Invicta FC found itself with another issue with its tries at a pay per view. Due to streaming issues on its web site and television issues, it had to take down its paywall on its web site and will have to issue refunds for the event.
To Invicta’s credit, it will issue those refunds and has placed the entire event on its web site for free. But the issue remains with Invicta’s efforts in trying to monetize its product. Invicta FC head, Shannon Knapp, indicated that via twitter that they crashed the pay wall servers causing the issues.
.@InvictaFights we crashed the pay wall servers again! We will issue refunds 2 those that bought online & request a refund. Thanks 4 support
— Shannon Knapp (@shanknapp) December 8, 2013
The spin here is that so many people wanted to see the fights that it caused the pay wall issues. The problem is that its business model is not working.
Payout Perspective:
This summer we wrote about the issues with iPPVs and whether a small organization could make money putting on a show. Interesting enough, we spoke with UStream with respect to the issues Invicta FC had with its service with its first iPPV problems. UStream indicated that the issue was an “overload of requests” to order the event in a short period of time. Invicta was contacted for the article but did not respond.
On Saturday, Invicta used, DaCast, to stream its PPV. However the change from UStream did not resolve the issue of having a working pay wall while maintaining a streaming PPV.
While it appears that women’s MMA is gaining interest among fight fans, Invicta must resolve its problems in monetizing its product. Knapp continues to work toward a TV deal and it would benefit the company to find a television partner rather than continue to seep money when its PPVs do not work.
Invicta is screaming FS1 or FS2. Don’t know why the UFC hasn’t picked this up yet… truly confusing.
I know this is a “male” sports channel but seriously, 160 runs of TUF but no Invicta?
Leon,
The UFC wouldn’t be the entity to pick up Invicta. That would be FOX Sports. My guess is that FOX has little interest in Invicta because they already have the world’s #1 MMA organization, which already showcases female MMA. What’s the value add?
Invicta is being run a charity promotion. They lose money on every event and seem to have zero prospects for making money.
FoxSports has no interest in something like Invicta.
No… The UFC is. I was thinking more along the lines UFC buys it and brands it as UFC Invicta, the women’s UFC. Just like the LPGA, WNBA etc. I think Invicta could be successful if they had the UFC logo and brand backing them. Announcers, logos, sound fx, graphics, the whole 9. There seems to be a small pack of rabid fans who defend wmma ferociously who also follow mma. Fs1 is lacking content that draws so it could be a property that maintains a consistent fan base who shows up repetitively. Have a 1 hour UFC Invicta event that precedes a UFC FN or PPV.
WMMA isn’t going to do anything unless the UFC keeps it attacked to Mens MMA. creating a sepperate promotion for Woman would all but kill it. WNBA and LPGA all get zero ratings and have a fraction of the money and interest as the men. Currently the UFC has put the females they do have on equal footing with the men. Lets face it. There is a lot of people who see the Females in the UFC because they were brought in by the men. The end up respecting those females and their fight. But would not watch a females only card. I myself would be reluctant to tune in to an all female promotion. It sure as hell wouldn’t be “Must See TV” for me.
Its best chance is to have a proper balance of WMMA fights on UFC events. That said the UFC could use Invicta fighters. But right now it needs Invicta to run events and create stars for the UFC. The UFC doesn’t need to run Invicta it also doesn’t want to kill it and desolve it. Invicta just needs to run fights and let the cream rise to the top.
I didn’t buy the excuse that Invicta “crashed the wall” last time and I sure as hell don’t buy it this time. They either have shitty company trying to broadcast this or their sales were not as expected and they are giving refunds to get good press. Then trying to act like they are refunding 50,000 orders.
I don’t think anyone is buying these fights past a few thousand people. We are seeing typical production issues that comes from low budget promotions. The only difference is Knapp is trying to spin the issues as being caused by massive growth rather than being small. Im not buying it.
IF the last PPV failed due to so many sales. Then surely they would have thrown tons of money at this and made sure it never happened again. Its not like this is a Tech that has never been done before. So clearly sales the last time wasn’t such a success. Because it wasn’t that important to get it fixed. It appears to get very little interest. So they run it half assed. If it works they keep the money. If it don’t they get what little money they made back. That seems to be the approach. If it was a success as they let on. They would not have had that attitude if they had to give back $100K or more.
Lucky for her there seems to be a small group out there who want to believe it. Not sure if that will be the case after a second mishap. She is doing the best spin she can to keep the future potential of the company alive. But I don’t know how many of these problems they can have and people still trust them. You don’t want poor quality and technical issues being synonymous with your brand.
The most successful women’s pro sport is women’s tennis.
Most other women’s pro leagues are run as charity cases like the WNBA.
LPGA struggles but actually survives on its own.
Women’s tennis wisely partners with men’s tennis at the big events. So both the men and women play Wimbledon at the same time.
They also wisely have the women play in skirts and look pretty.
Other successful women’s sports for TV viewership are gymnastic and ice skating. Again, the women get to look pretty and feminine while also being athletic.
Mixing in WMMA with MMA on the same card is a double-edged sword. Sure you get the girls in there but they are quite a contrast from the men’s in the skill and power departments. We all just saw this with TUF 18 where 1.1 M viewers tuned in but interestingly, how many of those 1.1 M were turned off by the whole affair? It could’ve done more damage for new fan acquisition than good. As many fans that get excited about the mix, there are likely more than get turned off.
“Women’s tennis wisely partners with men’s tennis at the big events. So both the men and women play Wimbledon at the same time.”
This is what I was referring to. With so many events next year, and even more on the way, there seems like there would be room for a 1 hour WMMA time slot. I’m not suggesting to have an all WMMA event, I’m saying mix it in like the tennis thing.
UFC Invicta 7-8 transition to UFC Prelims 8-10 transition to UFC 1XX 10-1 type of deal. Same event, just give one hour to the WMMA portion. Then on other lower-tier nights, do the same thing with FN (etc.). This doesn’t have to be every show obviously but a lot of 5 hour UFC events are overkill. If they bring in UFC Invicta this would give them 3-4 new champs to build fanbases for (albeit small) and content for this new UFC Network thing. Apparently 50 events in 2014 so I don’t see how it couldn’t work in some way.
To me, and I agree with you guys, this whole INVICTA league isn’t being run very well. Look at the space in their events this year from 6 to 7. As mentioned, 2…. not 1… PPV failures! These are mistakes that would shut down most business – especially when you do it twice. Even if it is being run a like a charity case, it won’t be around for much longer as the fans will lose faith (if they already haven’t). Then if it goes, where do all these so called WMMA fighters get a spot to develop? Is the UFC going to start bringing in quality like TUF 18 finale (or worse) to it’s main cards and start trying to sell that? Good luck.
And now UFC just got their entire 115 division. Stick a fork in Invicta.