The Canadian Press reported that the UFC has delayed a show slated for Montreal in March. The UFC cited scheduling issues and a desire to deliver a “championship card” for the postponement.
There was never a formal announcement by the UFC of the Montreal March event although fights had been scheduled for the date. Montreal will host an event later this year.
Payout Perspective:
The cancellation is tough, but a good call for the UFC. Its better to put together a quality card than a less than stellar show. Based upon the UFC’s response to the cancellation, it intimates that it wants one of its champs to defend their title in Montreal. Perhaps, GSP’s return to face the interim titleholder later this year?
On the other end, the cancellation of the card reflects the fact that there may be too many UFC cards and not enough of top draws to sustain the ambitious UFC schedule. The Canadian market is important to the UFC and it would have been bad for the company if it put together a mediocre PPV card. In postponing the card, they could recalibrate its fights to put together an appealing lineup for Montreal. Still, injuries and drawing power will be an issue due to the amount of cards the UFC is putting on this year.
Good move by the UFC. Hopefully this is an indication that they’ve learned from the response to past mediocre PPVs like UFC UFC 108, 119, 130, etc.
To put the number of cards in perspective.
2009 20 UFC cards
2010 24 UFC cards
2011 27 UFC cards
2012 32 planned UFC cards.
That would be 60% more cards this year than in 2009. PPV card quality may indeed suffer not just due to the overall number of events, but the quality of cards that are going on Fox. If you put the 3 fights (as planned or re-stacked) for UFC on Fox 2 and moved them to UFC 145 in Montreal, I think everyone would have been happy it it would do 400 thousand or more in PPV buys.
I truly believe Assassin is on the money$.
What we don’t know is the numbers & data the company uses to assess $90M Fox deal & content vs PPV numbers.
I have friends in Australia that think putting up a secondary card after 2 consecutive years of strong PPV w/ strong established talent has been a mistake. Does anyone know if it is sold out? Does the company care if it is sold out as it is already paid for by Fox? Sydney sold out almost as quickly as Montreal without a true Australian headliner unlike Canadia. What about the placement of a Saturday am in Sydney for N.America Friday night broadcast? Are we now going to see an international 2 tier(maybe 3) model? What does the former NBA exec in China do in his office on a daily basis for the UFC? How about an interview again from MMA PayOut? Is China-Asia the new frontier for the UFC? It is an incredible company to study.
With all these questions,we can still say the quality of FIGHTS have been awesome since the signing of the Fox deal in Aug-Sep, understanding the1st real Fox card is still to come .