The heavyweight title fight that seemingly everyone was talking about prior to it happening brought in pretty disappointing in PPV sales. Well, maybe not in this era of low pay-per-view sales. With the numbers now available, Dave Meltzer of MMA Fighting reports that UFC 220 did a measly 340,000 to 380,000 PPV buys, with UFC […]
The heavyweight title fight that seemingly everyone was talking about prior to it happening brought in pretty disappointing in PPV sales.
Well, maybe not in this era of low pay-per-view sales.
With the numbers now available, Dave Meltzer of MMA Fighting reports that UFC 220 did a measly 340,000 to 380,000 PPV buys, with UFC 219 doing similar numbers.
Much has been made lately about the UFC in a post-ZUFFA world, as talent mega-agency WME-IMG’s new ownership has taken the promotion in a different direction. With less superstars readily available, they seem to stack a card with belts, of varying significance, like they did with UFC 219 which featured a women’s featherweight title fight between Cyborg and Holly Holm.
A co-main event between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Edson Barboza was incredible but clearly didn’t add to any kind of draw for UFC 219.
UFC 220 featured the aforementioned heavyweight title fight between Miocic and Ngannou as well as light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier running roughshod on Volkan Oezdemir. But Cormier has never been the draw that Jon Jones was when he held the belt, and Miocic has always been a bit stale on the mic, meaning he lets his fists do the promoting; you won’t hear much trash talk or hype coming from Miocic.
That said, there seems to be a continued trend of abysmal pay-per-views lately. Is it just a blip or is it a sign of things to come?
The UFC has hit a wall after the massively successful UFC 214 in July. UFC 215, which was headlined by Amanda Nunes vs Valentina Shevchenko II, has an estimated 100,000 PPV buys, while UFC 216 an estimated 120,000, according to MMA Fighting’s Dave Meltzer. Compare that to UFC 214’s 850,000 buys, but keep in mind […]
The UFC has hit a wall after the massively successful UFC 214 in July.
UFC 215, which was headlined by Amanda Nunes vs Valentina Shevchenko II, has an estimated 100,000 PPV buys, while UFC 216 an estimated 120,000, according to MMA Fighting’s Dave Meltzer.
Compare that to UFC 214’s 850,000 buys, but keep in mind that card featured Jon Jones, one of the UFC’s most consistent draws for the UFC when it comes to pay-per-view.
UFC 216 featured an interim lightweight title affair between Tony Ferguson and Kevin Lee, a bout which, despite having some exciting trash talk in the months leading up to it, apparently didn’t deliver anything resembling decent numbers on accord of it.
The event also featured a co-main event between dominant flyweight champ Demetrious Johnson and Ray Borg; Johnson and even though “Mighty Mouse” broke Anderson Silva’s record for most consecutive title defenses with 11, he’s still not known to be a big draw and is usually placed on free FOX or FS1 cards.
2017 has been a slow year for the UFC after the apparent retirement of Ronda Rousey, Jon Jones’ newest failed drug test, and an overall lack of Conor McGregor in the octagon. McGregor fought three times for the UFC in 2016, which was a hugely successful year for the promotion. Yet his one-time run in boxing has kept their biggest star from fighting in the UFC, which has undoubtedly affected PPV buys.
Georges St-Pierre, who used to be the company’s biggest draw, will return from retirement on November 4 when he takes on middleweight champion Michael Bisping, which could stand to be a PPV success.
MMA reached its zenith at UFC 182 on Saturday, but if you looked at and listened to the crowd throughout the night you’d have hardly recognized that.
The audience was sparse and half-dead. They’d have done a wave to entertain themselves if the first four fights of the PPV — four decisions featuring unimpressive and sluggish performances — hadn’t already put them to sleep. An incessant stream of “this event sucks” tweets rolled in. This script has played itself out in the past. A card that’s supposed to be the pinnacle of the sport turns out to be a boring, uninteresting, overhyped amalgam of everything wrong with it, only this time we spent an extra $5. It appeared the poor showings, as well as the restless (and partially absent) audience would ruin one of the most anticipated UFC cards in recent memory.
