After disappointing UFC 125 attendance, gate, and estimated PPV numbers were released, fans were left asking if it’s worth the UFC’s effort to keep hosting shows on NYE weekend, as they have done for the past two years.
In order to analyze and compare both NYE events from the last two years, we will first compare figures and numbers, which will then be followed up by factors which heavily impacted the bottom line of each event.
Attendance, Gate, and PPV Buys
UFC 108, which took place on January 2, 2010, drew an attendance of 13, 529, in which 8,004 tickets were purchased, 5,314 were complimentary (given away), and 599 tickets went unsold at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The event pulled a gate of $1,969,670. PPV buys for the event was estimated at doing around 300,000 buys.
UFC 125, which took place on Janary 1, 2011, drew an attendance of 12,874, in which 6,978 tickets were purchased, 5,896 were complimentary (given away), and 1,077 tickets went unsold at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The event pulled a gate of $2,174,780. PPV buys are currently estimating the event to be doing between 270,000 to 300,000 buys.
* The numbers are quite comparable here for both cards. Both events were headlined by what most would consider “weak draws” as headliners, although the one big difference being that UFC 108 had no title matches while UFC 125 had the LW title on the line. UFC 125’s 270k-300k PPV buys ranks as the lowest in years for an event headlined by a title bout since the PPV boom took place for the UFC. Back in 2006, UFC 64 headlined by Rich Franklin vs Anderson Silva and Florian vs Sherk was an event headlined by two title bouts but only did 300k PPV buys, which was about 5 years ago . UFC 80 Penn vs Stevenson only did about 225,000 buys, but that show was taped delayed from the Newcastle, England.
* In comparison to a non-NYE event held in the same venue, UFC 114 : Evans vs Rampage drew 14,996 fans, of which 13,294 were paid, 1,702 were complimentary, and 12 tickets went unsold for a gate of $3,730,125. UFC 116 also pulled a big number though that was headlined by Brock Lesnar, which always pulls in big numbers. On average, events held at the MGM grand tend to be big fights that average well above gates of $3 million .
NOTE: When talking about purchased tickets in Las Vegas, we have to take into account tickets sold to casinos, which are counted as purchased tickets, so there is no real way to know how many tickets the actual public purchased. Special thanks to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
Key Factors:
Injuries and Drawing Power
It seems that every year around the holiday season, injuries always creep up, and it certainly had a big impact on both NYE cards. UFC 108 had to be one of the most injury-riddled cards in MMA history. Where we saw the Anderson Silva vs Vitor Belfort and Brock Lesnar vs Shane Carwin fights moved due to injury/health issues. Velasquez vs Nogueira was then set to headline the event but Nogueira had to pull out due to a staph infection, which then followed up by Velasquez vs Carwin bout for an interim belt which didn’t take place due to Carwin undergoing knee surgery. Other fighters who pulled out of the event were Gabriel Gonzaga, pulling out of his fight against Dos Santos, Carlos Condit against Paul Daley due to injury. In addition, Tyson Griffin, Sean Seark, Vladimir Matyushenko, Steve Cantwell, and Rory Markham all had to pull out of their fights due to injury. In the end Rashad Evans vs Thiago Silva become the main event while Paul Daley vs Dustin Hazelett drew the co-main event.
UFC 125 was supposed to feature two title bouts highlighting the lightweight and Featherweight divisions as Jose Aldo from the WEC was going to make his UFC debut as the co-main event to Edgar vs Maynard. Aldo had to pull out due to an injury which required surgery, which then placed his opponent Grispi in the undercard and in the non-PPV portion of the televised event, which saw him lose to Dustin Poirier. Before Jose Aldo was moved to help headline the card, Shane Carwin vs Roy Nelson was set for the UFC 125 co-main event, that is before Shane Carwin had to pull out due to injury which required surgery. In the end, Chris Leben vs Brian Stann became the new co-main event.
* Analyzing the intended cards, it’s clear that the UFC is trying to stack these cards in order to give them a chance on NYE weekend, but injuries have heavily plagued both events and shattered any hopes they had of doing good numbers.
New Years Eve Holiday Events and Tradition
MMAPayout’s Kelsey Philpott spoke a bit about holding events on NYE weekend and what the typical consumer behavior is during the time-span.
1.) New Year’s Day: Consumers are hungover and unwilling to leave the couch.
