MMA Fighting reports that early estimates of UFC 163 featuring the Korean Zombie fighting Jose Aldo are between 170K to 190K buys. UFC 161 has been estimated at 135K to 155K PPV buys.
According to Dave Meltzer, both of the estimates are from individuals within the cable and MMA industry. They indicated the estimated PPV buy range for KZ-Aldo had bested Hendo-Evans on PPV “by about 35,000 buys.”
The last time UFC PPVs dipped below 200K PPV buys was last June and August when UFC 147 (W. Silva-Franklin II) received 140K and UFC 150 (Bendo-Edgar II) received 190K PPV buys. It will be interesting to see what Henderson will draw next week when he defends his title against Showtime Pettis.
Payout Perspective:
The fact that UFC 163 was a card full of mainly Brazilian fighters made this less of an attraction despite Aldo’s title defense. Also, UFC 161 was a definite low point in the PPV history of both Henderson and Evans. Besides the main events, there were not many compelling matchups on either card unless you were a hardcore UFC fan. The consensus is that with the UFC-Fox agreement and that there are more fights on free television, fans are more willing to skip PPVs. It will be interesting to see how the UFC addresses this issue in the future especially with the new FS1 and 2.
Will the UFC decide to curtail the number of PPVs in order to stack cards for bigger PPV draws? Or, will it be content to eat poor ratings for 1 or 2 PPV events each year?
Passing on PPVs conditions fans to continue the trend
Hopefully this downward trend continues. After fs1 people should realise they should be getting better events for cheap/free. you know that nascar watching, walmart shopping, wwe believing crowd loves a good deal.
Geale-Barker fight on HBO had 791,000 viewers last Sat night
by Steve Kim
https://twitter.com/stevemaxboxing/status/370680178424287232
Not surprising, these are the two worst PPV of the year.
Next 5 PPV are really good though.
164 probably does ok, I’d say 200-300k.
165 should do 500k +
166 should do 500-600k
167 should do 800k
168 should do 1 mill
And of course aintitthetruth wants them to fail. You do realize the UFC would put every show on tv if they got a tv deal worth what other sports get. Right now they need PPV revenue cause 100 mill aint gonna cut it.
The day the sport is able to get a 500-1 bill a year tv deal is the day every card is on free tv. That day isnt coming for atleast 5 more years until the FOx deal is up and even then I dont see them ever getting money like that.
Right now Fox is making out like crazy with the UFC for 100 mill.
164 will be interesting. Benson Henderson has not done well on PPV.
@Chang – Thanks for the boxing info
Not a good trend at all…..no wonder the world tour..and Dana exaggerating weidman and silva would be the biggest …….casual fans always jump on any bandwagon that looks like a big hit….
UFC is NOT getting 100 million a year from FOX.
That’s an inflated number touted by well trained fanatics.
The real number is $90 million as reported by the Sports Business Daily. http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2011/08/16/Media/UFC.aspx?sms_ss=twitter&at_xt=4e4aa05c4d9ee668,0
That boxing number isnt bad considering neither guy is a name in the US and they were going up against a big UFC card.
Chris:200k for a ufc ppv is not ok. unless low is ok.i would be surprised if pettis henderson cracked 200k.
“UFC is NOT getting 100 million a year from FOX.
That’s an inflated number touted by well trained fanatics.
The real number is $90 million as reported by the Sports Business Daily. http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2011/08/16/Media/UFC.aspx?sms_ss=twitter&at_xt=4e4aa05c4d9ee668,0”
Wrong. See updated, later article from exact same source:
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/SB-Blogs/Events/World-Congress/2012/03/UFC-Fox.aspx
“Shanks said that Fox had been courting UFC for almost a decade before offering it a seven-year, $100 million a year broadcast deal.”
Sorry to disappoint.
Those low PPV numbers reflect low viewership for all the fighters on the card which then creates a lack of name recognition amongst a wider fan base.
This is a spiral effect playing itself out that we have already seen in the boxing industry. But as BS mentioned the UFC likely has no choice as the $90 million in annual revenue from FOX isn’t enough to cover the costs.
