MMA Fighting posed the question as to how well will UFC 187 do this weekend in light of the big Mayweather-Pacquiao fight earlier this month. Despite the steep PPV price of $90-$100, an estimated 4.4 million people paid to see the fight. Now, will combat sports fans turn around and pay another $60 this weekend?
The question infers something about combat sports fans — they don’t have the money to buy both PPVs. Granted, paying an extra $160 on your monthly cable bill does dent in a household’s leisure budget. While many on social media like to trash the Mayweather-Pacquiao event for their own self-indulgence, it still did astronomical financial business. And, based on the financial numbers, it was an event that many did not want to miss regardless of how much the PPV cost.
Although there is no precedent for a boxing event affecting a UFC PPV, the article uses the Mayweather-Canelo Alvarez fight in September 2013 as an example in how UFC PPVs were affected. The price point for the “The One” was $75 HD which was the most for a boxing PPV until this May. The next three UFC PPVs did alright business but could have done better.
Via MMA Payout Blue Book:
UFC 165 – 09/21/13 Jones vs. Gustafsson – 310K PPV buys
UFC 166 – 10/19/13 Velasquez vs. JDS III – 330K PPV buys
UFC 167 – 11/16/13 GSP vs. Hendricks – 630K PPV buys
It was not until December 2013’s big card at UFC 168 (Rousey-Tate, Silva-Weidman II) that the UFC bounced back. The end of year card drew over 1 million PPV buys. Notably, it was the last time a UFC hit 1 million buys and it was the first PPV increase in some time ($55 to $60).
Still, the question is whether boxing will hurt the UFC. There are various factors which may be contributing, or independent of the buy rate for this weekend’s UFC. Boxing does skew an older audience and it does perform well along ethnic lines. Also, do not discount the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight as a “once in a lifetime” thing even if it may have occurred too late for fight purists. Frankly, the fight was for the casual fight fan because they know the two fighters and have been waiting to see the fight for so long. In addition, the unique partnership between HBO/Showtime to drive the event helped. It initiated its satellite and cable distributors to actively solicit those subscribers into purchasing the event (i.e., it offered assistance to subscribers to order the event prior to the day of it.).
Payout Perspective:
So does the big numbers for Mayweather-Pacquiao mean the casual combat sports fan will be checking out of UFC 187?
Regardless of what we may think of the UFC fan, it does skew younger than the boxing audience and based on surveys, within the demo, these fans have money to spend. Will it hurt the PPV buy rate for this weekend? I would suggest that you might look at the last trends for Memorial Day weekend.
What used to be a big weekend for the UFC has turned into a mediocre one. In the past 4 years, only 2012’s JDS-Mir garnered over 500K PPV buys.
2015 – UFC 187 – Johnson-Cormier ?
2014 – UFC 173 – Barao-Dillashaw 215,000
2013 – UFC 160 – Velasquez-Bigfoot II 380,000
2012 – UFC 146 – JDS-Mir 560,000
2011 – UFC 130 – Rampage-Hamill 325,000
The double main event should help sell this weekend’s PPV. Johnson-Cormier and Weidman-Belfort are both title matches that should bring some interest. While it’s hard to gage whether Chris Weidman is a PPV draw, he has made enough appearances on FOX/FS1 for people to know him. The absence of Jon Jones may have hurt PPV sales but taking him off the card was likely best for long-term business. The two title fights and the lack of boxing this weekend should help get this PPV up to over 500,000 PPV buys. We shall see.
Excuses excuses hahahahaha….its downhill
Really just depends on who is fighting. The only ppv from that first list that was disappointingly low was Cain-JDS III.
Few even knew who Gustafsson was at that time and Hendricks is a very low draw.
The second list is again, just a matter of who was fighting. None of those under performed.
the UFC is incapable of clearing 800k ppv buys in a single fight unless its a superfight. This weekends card is actually quite good with 4 good fighters. it will do 600k. If proven right that will be very telling of the real popularity of the sport. 3 legitimate B sides and one A side (weidman) and they can only do 600k.
hahah the ufc fan girls have been claiming boxing is dead and all the boxing fans are ufc fans now! So why would it matter ??? Well any idiot can tell you that boxing still has a strong presence and isn’t going anywhere! Neither are boxing fans. Lets see what the ufc excuse comity says now.