2.) Sports competition: Winter Classic, Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl
3.) Few Draws: Edgar, Maynard, Leben, and Stann didn’t have too many big spenders excited.
4.) The UFC may have over-priced. It did $2.1 million on 7,000 tickets!
* Typically, PPV sporting events tend to stay away from holiday weekends with tons of sports and entertainment programming on TV, which NYE is definitely about. College Football is on all of Saturday and the Winter Classic draw very good ratings and there are also no shortages of other television programming and live events to get viewers easily distracted from staying at home and ordering a PPV.
MMAPayout’s Jason Cruz also put his two cents regarding the issue.
The New Year’s Day fight date may have contributed to the low gate. Also, preoccupation with other events such as festivities on New Year’s Eve, bowl games and NHL’s Winter Classic (which was delayed for weather and time slot competed with UFC 125) may have caused the downturn.
Another question that looms is the attraction of the lighter weight classes. Can they carry a main event PPV? Aside from BJ Penn at 155, will fans pay to watch a lightweight PPV. I think Jose Aldo and Urijah Faber are the only other fighters that could main event a PPV. Otherwise, main events featuring lighter weight classes may be better suited for Fight Nights. The lighter weight classes are quicker and appear more technical, but there seems to be something that attract fans to the heavier weight classes.
Payout Perspective
There is no denying how bad the NYE numbers have been for the past two years, but there are still quite a few unknowns here that would make any decision a bit brash. What if injuries didn’t plague the events, how much would have Carwin vs Nelson helped UFC 125? How many PPV buys would Lesnar have garnered if he would have fought at UFC 108 against Carwin on NYE? Does it make more sense to put on a higher profile fight on another card rather than a NYE card which may not do the business it would somewhere else. What it all comes down to is a study on consumer behavior during NYE weekend, and whether fans can make a yearly tradition to watch MMA at home with their friends instead of going out an partying, watching Hockey or College Football, or attending other NYE events.
If the UFC is dedicated to making NYE weekend a key date in their future scheduling, they need to put on a event with big draws to see how much, if at all, the NYE festivities affect its numbers. If anything can be said so far after analyzing the numbers, its that weak draws as headliners on NYE cards (regardless of being a championship bout or not) will only do sub-par numbers all around. The question still remains, should the UFC avoid NYE’s weekend or will it eventually pay off in the future by cultivating a new traditional event amongst its fan-base.
Isn’t asking if Carwin vs Nelson would have helped kind of a specious question? You can apply the logic any where. If I put better drawing fighters on the cards in any city wouldn’t the gate be higher? The point is if they had better drawing fighters they would have used them. The same goes for every show they have. That is why you have cards in other cities that kind of suck as well.
Of course they could have thought that it wouldn’t matter much how they stack the card it won’t move the needle much so why try? Hard to say.
But the key point is that even the UFC has only so many really big drawing fighters and they need to spread them around. You can put some of the blame for that on the shoulders of the revolving door they have over there.
I have to wonder why they do a NY show. Is it because Japan does? If so then it was a bad business plan. Dynamite in Japan is held because on NY eve because it is the biggest TV night of the year. The Japanese culture is different than North America they all stay in for NY eve. In North America every one goes out to parties. But by the time you hit the UFC show you have just come off the long holiday maelstrom and you have likely spent your self into the ground. Spending yet more money for a PPV is asking a lot.
Jv:
“Isn’t asking if Carwin vs Nelson would have helped kind of a specious question? You can apply the logic any where.”
Let me clarify. What I should of asked is whether it makes more sense to put on a higher profile fight on another card rather than a NYE card which may not do the business it would somewhere else. Would adding Carwin/Nelson bumped PPV buys from 270k to 350k. It’s really a study on consumer behavior during NYE weekend.
I have been of the opinion for a bit now that they do a NYE show as something of a prestige thing and not necessarily a money maker. They like the idea of being able to entertain all the Las Vegas NYE traffic with a UFC fight, so they keep it going. The environmental factors will always limit it from being a record breaker, but it’s not like the event lost money.
I think they have to consider the NFL playoffs. That is probably also a reason they do a show at those dates. NFL playoffs have saturday night games that would hurt the UFC in my opinion
Steve Cofield and Kevin Iole give their thoughts on struggling Vegas numbers.