UFC is in a tougher spot than most are willing to admit in the long-term.
In 2012 HBO had a non PPV budget of $35 million and Showtime’s was $28 million and I doubt ESPN, NBC SN have big budgets and Golden Boys deal with FS1 is for 6 figures.
You are ignoring International broadcasting rights, they have signed several improved TV deals in the last year as well.
Who said it was ok aintitthetruth? I said they were expected cause those two cards were weak and destroyed by injuries. You lost Maia/Kos and Pettis, you lost Shogun/Nog, Barao/Wineland from 161.
even with those fights everyone knew minus the Silva/Weidman fight that they were gonna have a weak summer. Basically every June card is weak, its been weak for years cause you have the Memorial Day and July 4th cards around it.
The Aug card suffers from so many events in Aug, they focused on FS1 debut.
So yeah those numbers arent good but they were expected. Unless of course you can show me someone who said UFC 161 was gonna do 500k buys?
They were weak cards and did shit buys. oh well. And if you think Bendo/Pettis isnt gonna crack 200k I dont know what to tell you.
The Sept through Dec PPV are gonna be big though, 4 big PPV in a row, 3 of them get Primetime series, great cards, big fights and should do good buys.
Why bring boxing’s budget into the discussion when its well known that the overhead for the boxing business model is less than 10% of what Zuffa’s 200 person workforce costs?
And no… those international television deals aren’t lucrative at all based on distribution and viewership which have largely been very poor for the UFC outside of Brazil.
Compare boxing’s international television revenue by comparison and there is no. comparison
Funny how naiive UFC fans are when talking about international television revenue and somehow acting like boxing isn’t fully entrenched globally.
Didn’t Koki Kameda just generate over 15 million viewers in Japan a month ago.
Isn’t the Klitschko-Povetkin fight a huge money fight in Germany that is likely to generate 20 million viewers+?
What about Mayweather-Alvarez that is likely to draw 40 million viewers on Televisa 7 in Mexico?
The list can go on and on for these know nothings but why educate the donkeys?
You mentioned the UFC’s Fox budget I just offered your precious Boxings budget in reply, as if $90 million isn’t a lot of money.
Yes the big money fights are in the US still, why isn’t the Mayweather fight in Mexico? because it’s a dirt poor country.
Every Boxer knows that the US and Vegas especially is the place to make the big money, which is why the top fighters, even if they are making big money elsewhere want to fight here.
Ask Carl Froch, he’s begging to fight Ward in Vegas, yet he’s probably the biggest Boxing star in the UK he even said himself it’s a bigger money fight. Canelo & Chavez Jr etc don’t fight in Mexico anymore, I wonder why? even though they are massive stars there, Pacquiao is the same, even his next fight in Macao is geared towards the US, given that it will start at like 10 am local time
The Klitcho’s have been trying to break into the US market for years
HAHAHAHA! $90 Million isn’t a lot when you consider how much the UFC spends on marketing, production, and their fixed overhead compared to boxing.
Wait… once second you’re crying about how we forget to include the UFC’s “international expansion”, the next second you’re crying about foreign markets being dirt poor? Pretty stupid.
With a $23.3 Million purse bid in Germany, I don’t see the Klitschko’s dying to come to America at all you misinformed zuffa zombie. http://espn.go.com/boxing/story/_/id/9207679/eventual-wladimir-klitschko-alexander-povetkin-fight-fetches-233m-purse-bid
Froch begging to fight Ward in Vegas? Hahahahaha!
These Zuffa zombies are useless, simply useless. Didn’t Froch just make 3X against Kessler what Ward made against Dawson?
Yeah…I think UFC fanboys should start and look at how much UFC spends for marketing..it’s a business rely/dependent heavily on marketing…they’ve been spending a lot of money from the begining…early 2000 up to the present ..
most companies marketing campaign alots tons of money in introducing the product then it slowly cuts spending for marketing to see how the product performs or how the market responds to it….
Tyson has this new boxing promotion….hope it does well because I think Tyson would be a good fight matchmaker aside from being a promoter…he is a boxing historian and he only needs to find boxers like him who ll give exciting fights…..