Jason cruz disable comments this crap is getting old im sure im not the only one
Fagbusiness, you are incapable of maintaining a rational thought. You are a full blown retard and are just mad that in mma the promoters aren’t trannys
Why are boxing fanboys in their late 30s and older dedicating themselves to trolling an mma website. All these dinosaurs hate the fact that combat sports is being controlled by mma and not boxing anymore.
Saldaqueef.
D- “combat sports is controlling”? 4.4 million ppv buys. Control that bitch!
D- bigger live gate than the superbowl.
@antitrolls – Will ask management about the policy
7 out of the last 8 years, the UFC out drew boxing in both revenue and ppv. The only reason it didn’t happen last year was because of the injuries. Boxing’s stars are old just like their fans who stalk people on mma websites.
An order from anti troll from dw hahahaha
Hey D
You sure you don’t want to bet on this fight? You seem to be in the habit of backtracking when I call you on your bullshit. First you said UFC would do 6M ppvs this year, but only bet on 5M. Now you say this fight it will do 700k yet you won’t man up for a bet? Suspicious…
FightBusiness said, ….on May 19th, 2015 4:24 PM
“the UFC is incapable of clearing 800k ppv buys in a single fight unless its a superfight.”
And the same could be said for boxing. Which is why there were only a small handful of boxing ppv’s last year and this year, 2015. Boxing promoters won’t test the waters, for fear of failing (which is what will happen with most anyone not named Manny or FMJ). So please, let nonsense like that stuff go.
Been on this site for a week now, and I have to say, the levels of trolling and flaming is terrible. Jason Cruz, you run a nice site here, but the comments section pollutes most of your work. Turns good a good read, into a mess of childish bantering. Boxing isn’t MMA, and MMA isn’t boxing. Both sports have some positives going now, but neither holds a monopoly on all the key numbers.
In regards to UFC 187.
THIS is a good card. A lot of great fights and if you have FightPass and FS1, you are going to get to see 12 fights. That’s crazy good. There’s certainly a lot more depth than the Manny/FWJ card, and it will most certainly have more action (no one will even debate that). What is a shame though, is there are still childish knuckleheads out there (on this site) that are instead going to focus this events success solely on some arbitrary PPV number put up by Meltzer’s Newsletter, then parroted by this site. Whether this event does 350, 450 or 550 …who the fuck cares? Does it really matter if you are truly a combat sports fan (boxing, mma, etc..). It shouldn’t. Your enjoyment factor should be completely distant from those silly numbers.
Yet people who say they are ‘fans’ on here, they are ‘knowledgeable about the sport’…are going to come onto this dumb board and assign success due to one number. That’s truly a shame.
Leon, the only one backtracking is you. You do it all the time. You just did it with your initial Velasquez prediction of 225k only to immediately after I called you out on it changing it. I never backtracked on the 6m ppv buys, I just wouldn’t bet it because you never know how the climate of ppv will change. I still believe they will hit 6m ppv buys this year relatively easy. As a matter of fact, you refused to take the bet at 5m despite the fact that you claimed that 2015 would be a repeat of 2014 injuries wise- until finally you caved because you realized had you not taken the bet you would be completely full of shit. This considering the UFC last year only did around 3.4m buys. 5m being a big leap from that number.
Think about how bad you are losing this bet: not only is the UFC easily going to pass 5m buys, they are doing it considering they raised the price of ppv again, and Jones is now out- not related to injury.
Speaking of predictions and backtracking, you are 0-3 for predictions thus far this year. You refuse to give a prediction for this event because you know you are going to be wrong because you are an idiot who knows nothing about this sport. I’ll tell you what, I will take this bet with you for a month basis, if you take the 3 predictions you were wrong on already this year and change your name for 3 months.
Yes that makes complete sense Delusional. Just shows how confident you are on that 700k prediction – some real hypocrisy
HAHAHAHAHA!!! Leon hates the truth. It makes perfect sense. And you still refuse to give a prediction. Terrified of going 0 for 4.
Do you have any shame?
like D Matt acts high and mighty and then goes into troll mode “moderator can you please omit the trolls” have I trolled you? disagreements are not trolls. by the way you keep on saying Floyd and manny are the only stars boxing has….
they might be but you dismiss there accomplishments because they make your sport look small. Boxing has a talent pool problem bu the demand is there. the ufc has a demand problem which is far more concerning. they have the talent and still cant get 1 million ppv buys. Anderson Silva is the only star in your sport. and he’s old as hell. who else do they have right now that can do 800k ppv buys with no stacked undercard?
