Tag: UFC on Fox 1

Despite Large Audience Expectations, UFC on FOX Debut Will Be Money Loser for UFC

Filed under: UFC, News, UFC on FOXFor months, UFC president Dana White has said that it is the only thing he cares about. His concentration on the UFC on FOX debut has bordered on obsession. You can understand his focus, as the event will potentially p…

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For months, UFC president Dana White has said that it is the only thing he cares about. His concentration on the UFC on FOX debut has bordered on obsession. You can understand his focus, as the event will potentially put his product before the eyes of millions who have never seen it before. The Cain Velasquez vs. Junior dos Santos matchup might draw the largest television audience in UFC history, but that is simply a guess. One thing we know for sure is that it will be a money loser.

The quest to get the UFC on primetime network TV had been a long-held goal for years for White, and an idea that stemmed from his youth. White could remember becoming a boxing fan while watching ABC’s Wide World of Sports and realized that broad exposure was a logical route for expanding the UFC’s fan base. For now, though it will be a costly one.

That is because the UFC budgets each event as though it is a stand-alone business. It has its own marketing and advertising budget, and revenue expectations.

According to Sports Business Daily, the UFC forecasted that if it was on pay-per-view, a Velasquez vs. dos Santos heavyweight title fight would have brought in about 800,000 pay-per-view buys.

That would have made it a huge success and financial windfall. By those estimates, the event would have raked in about $40 million in revenue, money which is shared by cable and satellite pay-per-view distributors in splits which are not public record but believed to be near 50/50 with some variations. That would have meant around $18-20 million in revenue for the UFC. Even if the event did 400,000 buys — a number which SBD suggested was more likely given the results of recent similar fights — the promotion still would have earned something around $8-10 million in revenue.

The FOX deal is believed to pay the UFC an average of around $100 million annually, but some sources have indicated that the figure starts a bit lower than that average and increases each year over the length of the deal.

This show, however, is not part of that contract, negotiated independently and according to White, it is being written off as a loss-leader with an eye towards the future.

“It’s an investment in the company,” he recently said. “In no way, shape or form do we come anywhere close to making our money back. You don’t go on free television and make your money. That’s just not how it works. We’re going to get smashed on this fight, but it’s an investment in the future of the business.”

According to SBD, the UFC also reportedly had to dig into its pockets to pay Velasquez a bonus to offset the pay-per-view cut he lost when the company decided to feature him on free television.

It’s not all bad news though. In addition to arena gate and merchandising revenue for the historic show, the FOX deal is expected to bring in new advertising dollars. Though usual sponsors like Dodge and Bud Light are likely to be the more prominent ones for the premiere, FOX executives have indicated that new sponsors will be on board for the first event in 2012.

With FOX’s mainstream audience and ability to reach the target demographic of 18-34 year old males, the UFC sees the network as a driver for more explosive growth, the same way it helped push the rise of NASCAR. UFC chairman and CEO Lorenzo Fertitta told SBD that he believes the company could create 100,000 new pay-per-view buyers from the early exposure alone. So while the promotion expects the first event to be a short-term money-loser, they are banking on the belief that it will eventually increase the company’s bottom line.

It’s a strategic move that brings the product its widest exposure, with the hope that a fan-friendly platform turns into fan dollars.

“Our goal has always been to bring big, free fights back to network television,” White said. “Now that we have a network deal, we’re looking at it as, obviously we’re going to take a hit on the pay-per-view side for a big fight like this, but we’re thinking long-term for the future of the sport and making the sport bigger. That’s why we’re going to do it, and continue to do it.”

 

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UFC on Fox 1: Kid Yamamoto vs. Darren Uyenoyama Breakdown

On Saturday, most fight fans will tune in to see the heavyweight title fight between Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez.Those that do take a look at the undercard might notice this fight only because both combatants have equally difficult names to sp…

On Saturday, most fight fans will tune in to see the heavyweight title fight between Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez.

Those that do take a look at the undercard might notice this fight only because both combatants have equally difficult names to spell.

Other than the complexity of their last names, both Yamamoto and Uyenoyama have very few similarities.

Yamamoto usually knocks out his opponents and Uyenoyama mixes it up between submission wins and decision victories.

Yamamoto is 34 and Uyenoyama is 32.

Yamamoto has 23 fights to his name and Uyenoyama has nine to his.

And Yamamoto has won against top name competition.  Uyenoyama hasn’t.

Yamamoto has beaten Jeff Curran, Ranyi Yahya, Caol Uno, Genki Sudo and Bibiano Fernandes.  Other than the fights with Curran and Fernandes, each one has been by knockout.

