MMA Junkie reports that the UFC plans to hold a “doubleheader” in February 2012 as it will air an event in Japan and Las Vegas on the same day. UFC head Dana White confirmed that the shows will air live on TV with the Japan event airing live on free TV and the Vegas event being the PPV.
Via MMA Junkie:
As White previously announced, the UFC, which hasn’t promoted a show in Japan since UFC 29 in late 2000, heads to Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan, on Feb. 26, 2012. To accommodate the traditional live North American broadcasting on Saturday night, Feb. 25, the event takes place Sunday morning at 10 a.m. local time.
Payout Perspective:
The UFC does not believe there will be a logistical problem with holding simultaneous shows per the UFC’s multi-team approach. The question is whether fans are willing to watch 5 or 6 hours of mixed martial arts. It seems like the UFC may be hurting its own product by having two events in one night. First, the fact that it will have a show on free TV and then a PPV. Certainly, people watch the Spike Prelims and then the PPV but not sure if fans will want to watch a full show and then pay $55 for a pay per view. Second, holding an event Sunday morning seemingly hurts the chances of attendance and gate in Japan. While there will be buzz for the return to Japan, the starting time seems to hurt the chances of its success. Thus, it appears that the UFC return to Japan will be in name only. While there are likely business reasons for holding the show Sunday morning, it should not go over well with Japanese MMA fans. Finally, the inference taken from the announcement that the Las Vegas show is the PPV show is that the show in Japan will not have the same quality of talent. Although we just saw a title bout on free television and will see another on November 12th, the caliber of fights on free television are usually not on par with PPV fights.
Another result of having two shows in one night is the bigger reality of Strikeforce folding and its competitors coming to the UFC. With the announcement that Gilbert Melendez will be in the UFC soon, it almost spells the ending of the organization. Also, we can also see the debut of the Flyweight division on the dual cards.
I think this is a great idea for the UFC. I thought the japanese show wouldnt have been seen on TV. But it seems it will not get much attention in the US if it is Pride and Japanese fighters anyway so it may not hurt the PPV if only hardcore fans tune it. They will get both.
Duel shows is really the way to go. Especially when the UFC is going to another country. They always take a huge hit on PPV buys. So when they go to build another market they lose a lot of money and Branding time in the states. Duel shows allows them to built overseas without the domestic sacrifice.
This is really the only way the UFC can really go global in the future. If these other markets really take off like the UFC wants and expects. Doing 1 show in Brazil, Australia, Japan, UK, Philippines, Canada, etc isnt going to be enough. They will have to do 3-4 shows at least for these fans and they cant ignore the US to do that with the current model and their is only so many weekend in a year to work with. So i doubt this will be the last time we see double events or even multi event.
Makes sense when you put it like that BrainSmasher.
Well, they’ll certainly lose money on the Japan show, that is something we can all be certain of. The only thing that concerns me about this show, however, is that they have to commit 40-48 fighters on their roster to compete on a single night. If there are late injuries, possibly even more fighters will have to be involved. What will the quality of the fight cards be, and how will it effect events schedules for later in the year? With the UFC poised to run more shows than ever before in 2012, this could be a big problem.
@MV
Good point. Right now the UFC is averaging 2 PPVs a month. It usually runs a big show the night before the Super Bowl, so that’s 3 shows in February. Even if the UFC expands its roster with SF fighters and 125lb division, there actually may be a premium on quality fighters.
There is already fighters under contract who dont fight as often as they like. As more shows are added the UFC will just hold on to fighters a fight or two longer than ussual. Before there have been name fighters who get cut or not resigned because of a run of loses or bad fights. As more events are booked per year they might get a second chance. Then again the UFC has 2 new weight class’ with a 3rd planned. Add those fighters to the SF roster i doubt they will have much of a problem keeping the same card quality.
Im also not sold the Japanese event will lose money. There is no way to know that. They are paid for their tv content in the US so they get something for it being on free tv. They also get the gate of the event which noone know what that will be. The event is on Sunday but im not sold its a death nail like people are saying. They woudnt do it if it was cut and dry that it wouldnt work. If the names are on the card and it is promoted it will sell. If they get a 2+ million gate i dont think they wil lose money on it. I fond it hard to believe noone there will show when you have the possiblity of a card with Gomi, Nog, Cro Cop, and Akiyamma and other Pride legends. Then there is the possibility of a tv deal in japan. It wont make as much as it would if it had 300K+ PPV buys but it wont lose money.
The UFC’s TV deal constitutes a flat-rate payment from what I’ve read (wasn’t it $30-35 million a year from Spike?), so whether they make money off of the TV rights fees per capita just depends on how you look at it (I seem to recall Dana saying they didn’t make any money off of the Spike TV deal, could anyone clarify?). Sorry, but I find a $2 million dollar gate for an event held on a Sunday morning in a somewhat hostile foreign market to be completely unrealistic. I really don’t see them making money on the show in Japan (especially if they’re considering putting high-profile fighters like Rampage on the card), but it sounds like they don’t care. The whole thing is a very odd move; all I can think of is that they’re testing the market to see if they should bother trying to grow a fanbase there. This should be a one-off event.
As a fan, however, the thought of two UFC events in one day gets me very excited! I’m one of those guys who watches the Countdown show the day of the event, then Facebook prelims at 2:45, then the Spike prelims, then the PPV, then jumps online for the post-fight press conference. When I go to live shows, I also am there for every fight (even when I went to SF Challengers 15). Truly watching an entire MMA event is a big commitment I’m happy to make, but I doubt a very large portion of the overall fanbase does that (it will be interesting to see the ratings for the Japan show and whether running two shows effects the buyrate of the later PPV).