Boxing can do that right now with GGGvs Cotto, GGG Vs canelo, GGG vs ward, Cotto vs canelo, GGG Vs kovolv. i just gave you 5 cards right there from the sport with no depth. i’ll be waiting for your examples.
FightBusiness.
Please quote people correctly. I never called for anyone to be banned. I just simply said some of you are an embarrassment to this site. To quote myself,
“Turns good a good read, into a mess of childish bantering”
That’s what I said. You what you quoted is made up. You want to have your opinions respected, start acting like an adult.
Fight business said,
….”by the way you keep on saying Floyd and manny are the only stars boxing has….they might be but you dismiss there accomplishments because they make your sport look small. Boxing has a talent pool problem bu the demand is there. the ufc has a demand problem which is far more concerning. they have the talent and still cant get 1 million ppv buys. Anderson Silva is the only star in your sport. and he’s old as hell. who else do they have right now that can do 800k ppv buys with no stacked undercard?”
Do you actually follow MMA? There have been a total of around 19 to 20 fighters who have been involved in 1million plus events. Depending on what site you look at, nine events have been at or above 1 million buy* (assuming Meltzer’s newsletter is even accurate). Reality is, Anderson Silva isn’t the only one in MMA to get there. People like Lesnar, GsP, Liddell, Couture, and many others have headlined events. As many as 10 to 11 different fighters headlining. Many of these players are now retired, but that’s normal. So what? Sports are always replacing superstars (see the NBA). You should know this, so it’s a bit baffling you cling to the Anderson Silva being the only one capable of 1 million. If you knew anything about MMA, you would know at one point in time years ago, Anderson Silva wasn’t considered a draw. Things change, the sport is always evolving.
Your comments are especially baffling, because your next comment contradicts yourself, where you can claim ……
“Boxing can do that right now with GGGvs Cotto, GGG Vs canelo, GGG vs ward, Cotto vs canelo”….will all do 1 million buy ppv events, EVEN THOUGH, none of these events are even booked yet or close to happening.
So you blatantly ignore the reality that a dozen some UFC fighters have hit 1 million ppv’s in the past, while just assuming that some rising boxing talent will easily hit it that mark. Come on. Quit acting like a dumbass with such dumb assumptions. That logic is worse than the Adrian Broner toilet stall video.
One other thing. The UFC may have a ‘demand problem’, but what do you expect? You are comparing a 130 year old sport (if not older?) versus a sport which didn’t officially get legislated into states until 2001 or 2002. That’s absurd comparing the two. Boxing has a long and rich legacy, time to build up tons of traditions. MMA is pretty much brand spanking new. Of course the top end demand isn’t there, it’s more of a younger sport, newer to the audience. Come on…please…think.
matt- “brand spanking new”? dude the things 20 years old. 20 years into Boxing jack Dempsey was fighting in front of stadiums. 20 years into baseball it was already a national sport. how log are you going to use that excuse. Dana white said within 10 years (about 8 years ago) it would be the biggest sport in america. lol. 20 years is not new. also you say “boxing has been around for….” but I though you were bigger. so prove it. name me one mma event that has done 2 million ppv buys? you can t have it both ways. “we’re bigger” but then you have the old we are still young argument. if your bigger fuckin prove it. boxing beat mma in ppv’s last year and it will do it again this year. thats just fact. i’m not knocking the ufc’s success just their double talk. by the way they started becoming popular when they started acting like boxing (time limits, weight divsions, press confrences, traveling precc confrences)
your going back to lidell? dude seriously. do i have to kick your ass with delahoya, tyson, holyfield, foreman? how far back are you going to go. Courtoure was rarely in big events only with lesnar and lidell. the fights i mentioned will soon materialize. i’m knocking mma double talk. i dont care what they do but when you say your bigger than boxing i will call you out on it. when you say its real fighting (dont kicj me on the ground, padded surface, dont slam) i will call you out on it.
Fagbusiness, you aren’t on here to disagree. You have been on here for over a year now to troll exclusively. That’s all you do. You act like a retard and then when someone fucks with you, you cry about it.
