC stars.
Now SIlva and Sonnen are going to have to do it on their own.
Love them or hate them as a fan, pay-per-views are one of the biggest sources of revenue for the UFC and have been a staple of the organization for years. The buyrates are not something that the company takes lightly.
While they’ll be able to survive without hitting a million televisions again, it’s hard to believe that the executives at Zuffa won’t be intently waiting to see if their most-hyped fight in years is able to achieve a seven-digit buyrate.
If they can’t do it at UFC 148, it may never happen again.
For more MMA news, fighter interviews and opinions, follow Nick Caron: @NicholasCaron.
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