MMA reached its zenith at UFC 182 on Saturday, but if you looked at and listened to the crowd throughout the night you’d have hardly recognized that.
The audience was sparse and half-dead. They’d have done a wave to entertain themselves if the first four fights of the PPV — four decisions featuring unimpressive and sluggish performances — hadn’t already put them to sleep. An incessant stream of “this event sucks” tweets rolled in. This script has played itself out in the past. A card that’s supposed to be the pinnacle of the sport turns out to be a boring, uninteresting, overhyped amalgam of everything wrong with it, only this time we spent an extra $5. It appeared the poor showings, as well as the restless (and partially absent) audience would ruin one of the most anticipated UFC cards in recent memory.
“Domination” and “breaking your opponent” are cliched phrases in MMA, but when fans and pundits originally coined them they had performances like Jon Jones’ in mind. Not only did Jones beat Cormier, he beat Cormier at what he was best at — wrestling…and he made it look easy. Jon Jones took an Olympic wrestler to the mat multiple times just for kicks, broke his will in the later rounds through the same fabled “grind” Cormier was supposed to be the master of, and made him cry at the post-fight press conference.
The in-cage martial artistry isn’t even the best part. That came after the phantasmagoric displays of violence. Jones taunted a dejected Cormier with a “crotch chop” circa late 1990′s WWE. When Joe Rogan conducted a rushed (the PPV was about to hit the end of the allotted time) interview with Jones, the reigning light heavyweight champ chided Cormier’s supporters by telling them to burn their “Break Bones” t-shirts and buy his “Unbroken” t-shirt. Already guffawing (or seething, depending on your alignment) at these antics? There’s MORE. In the post-fight show on Fox Sports 1, Jones continued to bash his defeated foe.
“I hope he’s somewhere crying right now,” Jones said. “I’m sure he is.” He continued on, saying Cormier is the kind of fighter who breaks when fights get tough. Jones also said Cormier is no king of the grind like people thought.
When asked about a possible reconciliation, Jones refused to let up on his verbal onslaught.
“I know if he would have won, he would have been up here, talking all types of trash,” Jones told MMAJunkie. “So I don’t feel sorry for him. This is combat.”
The hashtag #TheTimeIsNow became the butt end of many jokes on MMA Twitter during the last few weeks. The UFC used the hashtag to promote their embarrassing “omg big announcement” press conference where they announced they had no big announcement. People used #TheTimeIsNow to mock the UFC’s recent legal troubles as well as the grim state of their PPV business.
Jon Jones is the best MMA fighter that any of us will ever see in our lifetimes. You can claim Fedor Emelianenko was the GOAT while clutching your Pride VHS collection, but you’d be wrong. Jon Jones is capable of violence and technique on a level we’ve never seen before, nor will we likely ever see again if MMA continues its current descent in popularity.
In addition to his fighting acumen, Jon Jones posses more personality and emotional magnetism than all the other UFC champions combined. Remember how MMA erupted when Ronda Rousey didn’t shake Miesha Tate’s hand after submitting her at UFC 168? What Jones did to Cormier after UFC 182 makes that look like a bro hug by comparison.
The best part is it’s not a gimmick. Jon Jones doesn’t caricature over-the-top professional wrestling promos from yesteryear. Jon Jones doesn’t exclaim that fighters from less fortunate countries mistake public transit for barnyard animals. Jon Jones breaks people. Jon Jones chokes people out and drops them on the canvas, limp and limbs quivering. Jon Jones makes people cry, then says he’s glad about it. Jon Jones is unabashedly himself. A large percentage of fans hate him for it — just look at the comments on any Jones-related article to see that. Hell, someone even tweeted to CagePotato last night saying they hope somebody shoots Jones. But despite the hate, they pay to see him. Estimates already state UFC 182 achieved over 750k buys. In an age where fighters who draw 400k are considered the company’s top stars, this is almost a miracle.
