Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer reports that UFC 108 is in fact down from early estimates of 330,000 PPV buys to a trend somewhere near the range of 255,000 to 270,000.
Current trending patterns for UFC 108 are at this point looking like 255,000 to 270,000 buys, which if those numbers end up accurate, would be the lowest for a North American show in several years.
Payout Perspective:
The worst case scenario for the fight was thought to be about 275,000 buys, so it’s a little disappointing to see that the UFC bottomed out on what has traditionally been one of its strongest shows of the year. However, as Meltzer points out, the card was cursed by a relentless string of injuries that pulled headline after headline from the event.
Perhaps a silver lining for the UFC is that the event – bereft of expectations – performed exceedingly well. The fights, in some cases, may not have meant a whole lot, but at least they were entertaining to those that did purchase the card.
Note: The pattern of these PPV numbers usually starts with a rough estimate a few days after the fight, followed by more definitive trending numbers 2-3 weeks later, and then a solid number some months later. What Dave reported this week is the second stage in the pattern, so it’s fairly accurate but still subject to fluctuation as the numbers roll in throughout the next few months.
—–
Lastly, for those that are keeping track: this is the second time that our PPV model has missed a prediction (we had 400k-480k). I still have confidence in the tool – albeit with the understanding that it has limitations. We’ve experienced an unprecedented period in UFC/MMA history, but I expect the predictability and reliability of the numbers to return by UFC 111 (certainly by May once the UFC gets into a stretch of North American dates).
I doubt it even did 200k
UFC 108 and UFC 109 will do around the same numbers. We’ll hear “the Sky is falling” commentaries.
UFC 110, UFC 111, UFC 112, UFC 113 are all coming together real nice and you should see a big bump in business.
For as many people that wrote how bad the card was that is a decent number in my opinion. Of course none of those writers bothered to write about how good of a job Joe Silva did on the match making to get that card to be as good as it was.
cha-ching!
http://www.tapology.com/2010/01/ufc-108-pay-per-view-prediction-interest-slow-to-build/
but, like your model kelsey, we too have had some misses.
Nice call Greg. It’s definitely tough to create a model that takes all variables into account.
Great job, Greg!
You’d mentioned your intention to play with the formula following 106-107, did you do anything in particular or just a handful of small tweaks?
Wow, my estimates for 400K were way off. Perhaps we are starting to see a trend post UFC 100. We will have a better picture of the landscape after UFC 110. This will have to make the WEC think twice about attempting a jump into PPV as a guy as popular as Evans can not garner more than 300K PPV buys with the UFC brand behind him, Faber will be lucky to do business at a 1/3 of that rate.
When everything is added up this ppv filled with tons of injuries and only 1 name fighter will have done a gate of 2 million and around 300k buys, considering the payout this will actually be a very succesfull show. Once again showing that even when the UFC does “disapointing” numbers they are so far ahead of the game it’s not even a fair compeitition really. As UFC 107 proved when cards have big names and big hype surrounding them they’ll do great when they don’t they’ll still make Zuffa alot of money.
what s happening over here is what they call a BUBBLE…kinda like the internet bubble earlier in the decade and the real estate bubble in the recession..in which there is so much hype and speculation that the “REAL”status of the industry is being hidden…corporate sponsors and potential ufc buyers should think ten times before investing in this bubble..they might loose big…they should first investigate the real ppv numbers of ufc 100—
the MMA BUBBLE or DANA WHITE BUBBLE
“what s happening over here is what they call a BUBBLE…kinda like the internet bubble earlier in the decade and the real estate bubble in the recession..in which there is so much hype and speculation that the “REAL”status of the industry is being hidden…corporate sponsors and potential ufc buyers should think ten times before investing in this bubble..they might loose big…they should first investigate the real ppv numbers of ufc 100”
So what did UFC 107’s buyrate say about this bubble then?, yeah let’s not let facts get in the way of a nice conspiracy theory and we know what the real number of UFC 100 was it comes from the same guy that gave out the UFC 108 buyrate smh.