He has also lost three of his four last fights.  Yamamoto has been on a slump and there is a good chance that he is finally starting to age.  It may just be that the “kid” is starting to turn into an old man.

With that said, Uyenoyama has lost two of his last four.

One of those losses was to Hideo Tokoro, a top Japanese fighter, but the other was to a relative unknown.

Uyenoyama has a gap of five years between his first professional fight and his second.  He also hasn’t fought since September of last year.

Yamamoto’s last fight was at UFC 126 in February.

Yamamoto may be in a slump, but he is the more active fighter who has already been to the biggest stage and fought some of the best names.  He has also been a fighter much longer if Uyenoyama’s five-year absence is taken into account.

For all intensive purposes, this seems to be a rebuilding fight for Yamamoto.  It might be that the UFC wants to give him a win so they don’t have to cut him and can use him at UFC 144 when they return to Japan.

As mentioned above, Yamamoto might still lose.  He has been in enough fights and has been on the wrong side of a decision as of late.  It might just be that he doesn’t have anything left.

However, as Uyenoyama doesn’t seem to be in his league, this is his fight to lose. 

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

UFC on FOX: Did Clay Guida’s Tendency To Bleed Cost Him a Spot on FOX?

Blood. Some MMA fans love it (perhaps a bit too much), while others consider it a necessary evil in a violent sport. But for those in the media who are uneducated and unwilling to give the sport a chance, blood is just another reason to call the sport …

Blood.

Some MMA fans love it (perhaps a bit too much), while others consider it a necessary evil in a violent sport.

But for those in the media who are uneducated and unwilling to give the sport a chance, blood is just another reason to call the sport little more than “human cockfighting.”

The UFC is looking to shed the human cockfighting label for good this weekend when they make their debut on FOX, airing a one-hour special event featuring a heavyweight title fight between Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos.

But fans have been left wondering why only one fight is eligible to make the broadcast, especially since a fight between lightweight contenders Clay Guida and Ben Henderson could result in the winner getting a crack at Frankie Edgar’s title.

Guida’s manager, John Fosco, said in a recent interview with MMAjunkie.com that the UFC would have preferred to have shown the fight if possible, but FOX decided against it.

But why?

According to Fosco, the head honchos at FOX thought that Guida would be unable to draw viewers, but is that really an issue at this point?

The main event with Velasquez and Dos Santos has been hyped and promoted to the point that fans would have only been talking about the main event regardless or who else was on the card, so Guida and Henderson would basically be expected to put on an exciting fight and nothing more, something that both men do almost every time they step into a cage.

The only reason to not put the Guida fight on the televised broadcast is fear.

Guida is a fighter who has been busted open pretty frequently throughout his career, and in a fight with a guy like Henderson, it seems even more likely that there will be a bit of blood flow.

Perhaps FOX is afraid of a bloodbath on the first card of their new sports franchise, and it makes sense from a business standpoint if they are.

This is the first fight card in a long-term deal with the UFC, and the first step in making the UFC into a sports franchise that rivals the NFLs and NBAs of the world is to change the public’s perception of the sport.

A three-round fight that ends with two guys covered in blood probably isn’t going to do much to change that perception.

You can make the argument that FOX knew what they were getting into when they decided to throw a combat sport on their network, but maybe it’s better for the sport as a whole if they do everything they can to avoid a public backlash immediately.

So while having to watch Guida and Henderson fight one of the most anticipated non-title bouts of the year on Facebook isn’t ideal, it may end up helping the growth of the sport in the long run.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

UFC on FOX 1: BR MMA Interview with Dethrone Royalty Founder Nick Swinmurn

The world of MMA attire has been dominated by the likes of TapouT and Affliction for the past few years, but anyone who has paid attention to the fighters entering the Octagon has noticed another player in the game, Dethrone Royalty.Dethrone’s bi…

The world of MMA attire has been dominated by the likes of TapouT and Affliction for the past few years, but anyone who has paid attention to the fighters entering the Octagon has noticed another player in the game, Dethrone Royalty.

Dethrone’s biggest representative in both stature and name recognition is the current UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez, who will defend his title against Junior dos Santos on Saturday, Nov. 12 on the first UFC on FOX card.

Bleacher Report MMA had the chance to speak to Nick Swinmurn, the founder of Dethrone, in the days leading up to UFC on FOX 1.

Swinmurn founded Zappos.com in 1999 and stayed with the company until 2006. While still with Zappos, he received his introduction to MMA when a friend called him and asked him if he had ever seen “The Ultimate Fighter,” which was then in its first season. 

After the call, Swinmurn watched the replay of every episode of the show in the hours leading up to the final episode of Season 1, thinking while he was watching the show, “S**t, this is pretty cool.”

