MMA Junkie reports the bonuses and attendance and gate for UFC 150. The event drew 15,008 for a gate of $650,000 at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado.
In addition, the bonuses for the night were $60,000 each and the UFC gave Donald Cerrone 2 bonuses:
Fight of the Night: Cerrone-Guillard
KO of the Night: Cerrone
Submission of the Night: Dennis Bermudez
Payout Perspective:
The attendance and gate were not as big as UFC 135 held last year which featured Jon Jones-Rampage Jackson. UFC 135 drew 16,344 for a gate of $2.1 million. This may be more evidence that the lighter weight divisions do not draw as well as the bigger fighters. Another issue that occurred tonight was the fact that some fans could not access the PPV if they had Direct TV. Apparently, an error prohibited many from ordering the PPV. MMA Payout will have more on this event in its Payout Perspective.
Ouch. I wonder what the reason was for the low attendance? I’m sure someone will let us know…
My vote is solar flares.
Or the drought.
Or maybe Romney’s announcement of Paul Ryan as his VP.
Funny how nobody takes into account economic conditions behind it all…
Bad gate + bad ratings + bad PPV buys = nothing to see here folks, business as usual – Baghdad Bob
Seriously though, people have gotten tired of watered down cards and the UFC brand has lost a lot of the momentum it build up for the past 5 years. The fans have finally gotten burned so much that they are voting with their wallets.
This was a bad card. Hard to believe it was a PPV. I couldnt care less about the lighter weight guys. Attendance was fine. Not sure what you guys are bitching about. The problem was the gate. But not possible to know what the problem was without the rest of the numbers. How many were comped? If there were not a lot of comps then it would have to be extremely low ticket prices to sell that many and get a bad gate. I suspect there were lots of comps. That was the worst gate for a PPV i remember ever seeing.
Just for the sake of comparison, how many boxing live gates this year have reached $650,000? I’m aware of three (Mayweather-Cotto at $12 million, Pacquiao-Bradley at $9 million and Chavez-Lee at $756K). To be clear, I’m not bashing boxing. I’m actually a huge fan and follow the sport very closely. I guess I’m just trying to put the live gates of UFC events (especially since there are now exponentially more per year than in the not-too-distant past) into perspective of the greater combat sports world here in America. Ultimately, all combat sports are fringe sports and have a relatively small market. From my vantage point, both sides of the aisle in the “MMA is losing popularity” debate have merit. It’s a fact that the market for MMA events has experienced contraction. It’s also a fact that it still makes Zuffa tons of money.
Sorry, meant to say “how many boxing live gates in the United States this year have reached $650,000?” I know of at least four in Europe that did but I was mainly speaking to the domestic situation.
$650k is still $650k… it’s not bad in the greater scheme of things.
Once the average PPV starts hitting less than 200k it’s safe to say that it’s over for the UFC. While many will state over saturation is the problem, it’s actually the opposite problem of under exposure for the product.
Less than 200k viewers on Fuel and less than 200k PPV buys means that way less people are tuning into the events compared to the past in which they’d generate 2 million viewers on Spike.
Economics are tough all over the country. I don’t think that excuses such a low gate, especially for a title fight. What this gate says to me is that the lower weight classes are not catching on, and the UFC is having a hard time minting new stars.
Let’s see how the PPV buys come out.
The UFC will be in trouble and the cycle will play out within the next few years.
Guys that dana white deems should be retired but still retain name value will be picked up by Bellator/Viacom and the channel/brand will get instant traction from it.
It’s the nature of the fight game… one man’s garbage is another man’s gold.
The UFC lives in their own little bubble moving too fast at times listening to fans complain about old names.
@Diego
I believe that it’s a lack of distribution of the actual product that has hampered the UFC in recent times. FuelTV is the culprit and the 4 annual FOX shows don’t offset the loss of viewers. #truth
I dont think anyone expects PPVs to be very good for this event. Frankie has been in lots of close wars and none of them did worth a damn.
144 /375,000
136 /225,000
125/270,000
His two fights with Penn at 112 and 118 he was not the main draw so those cards did well with Couture vs Toney and Anderson Silva vs Maia.
Seeing as Bendo was champ and not as popular as Frankie and Frankie losing some fans by losing the belt and the much weaker card. I would be suprised if this card broke 225,000.
