MMA Junkie reports the release of the official numbers from the Colorado State Boxing Commission for WEC 51 held September 30th. 3,791 fans attended with a live gate or $191,620.
The average revenue per ticket issued was $50.55. The event was the first-ever in Colorado.
Payout Perspective:
The numbers are better than WEC 50, but it seems a little disappointing since the card included some notable fighters (Aldo) and fights (Cerrone v. Varner). Aldo is one of the most exciting fighters out there but fought a tough opponent in front of a half empty arena. According to its web site, 1STBank Center in Broomfield, Colorado holds up to 6,500 fans.
I thought about whether having the event on a Thursday night, as opposed to a weekend night, hurt attendance. But, I believe that if the event were held on a weekend, it would compete with college or professional football. Still, there should be more fans out there willing to make it to see an entertaining card on a weeknight.
The information provided did not include how many complimentary tickets were given out, but it would be interesting to see the number of paid versus comped.
Jason,
These are the numbers I have:
WEC 51: Aldo vs Gamburyan – Attendance: 3,791; Gate: $190,620; Comped Tickets: 1,511; Paid Attend: 2,280
SH**: That’s even worse.
Seems like a trend these days: Jose the carrier of BAD news, lol. 😉
Larsenator:
Well, its not going to get much better for the Strikeforce payout piwxw I am working on 🙂
LOL. Somebody’s got to do it, huh?! 😀
At least SF seems to be focussing on their marketing right now which is well over due. 🙂
For the WEC, you have to consider that a success to some degree. There’s only so much money available in the pie to go around. MMA has stopped growing shortly after UFC 100, I expect things to level off now pending no more economic issues in the U.S.
Oh yeah, starting to hear reverberations around including the WEC into the ultimate fighter show. 145 and 135 division might be on the plate next season on Spike or Versus.
It’s hard to do a good gate with a mid-week card. My guess is that they chose the date for reasons to do with the broadcast. They got decent ratings (for a WEC show) but suffered at the gate. I don’t want to tell Zuffa how to do their job, but I still think these should be Friday or Saturday night cards. I can’t figure out why they keep doing mid-week shows. Is VS showing hockey or something?
Good point Diego.
With the frequency of their cards, it should not be that big of a problem to run shows on Friday on Versus. My guess is that Dana and Co. don’t like the idea of potentially running two shows in successive nights (cases where a PPV or Spike event is on Saturdays). They could schedule around such an occurrence but it would add additional constraints to their scheduling potential.