UFC 115: Payout Perspective

Welcome to another edition of Payout Perspective! This week we’ll be taking a look at the UFC’s debut in Vancouver, British Columbia with UFC 115: Liddell vs. Franklin. The sold out event at General Motors Place featured a light heavyweight bout between two UFC legends – Liddell and Franklin – in addition to a co-main event tilt at heavyweight between Mirko CroCop and Pat Barry.

Liddell knocked out for fourth time in six fights

Chuck Liddell may have entered Saturday’s fight in the best physical shape of his career, but his reflexes and chin were very much those of a 40 year-old former champion with too many fights under his belt. He’s now been KO’d in four of his last six fights – nearly all of them in devastating fashion.

It’s hard to believe that this isn’t the end for Liddell – regardless of the prior promises that may have been made by Dana White in April 2009 – the writing is very much on the wall here. Even if you don’t buy the argument that Liddell fighting is a detriment to his health or his legacy, I’m not sure anyone can deny that interest in Chuck Liddell fighting is at an all-time low. MMA fans aren’t stupid; however nostalgic they might be, it’s hard to believe there’s a huge demand to see Liddell in the cage again.

Franklin breaks arm, UFC’s Fall schedule uncertain

It was rumored that the winner of Liddell vs. Franklin would take on Forrest Griffin (pending Griffin’s own health) in the Fall, but that’s unlikely to happen now that Rich Franklin is out with a broken forearm (an injury suffered while blocking a Liddell kick). The injury isn’t severe, but it should sideline Franklin for at least 6-8 weeks.

That recovery period will likely push Franklin’s next fight towards November or December, which effectively eliminates another non-champion main event option for the UFC’s Fall campaign (looking increasingly devoid of title fights from September through mid-November). The LW belt is up for grabs August 28th, the WW belt in mid-December, the MW belt in early-August, the LHW belt is out indefinitely, and HW is July 3rd (with a typically long turn around time).

Unless the HW or MW belts can turn around quickly, the UFC is likely to experience a period without title fights reminiscent of last Fall. My hope was that the UFC was going to be able to manufacture a few more interesting non-title headliners like Rashad vs. Rampage (although not on that level) to bridge the gap, but its options are decreasing by the day: Liddell’s loss more or less removes any possibility of a third bout with Ortiz and Franklin’s arm injury will delay his return.

I like the idea of a Rampage vs. Forrest rematch; Rampage is coming off a very popular fight (even if he lost) and the rematch provides a promotional angle to push the fight beyond 500k in PPV buys. Then there are guys like Lyoto Machida, Vitor Belfort, Frank Mir, and even Mirko Cro Cop that might be available. Further, I’d also propose pushing the Couture vs. Toney fight back one month and letting it headline an event (however, I think there’s also a very strong counter-argument there: you don’t want a former boxing champ headlining a UFC show in his debut).

Finally, there’s also the possibility that Anderson Silva crushes Chael Sonnen at UFC 117 and then vacates the MW title in search of greater challenges at 205lbs. However, even if this did open the MW title, I question what good it might do considering that the fans have been told for the last 3 years that no one at 185 is even close to Anderson. So, what interest does a 185 title fight without Silva hold?

UFC 115 sells out, but many questions linger

UFC 115 sold over $4.2 million at the gate on approximately 17,000 fans, which is very strong (especially for a non-title fight). However, it’s been widely speculated that the 30 minute sell-out this Spring was manufactured by scalpers that bought huge quantities of tickets anticipating strong demand for the UFC’s debut in Vancouver. Thus, while the demand for MMA in Vancouver is strong, the gate probably isn’t a sound reflection of the interest for this fight in particular.

There’s been further speculation that UFC 115 may have been a one and done for the UFC in Vancouver, because the cost of promoter’s insurance was exorbitant. It’s believed that the absence of any provincial regulation in British Columbia (or federal for that matter) meant that individual municipalities were liable in the event of serious injury or wrong-doing. Thus, the City of Vancouver rightly passed this burden onto the UFC – probably not a lot it could do.

However, I’m inclined to think that the worst case scenario is the UFC isn’t back in Vancouver for another year or two until regulation is brought about provincially (or perhaps federally). It’s too strong a market for the UFC to ignore and it seems unlikely the UFC is going to give up on such a market now that they’ve got a dedicated office in the country.

Prospect watch

It was an interesting night on the prospect front: nearly everyone looked impressive, but some exhibited more maturity than others which ultimately determined their success on the night.

Rory MacDonald was very impressive in the loss and showed tremendous poise for a 20 year-old.  If he doesn’t take the fight to the ground in the third, he probably wins. I’m inclined to put him in the same category as a Jon Jones (perhaps minus the commercial appeal, but he does have the Canadian market) and someone to really keep an eye on.

Pat Barry also looked good before succumbing to his own hubris and failing to finish CroCop when he had the chance (perhaps a rematch is in order and the result is likely to be different). I really like the way he’s able to speak to the camera and work the crowd. If he can get his head on and develop some ground skills, he could be a force.

Evan Dunham and Claude Patrick also looked great in their victories. Dunham in particular took a very big step by defeating Tyson Griffin, and you’ve almost got to consider him a contender now. I’m not sure Dunham is the potentially dominating fighter than MacDonald is (or the exciting one that Barry is), but he’s a well-rounded contender and someone that should figure prominently in main cards from here on out.

Sponsorship watch

It was a really interesting night on the sponsorship side.

The Bud Light commercial during the UFC Prelim broadcast was another solid step in the relationship between the two organizations. If you missed it, the commercial featured two friends at a UFC viewing party that race each other to the store to pick up some Bud Light and in the process they bring a bunch of characters back with them to watch the fights.

Finally! Bud Light is now starting to integrate elements of the UFC culture into its advertising, and that’s something that’s going to help it better affect awareness in that target MMA demographic and push its sales goals within that demo. If Bud Light’s goal is to make its beer the beer of choice for UFC fans, then taking the approach of the “official beer of the UFC viewing party” is a wise one. In many ways, this is similar to the company’s tailgate approach to football.

However, I still think Bud Light could do better in terms of borrowing the UFC’s equity to reach that M18-34 audience. It all depends on what its ultimate objectives for the sponsorship are and how much its willing to invest to try and drill down to the value that’s there. Remember, it’s not just the association now that counts, but the future association between Bud Light and UFC as MMA continues to grow.

Some other points of interest:

• Anyone notice the Affliction banner ads on the Octagon posts? This is new and almost an encroachment on Tapout’s territory; clearly it doesn’t have an exclusivity hold on the clothing category, but the octagon has always been an exclusive domain for the company.
• LG’s new Ally phone was the presenting sponsor of the Prelims, which is a great pick up for the UFC and Spike. If there’s one category that hasn’t really jumped into MMA, but needs to, it’s consumer electronics: the fights look so much better in HD and there are so many different electronics that improve the fight experience (phones, TVs, DVRs, audio equipment). Let’s hope this is the beginning of more.

Note: I’ve made updates to the Blue Book since UFC 114 (mostly Bellator stuff), but I’ll have these UFC 115 adds made in the next day.