I dont think i buy the sport or the UFC being on decline. The numbers are lower but the events have gone up in quantity. I mean its not trendy with non fans that it was when TUF first started. But it is still going strong. My problem with the path the UFC is taking is the percieved quality of the sport and the events. There is something to be said about having consistant events that average 500-600K PPVs and threaten 1 million once or twice a year. Everyone takes notice in the sports industry and even those that dont want it realize there is something to this and lots of people like it. Maybe even start checking it out. Now there could be just as many people following the sport in a given year. But they are spread out over many more events. Each event numbers are much lower and are not impressive. When something looks like it is popular mainstream wannabes jump on board. Having event after event with 200K PPV buys is not getting the attention of the mainstream. It doesnt look popular even if it still is. In the end it comes down to watered down cards. And to be honest i dont really feel there is to many cards. The real problem is guys dont fight enough. We dont have the mega stars we used to and the ones we do have will not get their ass in the cage. Anderson Silva just won a fight and didnt get hurt at all and already said he wont fight this year again. On top of the stars not fighting. You have non stars and contenders who dont fight either. It takes 3-5+ wins to get a title shot and 1 loss to be eliminated from it. But with everyone fighting at the same rate. Contenders are eliminated faster than they are created. So we get left with nothing but rematches and rushed fights that we havent had time to care about. The UFC needs to structure contracts based on performance and get these guys in the cage. If Jon Jones can fight 4 times in 1 year as champ then there is no excuse for contenders not to fight 4 times and champs not to fight 3 times. Every sport has these performance incentives. If Silva doesnt fight X amount of times he onlt gets X percent of his pay. He reaches 4 fights per year he gets 100%.
You get the stars into the cage an extra fight per year and these watered down cards start to become stacked. Fans start increasing their budget for these events and it gets people talking and brings more fans. 1 extra figth would give us 70 top 10 fighters to put on 25 events. Then you have big name guys who are not ranked like a Franklin or wandy etc. In the end you have 100 name fighters to add to the already existing cards each year. Thats an extra 2 big name fights for each card of the year by getting the fighters off their ass and fight. But they make to much money and they dont want to risk a loss.
How the hell can the UFC be as popular as it once was now that much of the programming is taking place on FuelTV compared to Spike?
This is a TV based business and with the lack of distribution it has taken it’s toll on the UFC’s popularity period.
Just like HBO AND Showtime did to boxing in the 80s… beginning of the decline.
FX has had almost as much UFC programming as SPIKE did to the same point last year. Observe:
2011 through August 14th:
SPIKE had 1 season of TUF
SPIKE had 3 exclusive SPIKE events (including TUF finale)
SPIKE had 7 prelim events for PPVs (two others had aired on ION)
2012 through August 14th:
FX had 1 season of TUF
FX had 5 exclusive SPIKE events (including TUF finale)
FX had 9 prelim events for PPVs (each of which was twice as long as the ones SPIKE used to air)
None of these FX numbers for 2012 include the three exclusive events on FOX, the four exclusive events on FUEL (which admittedly few can watch) or the prelim fights on FUEL. One can correctly say that there has been a dropoff in average UFC viewership per show since they left SPIKE but one cannot argue that FX has offered less live UFC prgoramming than FX. The opposite is true. FX alone airs more live UFC content than SPIKE ever did. Getting more people to watch it will be the challenge.
@Weezy
Does FX replay UFC fights as much as Spike did throughout the year?
Not at all. That’s a very fair point. The presence of replays has largely been lost except for the minority of the fanbase that has FUEL.
You are still not proving your point. Yes FX doesnt show all the cheesy low rated reruns that Spike did. But that has nothing to do with the low ratings because Spike is still showing those reruns and will continue to show them through 2012. So if anything the UFC’s foot print on TV is MUCH larger this year than it was on Spike.
I dont believe that has anythign to do with it. The blame lies on the UFC and its fighters. They lost GSP and Brock Lesnar for long periods of time. Brock is gone for good. The big draws are gone or seldom fighting. The UFC needs to take control of the fighters before its to late. GSP will be gone soon and so will Silva. Jones isnt a huge draw but how long will he last before he is derailed like Machida was? The UFC just cant produce stars. Since the UFC peak Chuck, Randy, Penn, Hughes, Brock, Silva, GSP, Forrest, Rampage were all big draws. Since then all of them are gone as draws except GSP and Silva who rarely fight. Who have they created since them? The best they have is a few guys who at best get close to 500K buys and thats mostly due to having a belt. Machida on his run got around 500K as did Santos, Jones, etc.
The question is. Why isnt the tourch being passed when people lose belts these days? It was when LHW belt went from Tito-Randy-Chuck-Rampage. But why isnt it now? I believe it is due to fighters being rushed into title fights. The guys are good fighters but the public just isnt sold at the time of the fight. Look who is next in line for the titles now in every class! Weidman is next in line for Silva. But what really has he done more than the other guys? Have people seen enough to think that fight is must see TV? No he hasnt. I personally believe he beats Silva. But im the minority. To most it is a joke fight vs a no namer. But Silva needs someone to fight. So what can the UFC do under the current situation? They have to throw him in there and hope for the best. In two to three more fights people would take notice and that fight would be huge. The only way the UFC can have their contenders ready and deserving of a title shot when the Champ needs one is have the non champs fighting more often.
@Weezy
That’s what I’m saying. When I thought of Spike the last few years, I thought of 12 hours a day of UFC promo and programming. Even old re-runs at weird hours would garner 3X-5X more viewership than LIVE programming on Fuel today.
Weird how it seems like Zuffa never took that into account when mapping out the deal. 4 FOX dates per year? Who cares when the program will NEVER be replayed on that same network channel.
@Brainsmasher you’re an idiot. UFC will be gone from FOX in 2014
lol sure it will. I bet you would have canceled Seinfeld after season 2 also!