UFC finding out that Vegas is losing its steam as ‘the fight capital’
http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/UFC-finding-out-that-Vegas-is-losing-its-steam-a?urn=mma-310279
One factor that I didn’t see here in comparing UFC 108 with UFC 125 is that UFC 125 was actually on New Years Day, while UFC 108 was the day after. I think this could make a big difference in PPVs where people are still recovering, or otherwise engaged on New Year’s Day. That difference could account for the appearance that Edgar/Maynard was an equivalent draw to Evan/T. Silva, which I do not believe to be the case.
I’m of the opinion that the UFC should not book events too close to NYE. But a few days difference goes a long way.
Well i think the UFC knows the situation with NYE. There is a reason they are not putting on high profile fights on that date. But people need to think back to the days when there were no events that date. The UFC would run Ultimate 2001 for example and the fight fans would be left with 3 moth gap in events.
I think it is important for the UFC to keep events coming out regularly.The UFC has a quarter of a million fans customers who buy any event they do. These fans, myself included, dont want a long gap between fights. Everyone who follows the sport knew a LW fight with a new champ and one notorious boring fighter with both guys lacking the abilty to finish anyone was not going to sell well. I even rooted for BJ to beat Edgar soley to avoid having a Edgar vs Grey fight. That how bad this was on paper.
In the end i doubt this PPV would have done better than 300K on any other date. I dont think it is that easy to comp the amount of tickets the UFC did unless they knew a head of time and give them away. So i doubt NYE being a tough date is unknown to them. Every business has its slow days. You cant close up shop. I think the event was perfect for the UFC. They did a fight that had to be done when there was low expectations. On top of that made a top of profit due to the low cost of the fighters involved. It would have been better if the main event wasnt a draw and the UFC could have moved on. But imsure the 3rd fight will get more interest when they show the fight on Spike and promote it. So it was really a win win. I wouldnt suggest putting Brock Lesnar on NYE as it would take away from the value. But the UFC always has its 300K buy cards and NYE is a good place to use them.
I would also like to add that using UFC 64 is misleading. Yes there were two title fights. But at that time the worst draws of all the headliners was Anderson Silva followed by Rich Franklin. The LW title at that time goes without saying. I dont doubt that NYE hurts numbers. But i dont think it is as bad is it seems. The UFC just fills it with poor draws which make NYE look even worse. The UFC ussually stack the super bowl weekend event. Those numbers are great. But you put UFC 125 card in that slot it would get crap results. I would say there may be a 10-20% hit by booking NYE. Which is why its good to use a small card. 20% of 300K buys is less than 20% of 600k buys.
If NYE was the killer than it is made out to be then the UFC would not run event on it. It really is that simple. They are not forced to do so. It seems some had higher expectations for 125 than pretty much anyone else. That is not reality. It was a poor card. It give mainstream fans a break to get them on board for the big events in the first quarter of the year.
BrainSmasher:
If you read above where I wrote about the injury bug hitting these cards, the UFC’s intent was to put incredibly high profile fights on the NYE cards like Lesnar vs Carwin, Carwin vs Nelson, Cain vs Nog, and Aldo vs Grisby (to a lesser extent). They didn’t start booking these cards with the idea that they were going to do that, it’s just what happened when all the fighters started to pull out.
Also, using UFC 64 as an example is not misleading at all. It actually is the last time the numbers were this bad for a championship bout headlined event in North America. I mean, UFC 80 Penn vs Stevenson was able to do 225K PPV buys but that event took place in the UK with tape delay involved, and only did 50-75K PPV less than UFC 125.
I disagree that UFC 125 was a poor card. This was UFC’s first time running a card on Jan 1, so there is no way UFC could have known what the impact would be.
The whole, “can’t close its doors” argument is made invalid by the fact that UFC 125 was followed by two weekends with no major MMA events.
When it comes to the heavyweights, I think the attraction is just the natural, primitive fear of seeing an angry, violent dude much bigger than us. That’s the attraction. The thought of having to fight somebody like that is terrifying, which makes it thrilling to watch. That was the appeal of Mike Tyson. The average person couldn’t imagine themselves brave enough to stand in the ring with him — but we wanted watch somebody else do it.
I think with the smaller fighters, the fans can intellectually know, wow that dude would kick my ass, but it’s not the same gut-level, visceral fear/thrill of seeing a huge dude.
Fans want to see people take physical risks they wouldn’t take. They want to see people braver than themselves.