“they might be but you dismiss there accomplishments because they make your sport look small. Boxing has a talent pool problem bu the demand is there. the ufc has a demand problem which is far more concerning. they have the talent and still cant get 1 million ppv buys. Anderson Silva is the only star in your sport. and he’s old as hell. who else do they have right now that can do 800k ppv buys with no stacked undercard?”
More delusional statements. The UFC has done over a million buys quite a number of times and seeing how they don’t consolidate their ppv into 4 cards per year like boxing does, the numbers are going to be spaced out. We saw what happened when boxing attempted to expand last year, having 7 major ppvs and still had less buys than the year prior where they had 4. So there goes that argument. The fact still remains that the UFC’s ppv model destroys boxing’s basically every year other than this year because of the fight of the century and last because the ufc had nearly every major fighter injured and their top 2 stars semi retired and didn’t fight. Let’s see what happens to boxing’s ppv when Floyd and Manny retire. Everyone can see the iceberg coming, yet boxing can’t do anything to change it.
You are also too stupid to realize you just contradicted yourself. You are saying the UFC has a demand problem and implying they don’t have the talent issue that boxing does, then you conclude this paragraph by claiming that the UFC doesn’t have any stars. Are you seriously this idiotic?
“Boxing can do that right now with GGGvs Cotto, GGG Vs canelo, GGG vs ward, Cotto vs canelo, GGG Vs kovolv. i just gave you 5 cards right there from the sport with no depth. i’ll be waiting for your examples.”
Boxing can’t do shit with GGG vs Canelo, because Canelo will never fight him. Ward vs GGG would get around 500k buys. GGG vs Kovalev even less. You mentioned 3 cards because you can’t count, you don’t realize this, and these are fictitious numbers and fights because they will not be signed anytime soon. No one will fight GGG that is a star this year and probably won’t next year either. These guys all have fights scheduled coming up and want nothing to do with him.
“name me one mma event that has done 2 million ppv buys?”
Name me one year that boxing has done even over 6m ppv buys? Let alone 8 or just under 9m like the ufc has.
You pick one event and focus on that solely. That’s all that boxing is basically, one event every few years that is big, and those days are dying also because the guy who was in the last 3 which spanned since 2007, is retiring in the Fall.
” by the way they started becoming popular when they started acting like boxing (time limits, weight divsions, press confrences, traveling precc confrences)”
More down syndrome talk by Fagbusiness. The weight classes started prior to them even being virtually shutdown and thrown off cable ppv. Also, regardless, what does that have to do with anything. Boxing had a resurgence when they started following what the ufc was doing like having better matchups. The idea is to do what works and eliminate what doesn’t.
Randy Couture was a solid draw. When the UFC’s ppv exploded in 2009, he was basically done as a fighter in his mid 40s.
There have been more ufc fighters who have hit 1m buys in the last 8 years than boxers by far. Even if we include De La Hoya’s last fight which was years ago, boxing had only 3 that did that. The UFC has had the following: Lesnar, Liddell, Jackson, Griffin, Silva. Granted Mayweather and Pac have done it multiple times, but than again, they are the only ones who could do that, and they are both on there way out with no one in line to replace them. Plus, boxing can’t sell those mid ranged 500k buy rates like the UFC can either. You conveniently ignore how many ufc fighters have done that.
“when you say its real fighting (dont kicj me on the ground, padded surface, dont slam) i will call you out on it.”
It is much closer to a real fight than boxing is. Boxing is no where near a real fight. MMA is close and originally it was a pure street fight with a ref. There were no rules initially. Even the biting and eye gouging that they originally outlawed wouldn’t equal a dq, they would just be fined afterwards according to Art Davie.
In conclusion, you are a moron.
Nice 1200 word rant Delusional – classic. 700k !
Nice dodge Leon the Schmo. Fear of responding because you don’t want to get embarrassed again for like the 1000th time.
http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/12909227/floyd-mayweather-manny-pacquiao-head-list-top-paid-athletes
http://news.yahoo.com/boxing-mayweather-confirms-hell-retire-next-bout-052101368.html;_ylt=A0LEV2BKDl5VsioA.J5XNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEzZTgxbGdtBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwM4BHZ0aWQDVklQNTgyXzEEc2VjA3Ny
http://sports.inquirer.net/160397/manny-pacquiao-to-retire-from-boxing-in-2016