Swinmurn then scored tickets for the finale of Season 2 of TUF, where he watched from the balcony. “I was sitting up on the balcony and I remember that the table next to us was Leonardo DiCaprio and Jenna Jameson and I was thinking ‘Wow all these people are watching this.’

“It was Nick Diaz and Diego Sanchez (in the main event), and I remember Nick Diaz came up and was just standing there in jeans and a hoodie and I just thought he was a fan and not sitting at a table and all of a sudden 10 minutes later, he was getting ready to fight.”

From that point Swinmurn thought, “I want to start a brand for this sport and that’s what laid the early foundation…TUF 1 and going to that second fight.  I think that’s when I thought hey, this is pretty cool.”

With the seed planted, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for Dethrone, “When you’re starting a brand, no one cares. There’s no one online searching for your brand because they don’t know that it exists.  I remember when we started and thinking, ‘wow, this is so much harder than starting Zappos was.’”

Swinmurn also offered words of caution for those thinking that all it takes is a fighter wearing a company’s shirt into the Octagon for success, “There’s definitely a perception out there that if you put a shirt on a guy, then the next day, orders are just flooding your site and everyone in the world’s calling you, and that’s not the case.

“It takes a lot of time and a lot of money. You take a look at some of these brands that everyone thinks are so huge and so successful and then you realize that they kind of got taken over in a fire sale by ABG (Authentic Brands Group) or whatever, it makes you realize that just because everyone knows you, it doesn’t mean you’re making money or doing things the right way.”

With that being said, Swinmurn is comfortable where Dethrone is now and where they are headed as a company.

“It’s only been just over two years and we’ve done a good job of getting the name out there. Our sales have been increasing every year. We’re still primarily in fight shops and independent stores.

“With certain (larger) retailers, maybe there were some companies ahead of us that kind of left a sour taste in some people’s mouths as far as what MMA brands stand for; they’re very aggressive and angry and sometimes we have to battle that.

“We’re a lifestyle brand. We started in fights and we have a lot of fighters on our roster, but we try and use our designs and marketing to really bridge that gap. “

The idea of becoming a lifestyle brand and not strictly an MMA brand was a decision made by just looking around, “We had artists that were looking at what ‘MMA fans’ were wearing and then we realized from ourselves that we didn’t always want to wear those shirts.”

“I just think there’s a fine line, there’s definitely a negative perception in some circles of what the MMA shirts are typically going to look like. So we wanted to break away from that. This is what we do, so we don’t apologize for that, but we’re also, we don’t like the stereotypical MMA shirts any more than anyone else does, so we’re just going to do what we’re going to do.”

With that type of thinking driving them, Dethrone started to see success and hear positive feedback, “We started to notice that a lot of people that we never would see wearing the stuff, we just noticed that they were wearing the stuff and we noticed that fighters seemed to be wearing it a lot, lot more just casual and just randomly than they did in the very beginning.

“Guys that we were sponsoring, we sent them a box of stuff and they said, ‘this is the first one of my sponsors that I’ll actually be wearing the stuff when I’m not fighting.’”

In the end, the driving force for Dethrone seems to be, “It was just trying to come up with stuff that made sense to average people instead of, this must work, it’s on TV.”

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

UFC 1 on FOX: Predictions for KO, Submission and Fight of the Night

This Saturday, the UFC makes its debut on network television, as the heavyweight title is on the line!The main event, and only televised fight, will be between the champion, Cain Velasquez (9-0), and the No. 1 contender, Junior dos Santos (13-1).Howeve…

This Saturday, the UFC makes its debut on network television, as the heavyweight title is on the line!

The main event, and only televised fight, will be between the champion, Cain Velasquez (9-0), and the No. 1 contender, Junior dos Santos (13-1).

However, there will be a full preliminary card taking place beforehand, featuring bouts from notable fighters such as Ben Henderson vs. Clay Guida, Dustin Poirier vs. Pablo Garza and Norifumi Yamamoto vs. Darren Uyenoyama.

The fight-night bonus winners are sure to get big paychecks, so let’s take a look at who’s going home with a little extra green.

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UFC on FOX: 5 Keys to Cain Velasquez vs. Junior Dos Santos

This Saturday night, Cain Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos will headline the UFC’s debut on network television, in what is sure to be an explosive and entertaining Heavyweight Title Fight on FOX. This will be Velasquez’s first title defense …

This Saturday night, Cain Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos will headline the UFC’s debut on network television, in what is sure to be an explosive and entertaining Heavyweight Title Fight on FOX.

This will be Velasquez’s first title defense since beating Brock Lesnar at UFC 121, on Oct. 23, 2010.

This fight will come down to a few key points that all of us need to pay attention to, so let’s break down this all-important main event.

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