For comparison, Nascar has been on the decline in recent years. I don’t think it was an accident that Nascar boomed after several high profile in-race deaths, notably Dale Earnhardt. Nascar re-designed their cars and made them much safer. So much safer that there hasn’t been an in-race death in many years now.
And that’s why it’s on the decline. When fans thought the drivers were literally risking death every lap, then it was thrilling. The drivers were taking risks the fans weren’t brave enough to take. But if you believe the cars are invulnerable — and that anybody off the street could survive a 200 mph wreck at Daytona — then what’s so special about these guys? The new safer era in Nascar has been great for the drivers health, but has seen a sizeable drop in fan interest.
The NFL has that thrill. Last game I watched, two guys got taken off the field on stretchers with head injuries. Every year some high school or college players die from injuries. Fans know it’s a very dangerous sport. Every play could bring serious career-ending injury and possibly paralysis or even death. It’s thrilling to watch the players take risks that we wouldn’t. Take a hit from Ray Lewis? You couldn’t pay me to do that.
That’s my take. The big guys just spark a raw, primitive fear among the (avg-sized) fan. And the bigger and meaner and crazier the guy looks, the more intense that raw fear/thrill. It just taps into our more primitive monkey-brain.
I’m sure if they had bigger draws on the card it would have done much better. I think the consumer segment for MMA is maturing. Starting to understand the “wants” of these consumers will be an important factor going into the next decade with respect to the PPV model. Evolving the product, which does seem kind of stale, might help attract more attention to PPV cards that don’t have major draws. It’s not like the media coverage is waning, I’ve noticed an uptick in coverage in the mainstream in most of the media sources I read, including local newspapers. It just might be too much to ask the consumer to shell out 50$ for 15+ events a year. The consumers as they mature will understand the product better and determine what fighters they are willing to purchase. The brand alone is not able to carry the load and we are seeing that the floor sits somewhere in the high 200K buy rate range.
mmaguru:
It was believed that the floor was around 300K a bout two years ago, so it’s a bit odd that the floor is still around the same ballpark. You would think the floor would be higher now due the year-over-year success in the last 3 years, but it hasn’t affected it. Who fights on the card is a key factor, not to mention that Lesnar has really skewed those numbers as well since every time he fights it’s a 1 million PPV event.
“If you read above where I wrote about the injury bug hitting these cards, the UFC’s intent was to put incredibly high profile fights on the NYE cards like Lesnar vs Carwin, Carwin vs Nelson, Cain vs Nog, and Aldo vs Grisby (to a lesser extent). They didn’t start booking these cards with the idea that they were going to do that, it’s just what happened when all the fighters started to pull out.
Also, using UFC 64 as an example is not misleading at all. It actually is the last time the numbers were this bad for a championship bout headlined event in North America. I mean, UFC 80 Penn vs Stevenson was able to do 225K PPV buys but that event took place in the UK with tape delay involved, and only did 50-75K PPV less than UFC 125.”
Jose i agree maybe the UFC dont see it as a bad day to host an event. BUt like i said i dont see it that way either. I think there could be a small hit like 10% if any at all. Also Booking Brock is a good way to get people to buy an event when maybe they dont want to. So a time of year when people dont or cant buy the run of the mill PPV dont mean they wont buy a blockbuster PPV.
Also i still believe using 64 is misleading. Title fight or not. Franklin and Silva even when both were champs drew the lowest PPV buys. MMApayout tract them at the time im sure you have the numbers. This fight was WAY before the big push on Anderson that give him a huge punch in his drawing ability. The start of Silva big push was his fight with Irvin on Spike TV. Also UFC 64 was Silva second fight in the UFC and was completely unknown to most viewers.Silva push was almost 2 years after this fight.
Franklin headlined his 2 previous fights defore UFC 64 and UFC 56 drew 200K and UFC 58 drew 300K. He then headlined UFC 72 in Ireland and it also drew 200K. UFC 64 was par for the course for Franklin and Silva. Silva next headline after 64 was with Lutter with TUF build up and the debut of QJ and Mirko and it only drew 350K.
So i dotn see much evidence that NYE is a bad idea. Outside of poor cards will do poorly. Which is always the case. If we actually got a good card on NYE to compare maybe an arrangement could be made. especially the Brock vs Carwin fight or Brock s anyone. We have an idea of what Brock should draw. BUt its not shocking when 300K buy level cards draw 300K buys.