The time for watching the best MMA fighter of all time and the UFC’s current biggest star is right now. Jones is the light in the current dark age of MMA. Every second of watching Jon Jones display his craft is a gift from a Lovecraftian god of violence. Cherish this gift, even if you don’t like Jones as a person.
Brock Lesnar will likely return to the UFC in 2015, but it won’t usher in a new golden age for MMA.
The news of Lesnar’s UFC return came recently. Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Newsletterreported that “within the [WWE], the belief is that he’s going back to the UFC, and his showing up lighter to TV last week confirmed that to people who thought it.”
Earlier this year, UFC President Dana White expressed openness to a Lesnar return, and even claimed Lesnar was willing to return. “We have a great relationship with him,” said White. “We’ll see what happens.”
Furthermore, Lesnar’s longtime friend Paul Heyman noted this summer that Lesnar still has an intense drive to compete in the Octagon.
Unlike every other time Brock Lesnar’s name has been in the headlines over the last few years, this round of “Is Lesnar coming back” speculation isn’t a gimmick to drive up pageviews during a slow news week. This appears to be the real deal. Lesnar is coming back. However, unlike conventional wisdom would have you believe, it won’t do a damn thing to turn the UFC’s fortunes around.
(Brock Lesnar flashes a rare smile after being informed he’s the highest-paid 5-3 fighter of all time. / Photo via Getty)
Brock Lesnar will likely return to the UFC in 2015, but it won’t usher in a new golden age for MMA.
The news of Lesnar’s UFC return came recently. Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Newsletterreported that “within the [WWE], the belief is that he’s going back to the UFC, and his showing up lighter to TV last week confirmed that to people who thought it.”
Earlier this year, UFC President Dana White expressed openness to a Lesnar return, and even claimed Lesnar was willing to return. “We have a great relationship with him,” said White. “We’ll see what happens.”
Furthermore, Lesnar’s longtime friend Paul Heyman noted this summer that Lesnar still has an intense drive to compete in the Octagon.
Unlike every other time Brock Lesnar’s name has been in the headlines over the last few years, this round of “Is Lesnar coming back” speculation isn’t a gimmick to drive up pageviews during a slow news week. This appears to be the real deal. Lesnar is coming back. However, unlike conventional wisdom would have you believe, it won’t do a damn thing to turn the UFC’s fortunes around.
The UFC’s PPV buys plummeted throughout 2014, hitting an estimated low of 115,000 for UFC 174. The 2014 yearly average for PPV buys was only 256,000 — about 200,000 lower than the previous three years. The UFC’s business soured so much Standard & Poor’s downgraded Zuffa’s credit rating and financial outlook.
MMA fans have problems interpreting numbers, so let me spell it out plainly: The UFC’s domestic popularity hasn’t been this low since before the Ultimate Fighter boom. The PPV market is collapsing. The FOX deal is not the UFC’s catapult to mainstream super-stardom we all thought it would be. Casual fans have fled MMA, only to return sparingly for free television shows and almost never for PPVs. The resolve of hardcore fans, tasked with keeping the sport alive during its dark times, is withering. These problems are a result of Zuffa’s oversaturation approach as well as the fading/retirement of old stars. I’ve discussed both these problemsnumeroustimes so I won’t repeat myself suffice it to say one man can’t fix the MMA marketplace in the United States.
Brock Lesnar last fought at UFC 141 in 2011 against Alistair Overeem. Care to guess the buyrate? A mediocre 535,000. UFC 91 in 2008 — the first event Lesnar headlined, this time against Randy Couture for the UFC heavyweight title — drew 1,010,000 buys.
