Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer is reporting that buyrates for the latest UFC PPV in Sydney, Australia are trending very low.
Updated trending data and other PPV info we’ve been able to get for UFC 110 isn’t looking good. It looks to have finished well behind UFC 108 and UFC 109. I don’t have a number of buys, but based on trending data which has historically been pretty accurate, it could be in the 215,000 to 240,000 range, basically along the lines of the tape-delayed foreign shows. This was foreign, but wasn’t tape delayed. One cable industry source gave an estimate of 215,000.
Payout Perspective:
We’ve talked a lot about the role that momentum plays in motivating purchasing behavior, and three lacklustre PPVs in a row have clearly hurt the UFC’s base. Should anyone be worried? Yes and no.
This is really the last lingering effect from the cursed back-half of 2009 when just about every major UFC star had some sort of injury; and, with a line-up in the next three months that’s going to feature four title fights, the UFC should be able to gather some momentum heading into the summer.
However, who’s to say what sort of impact this latest trend of poor PPV showings will have on UFC 111. The UFC isn’t necessarily out of the woods yet, especially considering the potential impact a strong or poor showing at UFC 111 could have for the rest of the summer. That’s why creating a Primetime show and spending a more than usual on advertising for this event is so important.
Note: Meltzer doesn’t have hard numbers, yet. These are just trending estimates that usually increase by10-15% over time. We’ve been loathe to post them in the past just because they do change. Readers are starving for this information and this is the best we’ve got right now, but we will update if/when official numbers come along.
Yeah, it’s a bit worrisome but they are still making tons of money with that amount of buys. UFC 111 should break the 500K mark easily with stars like GSP and Mir, but it won’t be in the high 800K+ range where such an event should be. I personally think that although the UFC is expanding throughout the world, their local market has hit a saturation point and I don’t expect low level events to do much better than 250K to 300 K buys. This could be a turning point in MMA where it finally starts to fall into the fold of boxing and how their PPV buys trend. Big names, big numbers, no names, no numbers.
I think some other factors need to be considered and/or be known:
Are these PPV buys world-wide?
Do we know or have a comparison, when a UFC PPV occurs in another country and the PPV is actually charged in the host country does the host country tend to out-buy all other countries including the USA or are the PPVs always sold the most to the USA?
Personally, I don’t buy every PPV and when I do I always share the cost with one other person, which brings me to my next point:
I would have an individual cost outlay threshold of $25, which means that now I will be able to see every UFC PPV in the theaters, on a huge screen and in HD. How will theater sells translate to PPV numbers because if you use me as an example, I am now going to go to the Theater to see UFC events instead of watching it via PPV on cable? If that becomes a trend in the USA then that will reduce the perceived PPV buys as being poort. Of course my thought process doesn’t explain the low estimated UFC 110 buys, but my theory on that is that the UFC gave away the event for free on free TV to Australia, if they had not, then you would have had a significant buy rate in Australia to improve the overall PPV numbers.
Given all of the UFC’s partners around the world how is it that all the numbers of PPV buys can be accounted for within a final tally? Who owns the responsibility to gather all of those numbers? Many times reports in terms of PPV come out they don’t take into consideration so many other variables that it actually projects a false reality.
While the numbers aren’t great they are also not a disaster UFC 110 drew the same number of buys as the other foreign ppvs have. Also to call UFC 108, 109 and 110 lackluster is laughable I just caught the replay of UFC 108 on Spike and for someone to not enjoy a card packed with action like that shows just how spoiled some mma fans are. In the end until we know what the hard numbers are for UFC 109 and 110 it’s hard to make any real sense of what these overall ppv numbers mean for the UFC hopefully Meltzer will get those soon.
The concept of PPV as a sports model generates the majority of the revenue from the US. It’s my understanding that Europe and Asia don’t buy into such a model and most premium shows end up on premium television. If there are any buys for the UFC outside of US/Canada it would most likely not make a dent.
EJ,
Lacklustre in terms of their PPV sales; not card quality.
UFC 108 and 110 were probably two of the best cards the company has put on in the last 2-3 years. It’s kind of ironic that both did so “poorly.”
I’m not as concerned as some people. While these PPV numbers are currently the only measuring stick of success that we have for the UFC, I look at things like the number of television deals the UFC has recently secured, the number of new markets its entered, and the strong attendance it’s experiencing in those markets as indicators of long-term success (which is probably more important).
Kelsey your response leads me to a question I have been wondering about.
It seems like every UFC event gets replayed as is or repackaged in one form or another and replayed multiple times. So with all these new TV deals can the UFC still make a substantial profit off a low selling PPV event by replaying it over all their TV deals?
Ultimate fightin’ is dying.
eDDe, I for one sure hope so. I prefer MMA to emerge from this decade, not ultimate fighting. So let’s see how it all plays out. Are we heading to a WWE business model or are we going the route of boxing.
defeat was one of Josh Koscheck’s most detrimental to date. Not only was he or she out pointed in every spherical, he also suffered a difficult injury. ESPN is reporting that Kos has a broken orbital as a result of the actual beat down.