MMA Junkie reports the attendance, gate and bonuses for UFC 165 from the Air Canada Center in Toronto, Ontario Canada. Bonuses were given to Alexander Gustaffson-Jon Jones, Renan Barao and Mitch Gagnon.
Attendance for Saturday’s show was 15,504 for a gate of $1.9 million. The numbers fall in line with UFC 152 but fall behind Jones-Machida in 2011.
UFC 152 – 16,800 for $1.9 million
UFC 140 – 18,303 for $3.9 million
Bonuses were $50,000 each and were as follows:
FOTN: Gus-Jones
KO: Barao
Sub: Gagnon
Stephen Thompson deserves a runner-up for his KO on the UFC Prelims.
Payout Perspective:
The attendance was lower than the first two times at the Air Canada Center although Saturday’s gate was comparable to UFC 152. The bonuses were as expected with the two top fights getting bonuses. MMA Payout will have more in its Payout Perspective.
aintitthetruth says
Only 50K bonuses? That’s a tell tale sign that on paper this card was pedestrian.
White is a retard.
aintitthetruth says
For going to canada without gsp or at least rory McDowell.
Tops of says
As usual…low money
duck says
$50,000 is now the normal for every card, be it PPVs or Fight Nights.
GSP constantly fights in Canada, he has American fans as well, apparently tickets are selling well for UFC 167.
mmaguru says
The PPV numbers will be interesting. I would guess somewhere between 400 to 450 K.
I checked ticket availability prior to the event on ticket master and was able to get 8 tickets side by side in every price category which is unusual. The event was obviously heavily papered.
I would take the gate number with a huge grain of salt. Likely the event sold closer to 1 million than 1.9 million, but as always, with no oversight, we will never know but to accept what the UFC has provided.
Bad news for the UFC considering Jon Jones is their champ. Shows how deep MMA has dropped in popularity since peak.
aintitthetruth says
Yeah ufc 100 seemed like the apex of the ufcs ppv run. my god what a good card it was. and the bonuses were double that of this event. I always wonder about comped tickets.
mmaguru says
aintitthetruth,
UFC 100 was a definite turning point for MMA. At the time many believed the sky was the limit for growth of the sport, and others felt it was the apex for the sport and UFC as a whole. Time will tell the real verdict, but with 4 years in a row per event buy rate average decline, I would say we have seen the top of the summit.
Maybe in the future another big name like Brock can reinvigorate an ailing promotion, but I think it will take another generation of fans to catch on before we see another year of double figure growth. The UFC placed its bets on a fical fan base of younger ipod generations, instead of catering to those of us who have been watching the sport for 20 years and those of us with a lot of disposable income in our pockets. Just take a note at what boxing does well to see where the money really is.
Anyway, let’s see what the buy rates come out at. Could end up being a hugely successful event, but I won’t hold my breath. To not sell out in Toronto Canada, where the hardest core of MMA fans exist, is a tell tale sign of the decline of the UFC, in my opinion. Us hard core fans will always remain, for we enjoy the sport immensely, but the ship has long sailed with the casual fans, they have found something else to spend their time on.
aintitthetruth says
Curt angle could have had similar results as lesnar. I remember an interview years back where angle said he picked lesnar apart in an impromptu wrestling match backstage. what a pity. guess its up to john cena.
Jason Cruz says
Just to clarify. We did not include UFC 129 when comparing attendance figures in Toronto. But, that was a different venue and different event.
Mike says
c’mon dude, yall probly dont even make 50k per year, that made more than that in one night stop fuckin bitchin