Only half as many people cared to see Lesnar in 2011 compared to 2009. So how many people will care in 2015, four years and thousands of brand-killing, generic, unfit-for-television-and-PPV fights (that still made it onto television and PPV) later? Furthermore, Lesnar is 37 now. The last memories people have of him in the cage are Alistair Overeem liquefying his intestines with a body kick and Cain Velasquez punching him so hard he did a hilarious pirouette across the cage. Even if the UFC matches Lesnar up against the Brendan Schaubs of the heavyweight division, it’s not likely given Lesnar’s age that his second UFC run will be longer than his first.
Think about it this way, MMA is in such a state that if Lesnar’s first PPV back draws 500k buys it’ll be a tremendous success. Four plus years ago that same number would’ve been an abject failure for someone of Lesnar’s name value.
Brock Lesnar’s return is not the salvation of MMA. It’s not the restoration of MMA’s golden age. It’s Zuffa throwing two or three fight’s worth of kindling onto a dying fire — LIVE for $59.99.
(Pretending that Mighty Mouse wasn’t headlining the card may have been a brilliant marketing strategy — but it wasn’t enough to make UFC 178 a success.)
Reddit user thisisdanitis passes along the latest UFC pay-per-view buyrate estimates from Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer newsletter, which provide more proof that the UFC’s PPV business just ain’t what it used to be. Here we go…
UFC 181 (Hendricks vs. Lawler, Pettis vs. Melendez): 380,000 (This is an early number and may change somewhat based on late reporting cable systems.)
The UFC 178 estimate is the most surprising to me, because the event was so highly anticipated among hardcore MMA fans as a “stacked” card with Event of the Year potential, and it still barely broke 200k. Of course, casual fans only look at the main event, and Demetrious Johnson is basically the worst PPV draw on the roster.
It’s almost as surprising that UFC 180 performed as well as it did, considering that the card had no stars outside of the main event. And 380,000 buys for UFC 181 is very good, relatively speaking. That’s like the equivalent of 650,000 buys in 2009.
(Pretending that Mighty Mouse wasn’t headlining the card may have been a brilliant marketing strategy — but it wasn’t enough to make UFC 178 a success.)
Reddit user thisisdanitis passes along the latest UFC pay-per-view buyrate estimates from Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer newsletter, which provide more proof that the UFC’s PPV business just ain’t what it used to be. Here we go…
UFC 181 (Hendricks vs. Lawler, Pettis vs. Melendez): 380,000 (This is an early number and may change somewhat based on late reporting cable systems.)
The UFC 178 estimate is the most surprising to me, because the event was so highly anticipated among hardcore MMA fans as a “stacked” card with Event of the Year potential, and it still barely broke 200k. Of course, casual fans only look at the main event, and Demetrious Johnson is basically the worst PPV draw on the roster.
It’s almost as surprising that UFC 180 performed as well as it did, considering that the card had no stars outside of the main event. And 380,000 buys for UFC 181 is very good, relatively speaking. That’s like the equivalent of 650,000 buys in 2009.
The UFC’s next three PPVs should pull the promotion’s buyrates out of the garbage, at least. UFC 182: Jones vs. Cormier and UFC 183: Silva vs. Diaz have massive main events (but thin supporting cards), and UFC 184 features the double title-fight punch of Weidman vs. Belfort and Rousey vs. Zingano. So where will the buyrates for those cards end up? And if more than one of them falls below 500k, will the UFC just give up and focus its business on novelty barbecue equipment?
(“PPV buys are higher than ever, dummies. These goofy Internet fucks know NOTHING. Everything is fine.”—Dana White doing his best impersonation of this guy. / Photo via Getty)
Cain Velasquez became another victim (again) of the UFC’s so-called “injury bug,” pulling out of UFC 180 with a knee injury. This is great news for people who want to see a weirdo holding a UFC heavyweight title as Mark Hunt stepped in to fight original challenger Fabricio Werdum. This is bad news for fans who want to watch the greatest heavyweight talent in the sport since Fedor Emelianenko. It’s horrible news for the UFC, who set up this event in Mexico City to both help cultivate the Mexican market and provide a similar atmosphere for Velasquez that Conor McGregor received in Ireland earlier this year.
