Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports posted an interesting piece this afternoon detailing the results of Mayweather-Marquez, in addition to Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer’s challenge to the UFC in regards to their PPV figures.
Schaefer questioned the legitimacy of UFC pay-per-view results that were leaked. He said HBO is a publicly traded company that would face serious repercussions for releasing false numbers. The UFC, he noted, is a private company with no such concerns.
“I think the UFC and boxing should be able to co-exist and work together in this thing that we call (combat) sports,” Schaefer said.
“I don’t want to talk (expletive) about the UFC. But Dana White can’t do an interview without knocking boxing. If he thinks we’re idiots and don’t know anything about the pay-per-view business, I’ll make him a challenge.
“I am willing to hire one of the top three accounting firms, at my expense, and do an audit of his pay-per-view results. They are nowhere near what is put into the public. There is talk that UFC 100 did 1.6 million, but it barely broke a million. I am willing to pay to have the audits done to prove this.”
Payout Perspective:
In poking at the 800 lbs. gorilla in the room, Golden Boy is guaranteeing their latest PPV success a host of additional press coverage. GB also knew that White wouldn’t accept the offer, and as a result, it would make the UFC look weak or scared. Schaefer and Golden Boy really have nothing to lose here.
The challenge itself bears no real threat for the UFC – they can easily shrug it off – but there is an underlying what-if element here that could prove more troublesome in the future. This challenge may just be the first in a series of barbs meant to attack the credibility of the UFC and undermine the record year they’re having.
While the allegations could very well be true, the bottom line is still that they’re coming from Richard Schaeffer – the CEO of Golden Boy and chief combat sports rival to the UFC. He’s a promoter – just like White – and publicity is what he does best. Take it with a grain of salt just as you might with anything that White says.
Actually the only thing this will do is make Dana come out even harder at boxing if UFC 106 hits like it should, there will be even more attacks from White on boxing and he’ll have a guy like Lesnar that he can match up with Mayweather buy for buy.
The idea that GB would even suggest looking at the UFC’s private company numbers is beyond insanity and really just shows desperation from their side. We know how Dana deals with his opponents and going at him well all he’s going to do is come at you even harder.
Right now the UFC is riding very high and kicking everyone’s butt in ppv, if you want to try and question anything it just leaves you open to get questioned the same way. We seen that GB has exagerated their numbers before and that is fine when the ppv hits big but when it doesn’t it exposed you to getting hit harder for running your mouth and falling on your face.
Between this and the latest Arum tirade boxing is coming off looking bad. Meltzer is an independent source with, for my money, excellent PPV sources and he confirmed UFC 100 at 1.6+.
Exactly, Stan.
UFC ppv numbers do not derive from UFC but rather from independent cable industry sources, and I’ve confirmed this with Dave Meltzer himself.
Arum’s and now Schaefer’s suggestions that UFC is inflating its ppv numbers are absurd on their face.
Suggesting the UFC is inflating their PPV numbers makes no sense. The UFC pays several fighters based on PPV buys. So inflating those numbers wouldn’t be a very smart move.
Shafer’s challenge has already been met and Zuffa won that bet. During Randy’s legal battle with Zuffa his fights with Sylvia and Gonzaga were confirmed to be the same as the “leaked” numbers.
So no this “allegation” CANNOT possibly be true.
It’s called simple journalism. Iole and everyone who’s blindly copying and pasting his quotes should go back to school and learn the trade.
schafer was just in the mma business not so long ago (affliction) and sounds bitter that he failed so badly at it. the ufc inflates its numbers? schaefer himself said affliction did 160k ppv,. oh really? so why did they go belly up so quick? it couldn’t have been b/c 1 fighter (barnett) got popped. they could have easily found a replacement. they folded b/c they were losing money by the truckload and were not doing squat with ppv. just b/c richard himself has inflated ppv numbers doesn’t mean everyone is a LIAR like him.
Hey dojo, Iole was the only person in either boxing or MMA journalism to bother to do the legwork of getting both boxing execs and Dana on the phone to talk about the Mayweather and UFC 103 numbers. The boxing writers didn’t even try to get UFC’s side of the story and most of the MMA media usually just sits back and waits for Meltzer to do the actual digging, then piggyback off his work. Perhaps you should brush up on what “basic journalism” entails.
everyones head is so far up danas ass that if he said coture vs. nogura did 3mill buys you guys would buy that lock stock and barrell. like arum said mma’s audience is white guys with tattoos who would never watch boxing, but they enjoy watching other white guys win fight. simple. but your gonna say hey man ima filipinno ima portugue, im mexican i like it! whatever, who cares look at the crowd the masses are white people with tatoos. there is no denying this.
people of ethnic origin like to see there own win.even white people. nothing wrong with that!
and if the numbers did show that ufc 100 did do under a million, what are you gonna say now “oh our sport is growing!” sure like elitexc and affliction is too. truth is they are all amateurs at what they are doing and it is impossible to be a solid professional at kickboxing karate jujitsu boxing wrestling. simply too many things to learn so they are jack of all trades master of none.
there is a too high a turnover in stars like griffin liddell ect. anderson silva is the best but he is not white so there audience will not ever buy his ppvs. (in the millions)
MMA fad no diffrent than the cloths people are wearing with the mma cage fighter style.
ufc will have long life. pay fighters very little, have there advertisers make up the rest. makes for a good promotion. (ufc=promoter dummy salesmen hello!)
always control microphone and never announce controversy bad decisions ect. always put on a good face for the sake of the company. ufc cares nothing about mma or else they wouldnt try to kill every other mma promotion. they care about $$ bottom line.
dana white no diffrent from don king except you people know so little about the fight business in general, you would rather keep your head up his butt than hear anything diffrent than joe rogan and golberg say YOUR WATCHING THE GREATEST FIGHTER ON THE PLANET MIRKO CROCOP!
crocop gets blown out, then YOUR GONNA SEE THE NEXT GREAT who ever, guy gets blown out. i been watchin since 94′ seenem grow by leaps and bounds good for them. it really shows like dana says theres a million dumb motherfukers out there, yeah dana there watchin your shit!
but there greatest nights all put together could not touch gatti ward corrales castillo barrerra ect.
wheres mma version? boxings list goes on forever and all the A list celebs are at the boxing matches, last i heard Joe Dirt was a fuckn D lister lol. whos mma’s version of ali? “chin” liddell?
COuldnt agree more JOey…Dana said that Richard Shaefer is insane if he wants an accounting of all ppv…he said its just him and the fighters who should know the reall ppv buys….then why the hell is he announcing in public the ppv buys?? but when somebody wants to see the real numbers he says no…. Dana is the pied piper of mma and soon he would tell his followers to jump off a cliff lol