Jeremy Botter of Heavy.com first reported that UFC on Versus 2 was being moved from Salt Lake City to San Diego on Monday. This news has since been confirmed by the UFC as the organization cited poor ticket sales as the main reason for the move.
Las Vegas, NV (USA) – The UFC® announced today that the Sunday, August 1st UFC® LIVE event scheduled at EnergySolutions Arena in Salt Lake City, Utah, is moving to San Diego, Calif., and will now take place live from the San Diego Sports Arena.
“Our television ratings in Salt Lake City have always been strong, and when we finally found the opportunity to bring a UFC event there with a great card, I was very surprised and disappointed in ticket sales. As a result, for the first time in UFC history, I decided to pull the plug and move this August 1st event to the San Diego Sports Arena,” said UFC President Dana White.
Payout Perspective:
I understand that the ticket sales were disappointing, but what did the UFC expect? It scheduled a mixed martial arts event on a Sunday evening in arguably the most religious city in the United States. This isn’t about the UFC’s popularity waning or even a dramatically reduced growth rate. It’s about a misjudgment the company made in scheduling the event.
In fairness to the UFC, it’s normally pretty sharp on this, but it does slip up from time to time. For example, it gaffed last year when it chose to schedule UFC 102 in Portland on the same weekend as the massively popular Hood to Coast Relay Marathon and LPGA’s Safeway Classic. These events significantly cut into the top end of the UFC’s market and that’s part of the reason it had to cut ticket prices (the other was that it just over-priced in a down economy).
These things happen – mistakes happen – but this is not a signal of MMA’s demise. Rather, this is yet again another illustration of the panic exhibited by members of the MMA community. The sky is not falling; in fact, the UFC is currently on track to beat last year’s PPV and gate totals (although it remains to be seen whether it can do so on the averages).
Moreover, I think many people are missing the big picture perspective, here: the first event in Australia or Germany or Abu Dhabi might not sell like an event in Las Vegas, but successive events will begin to yield stronger PPV and gate results, increased interest in the sport, greater participation amongst youth, and a better future for MMA as a whole.
But what can the UFC take from this? I think its got to be more cautious in terms of where and when it schedules events. The external operating environment doesn’t just consist of television ratings or demographic sizes; there are other considerations to be made (like competition from various forms of entertainment, for example).
Zuffa in Trouble #1,506,522 by Kid Nate
Wait for it at Bloodyelbow.com
MMA on decline? No, just the UFC LOL. Just kidding. However, it’s interesting to note that just a few days ago Dana was digging at Strikeforce for only selling 4000 tickets to the Fedor fight. It’s too bad Dana failed to mention the inability of the UFC to even sell that much in UTAH. I don’t care where in the US they go, they should have at least sold a respectable amount of tickets. My understanding of UTAH is that not everyone is religious (as noted by Dana when they based the event in UTAH on TV ratings), so what gives?
JJ,
Guru.
You are comparing an event with Fedor with a UFC on Verses card. SF only selling 4K with Fedor is MUCH worse. Even you should realize this dispite your anti UFC bias.
What would the UFC be drawing with Fedor by now assuming he wouldnt have already been beat a few times which is my belief? By Fedors 3 rd fight in the UFC he would be a huge name and maybe even a draw. He would never be fighting in front of only 4,000 fans.
I also believe there would have been much more than 4K to attend the Utah event regardless of how slow ticket sales were.
The UFC is by no means in trouble, this incident will be remembered as a goof on the part of the organization and an anomaly in a sea of quickly sold-out events. Strikeforce has always had lackluster to poor attendance anywhere but San Jose. It just goes to show that their brand awareness outside the bay area is very poor, and/or that a large percentage of people who are fans of Strikeforce just don’t feel compelled to buy tickets. I think it’s a bit of both these factors.
The UFC is by no means in trouble, this incident will be remembered as a goof on the part of the organization and an anomaly in a sea of quickly sold-out events.
Strikeforce has always had lackluster to poor attendance anywhere but San Jose. It just goes to show that their brand awareness outside the bay area is very poor, and/or that a large percentage of people who are fans of Strikeforce just don’t feel compelled to buy tickets. I think it’s a bit of both these factors.