It’s another blow to the UFC’s pay-per-view business. UFC Chairman and CEO Lorenzo Fertitta told Sports Business Daily that “about 80 percent” of fights they wanted to put on have been cancelled. That’s probably an exaggeration (at least if we’re looking at the entirety of the UFC’s matchmaking), but the reality isn’t much better. Of the 14 events including and between UFC 168 and UFC 181 (including the cancelled UFC 176), only five have escaped an injury to a fighter in either the main or co-main event. That is, 64% of UFC PPVs within that timeframe have had alterations or cancellations to one of the featured bouts at the top of the card.
Combined with the loss of Georges St-Pierre (quasi-retirement) and Anderson Silva (wishboned leg), the injuries at the top of marquee events have led the UFC to its worst year on pay-per-view since 2005. In 2005, the UFC ran six pay-per-view events for a total of 950,000 buys and an average of 158,000 per event. This year hasn’t been that bad (2.22M total buys/277,500 per event), but that’s far below the “down years” of 2011-13. (It should be noted that those “down years” are in line with the total PPV business the UFC did prior to the 2009-10 Lesnar Era.)
(“PPV buys are higher than ever, dummies. These goofy Internet fucks know NOTHING. Everything is fine.”—Dana White doing his best impersonation of this guy. / Photo via Getty)
Cain Velasquez became another victim (again) of the UFC’s so-called “injury bug,” pulling out of UFC 180 with a knee injury. This is great news for people who want to see a weirdo holding a UFC heavyweight title as Mark Hunt stepped in to fight original challenger Fabricio Werdum. This is bad news for fans who want to watch the greatest heavyweight talent in the sport since Fedor Emelianenko. It’s horrible news for the UFC, who set up this event in Mexico City to both help cultivate the Mexican market and provide a similar atmosphere for Velasquez that Conor McGregor received in Ireland earlier this year.
It’s another blow to the UFC’s pay-per-view business. UFC Chairman and CEO Lorenzo Fertitta told Sports Business Daily that “about 80 percent” of fights they wanted to put on have been cancelled. That’s probably an exaggeration (at least if we’re looking at the entirety of the UFC’s matchmaking), but the reality isn’t much better. Of the 14 events including and between UFC 168 and UFC 181 (including the cancelled UFC 176), only five have escaped an injury to a fighter in either the main or co-main event. That is, 64% of UFC PPVs within that timeframe have had alterations or cancellations to one of the featured bouts at the top of the card.
Combined with the loss of Georges St-Pierre (quasi-retirement) and Anderson Silva (wishboned leg), the injuries at the top of marquee events have led the UFC to its worst year on pay-per-view since 2005. In 2005, the UFC ran six pay-per-view events for a total of 950,000 buys and an average of 158,000 per event. This year hasn’t been that bad (2.22M total buys/277,500 per event), but that’s far below the “down years” of 2011-13. (It should be noted that those “down years” are in line with the total PPV business the UFC did prior to the 2009-10 Lesnar Era.)
The blame is often cast at “UFC oversaturation,” the idea that the UFC is flooding the market with too much content for their consumers. You can trace the oversaturation argument all the way back to 2010, when television ratings started to fall, and it’s only picked up steam as the UFC has expanded their product from 24 events in 2010 to 45 in 2014.
That comparison is a bit misleading, however. When you add in Strikeforce (15 events) and the WEC (8 events), you wind up with 47 shows between the three promotions in 2010. It seems only natural that the UFC would fill the void after assimilating the WEC and Strikeforce and inflating their roster. It was easier for Joe Casual to follow the UFC in 2010 because the promotional landscape helped delineate the sport. You had an A-show in the UFC and two solid B-products (with different niches) in Strikeforce and the WEC.
