MMA Junkie reports the attendance, gate and bonuses from Saturday’s UFC 171 from Dallas, Texas. The attendance was the largest in U.S. UFC history.
The attendance and gate announced at the post-fight press conference was 19,324 for a live gate of $2.6 million. The numbers will be verified by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation later this week. The figures represent an increase from UFC 103 when the promotion was last at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. It did 17,428 for a gate of $2.4 million with Rich Franklin-Vitor Belfort and Cro Cop-Junior dos Santos as the headliners.
In addition, the Performance Bonuses were handed at and were as follows:
Fight of the Night: Hendricks-Lawler
Performance Bonuses: Ovince St. Preux-Dennis Bermudez
Each received $50,000 for their respective performances.
Payout Perspective:
The attendance and gate reflect a reported sellout for this event. With Hendricks as the hometown favorite, many came to support him in the main event. Earlier in the week secondary market ticket seller Seat Geek reported that the average ticket on the secondary market was $260 which was up 28% from UFC 170. Thus, there was quite a demand for this fight which is a positive sign that Hendricks is someone that the UFC can start to market around and get ready for a potential rematch with Georges St. Pierre if and when he returns.
MMA Payout will have more on the event in its Payout Perspective.
Ok so if its 28% up from 170, what percentage is it up over UFC 103 which was in 2009, 5 years ag0?. How many comps were given out for 103 as compared to 171. What was the average face ticket cost of 103 compared to 171? There is an 1896 gate difference with a higher gross of 200k. What was the difference in marketing and production coasts? So basically what I am saying is there is not nearly enough true and accurate financial information to rationally compare these 2 events, or even say one was better than another. A great number for actual attendance but without all the other information there are too many unknowns to make an accurate assessment
@saidathief
Texas commission to provide official attendance/gate later this week. The information provided was given at the post-fight presser. Usually we are unable to access the marketing/production numbers so we can only compare the attendance/gate to the public information released by UFC/commissions. In fact, this is the case for almost all MMA promotions. But, if you know of a promotion that releases these figures, we all would be interested in knowing.
In other news it looks like Alvarez-Angulo did somewhere north of 350k PPV buys (according to Golden Boy) and that’s being called a “huge” success. That should put in perspective how powerful a draw the UFC is in PPV. On this forum we generally consider 350k a failure for the UFC.
Canelo is probably the 3rd most marketable PPV star in boxing. Only Pacman and Mayweather do better.
It will be interesting to see how the Marquez-Alvarado fight does, but I don’t expect it to sell more than a Canelo fight.
Jason I agree, i think the only real number we get is WWE because its a public company. But making the excuse that we never get accurate numbers in MMA is basically saying this entire site is pure fiction. I think myself asking tough questions and pointing out facts is far better then just guessing and blindly believing. Also looking at numbers out of the box and bring up points NEVER MENTIONED BY THE UFC OR BOXING people makes more sense then just going with the nonsense spin we are always told.
Diego, Alverez is the 3rd most marketable fighter because Golden Boy says so nothing more. He has never headlined a ppv before Floyd and he lost. He’s a white Mexican who cant speak English, he has little or no mainstream marketability outside hardcore fans. He is young so maybe Goldenboy can change his marketability, I doubt it. He couldn’t even hit floyd and look how fast he looked against Angulo, tells me a lot about his competition. And they stopped the fight prematurely imo. He’s not even in the same building as Floyd or Pac
@Diego
We’ll have something up about the Canelo fight so everyone can go crazy in the comments section then. j/k 🙂
I was under the impression that JMM/Alvarado was actually on HBO. Its the same night as the Bellator PPV so that will be a good night for combat sport fans.
saladthief,
I agree with your assessment of Canelo. But he’s still the 3rd most marketable fighter in boxing – which shows you how non-Mayweather and Pacquiao PPVs are doing in that sport.
My point is that everyone always compares UFC PPVs to Mayweather and Pacquiao PPVs, but the comparison should really be to the “rank and file” boxers – the Canelos, Bradleys, Broners and Marquezes of the world. By that light, the UFC has a pretty healthy PPV business.
And the Cottos and Martinezes.
Diego, How can anyone say Canelo is the 3 rd most marketable ppv when he has only had one on his own? Makes no real business sense to me. And the one that he had was right after the super hyped Floyd card sorry sell that BS to someone else!
OK then – who if not Canelo is the 3rd best PPV draw in boxing?
And while we’re at it, let me simplify the gate analysis for you – $2.6M. That’s the number to focus on.
We don’t have enough fights to say one way or another, one fight means nothing if the rest are crap IMO. Chavez Jr was very recently seen as a new ppv superstar, he did 470k ppv with a 3 Million dollar gate against Sergio Martinez and his last fight he had a low gate.The box office report shows that there were 4,137 tickets sold, with 904 comps, contributing to a gate of $334,831, funny how we never see the box office scan on any UFC fights. And it did 1.4 million views so who knows what it would have done ppv. I would say Cotto Martinez and Marquez have a far greater ability and have shown through time, not one fight, to be considered ppv contenders
The powers to be in Boxing are desperate to develop a new superstar .
Chavez has potential, but it’s telling that he went from a PPV to not a PPV while Canelo will likely do another PPV in his next fight, making it 3 in a row.
Martinez and Cotto can do well in certain fights, but I don’t know that either one can consistently carry a PPV. They haven’t in the past.
Bradley and Marquez did 370k buys together, but I feel like each contributed to the other, and neither could do the same against a smaller opponent (like say Angulo).
For me Canelo is #3 and a guy who may be able to carry a show even against sub-par opposition. Though obviously he’s far behind 1 & 2.