Dave Metzler at F4Wonline.com is reporting that the UFC is returning its PPVs back to the 7pm/10pm start time starting with December 30th’s UFC 141. The UFC moved up the start time starting with UFC 129 in Toronto to accommodate its east coast viewers.
As we noted when the announcement to move the PPVs up one hour, it would hurt west coast viewership. Considering the fact that prelim fights on Facebook would start mid-afternoon for west coast viewers, most west coasters would still be out and about. The theory was that the 6pm move made sense from the perspective that the UFC wanted as many east coast viewers to see the PPVs. Now, it appears that the UFC’s experiment is over.
Payout Perspective:
The sagging PPV buys are the likely reason why the UFC is moving back the start times. It would be interesting to know if the breakdown in PPV buys this year led the UFC to conclude that the 6pm start time did not influence PPV buys. Certainly, the UFC is hoping for a big spike in buys for 141 considering its PPV bell cow, Brock Lesnar, is on the card.
Maybe you guys can look into why ESPN shunned the UFC? I looked for UFC on ESPN all weekend and Monday and Tuesday. Not only was there no highlights and no mention of any fights on any of the opinion shows or Sportscenter. But there wasnt even a crawler on the bottom of the page with the results like they have for all UFC and SF events for a while now. Now a successful UFC and there isnt even results on the scoreboard crawler? I doubt this was an oversight.
Agreed BrainSmasher, the lack of hype doesn’t help. For some reason, Zuffa thinks that media needs them more than they need the media. They continue to mistaken MMA websites for real mainstream media and they have always had their way with the internet sites. Not so with the likes of ESPN.
I’ve been preaching for a while now that the recent growth cycle for MMA has come to an end. Timezones make little difference and what’s good for the West coast is not good for the East coast and visa versa.
Someone should let Zuffa know that the over saturation of the product is the reason for the decline in buy rates. Why pay for every event when there are 3 of them a month now. The business will start growing again, but probably not until 2012.
It’s not like they’re not still making tons of profit. Just saying. The growth probably has stalled, but 2012 brings the UFC to Fox. Heck, Nov. 12 brings the UFC to Fox. Don’t underestimate the potential power of that deal…
Zach Arnold has a more detailed analysis of the move here.