The problem isn’t that there is too many UFC events. The problem is that the UFC has done a bad job differentiating their products. There is, at times, little separating a pay-per-view event like UFC 177 (even before the Renan Barao fiasco) from one of the better Fox Sports 1 cards. This naturally leads people to ask questions like, “Why am I paying $54.95 to watch Beneil Dariush and Carlos Diego Ferreira?”
Fortunately, it’s a problem the UFC is aware of. As Lorenzo Fertitta told Sports Business Daily:
It’s about segmentation of the product, and quite honestly, I don’t think we did a good job of it when we went into the deal with Fox. We didn’t take a deep breath and say, ‘OK, how are we going to do this?’ It wasn’t until two or three months later when we said, ‘We gotta think about this differently.’ We had to segment the product and package it differently.
Progress has been made on this front. The first few UFC on Fox cards felt like promotion and network were closing their eyes and throwing darts at the wall. Those cards are starting to gain an identity: meaningful fight on top, action fights on the undercard. They seemed to have figured out their Fight Pass strategy as well: feature a regionally relevant fighter and pack the card with other locals. The Fox Sports 1 (formerly FX) shows have largely continued where they left off at Spike.
It’s on the success of their television deals, both domestic and international, that the UFC has buoyed itself. As Dave Meltzer notes at MMA Fighting, pay-per-view and ticket sale revenue now accounts for only 30 percent of the UFC’s revenues, down from 75 percent “[n]ot all that many years ago.” And revenues “have grown 50 percent in the past five years.”
While oversaturation seems nebulous and overall business seems healthy, the UFC’s pay-per-view strategy is in need of fine tuning. Despite their awful year, Meltzer notes that the UFC will continue on a “one per month” schedule in 2015, per Dana White. On one hand, you have to admire White and co. for their commitment to process over results. On the other, you have to wonder what the hell they’re thinking.
Simply put, the current roster cannot support 13 pay-per-views. They have few consistent draws. Jon Jones is the guy they can most rely on over the next few years, but has yet to transcend like Georges St-Pierre or Anderson Silva. Silva will headline UFC 183 in 2015, but is on Retirement Watch. Ronda Rousey, Dana White-proclaimed biggest star in MMA history, was just scheduled for her third supporting-role duty at UFC 182. Chris Weidman and Johny Hendricks are unproven. Sub-170 has sold tepidly at best post-B.J. Penn.
In addition, the pace of the UFC’s schedule makes it difficult for the company to fill pay-per-view undercards with appropriate talent. Fighters like Michael Bisping and Urijah Faber, long mainstays of PPV undercards, are now being relegated to Fight Pass main events and free TV PPV lead-ins. This isn’t all bad – being able to watch “name” talent for free or on the cheap is great, but it detracts from the value of a pay-per-view. Dana White once admonished boxing promoters for stuffing club fighters and also-rans underneath Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather. But the UFC quietly started to do the same thing with their biggest draws (Lesnar and St-Pierre), and it’s now become their norm.
The remedy is obvious: scale back pay-per-views to what the roster can support. Be dynamic. That’s what boxing’s done over the last decade. In 2006, HBO and Showtime put on 10 pay-per-view events drawing 3.7M buys for $179.5M in revenue. That number dropped to 8 for 2012 and 2013 combined. Thanks to two events a piece from Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, plus the emergence of Canelo Alvarez, boxing will end 2014 with seven pay-per-view events, none doing worse than 300,000 buys. Low-balling the final boxing PPV – headlined by Manny Pacquiao and Chris Algieri – for 600,000 buys, boxing will end up drawing somewhere in the neighborhood of 4.1-4.3M buys this year, which, barring a miracle, will outperform the UFC.
It’s obvious the UFC has noticed the problem. They stacked the UFC 178 undercard (which saved them from another atrocious buyrate when Jones went down), and they appear to be doing the same thing for UFC 182. And while they should bounce back some in 2015 (regression to the mean, y’all), they’re still playing a dangerous game with a full calendar of pay-per-view events.
