Welcome to another edition of Payout Perspective. This time it was one of the biggest events in company history with UFC 229 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Khabib submits Conor, brawl ensues
You’ve likely read all about the post-fight brawl. Despite MMA fan that like to downplay the incident, this was not how you showcase your product to the millions of fans that watched the fight. Rather than be professional, both sides were not. Conor’s antics prior to the night, and Khabib’s during it were both wrong. It was a disgrace to the sport and overshadowed the dominant performance by Khabib.
At this point, the Nevada Athletic Commission will have to suspend and fine Khabib for some time to make it look like an authority. With that being said, it’s clear that the UFC will take no action despite its ability to do something about it. The UFC has maintained its alibi of hiding behind the regulation of a commission to do its bidding when it comes to these types of disciplinary issues. It is clear that if they wanted, they could terminate Khabib’s contract. Dana White stated that any fighter from Khabib’s corner would no longer fight in the UFC. But what about Khabib?
Conor is to blame as well. His antics have helped put him in the stratosphere of earners in combat sports and brought millions of dollars to Zuffa. As a result, he’s been allowed to do anything without repercussions.
The whole scenario points to a suspension for Khabib and being stripped of his lightweight title. We should have Conor face Tony Ferguson for the title and/or Diaz/Poirier winner facing Ferguson with the loser facing Conor.
Ferguson returns to stop Showtime
Tony Ferguson stopped Anthony Pettis in a blood-splattering fight that showed El Cucuy is back. Both fighters had their moments and the movements in the fight were out of the ordinary and extraordinary. Ferguson used a somersault to get out of the way of Pettis and Showtime used capoeira moves in attacking and defending. Pettis was sliced by one of Ferguson’s strikes and was bleeding like a pro wrestler. He did damage Ferguson as well. In the end it was the relentless Ferguson that earned the victory as Pettis could not continue due to a broken hand.
Attendance, Gate and Bonuses
The event set a record for an MMA event in Nevada with 20,034 for a gate of $17.2 million. It eclipsed UFC 200 held at the same venue. The gate for UFC 229 fell short of the company record of $17.7 million for the UFC’s debut at MSG at UFC 205.
According to SeatGeek, a standing room only seat for UFC 229 went for over $400, with the get-in price at $1,234. Again, it was second to only UFC 205’s get in price.
The bonuses went to Ferguson and Pettis for Fight of the Night, Derrick Lewis and Aspen Ladd for Performances of the Night. Each drew the standard $50,000 bonus.
Payouts
The payouts were highlighted by Conor McGregor’s $3 million purse followed by Khabib’s $2 million. But, the NAC has held up Khabib’s payout pending an investigation in the post-fight brawl. While it has issued the check to McGregor, it’s held Khabib’s pay pending an investigation
The rest of the payouts can be found here.
Promotion of the Fight
Conor McGregor did not do a “world tour” for this fight which would have probably brought even more interest to the event. He did promote when needed such as their first press conference.
The press conference which was held between Conor-Khabib prior to fight week was done without an audience but was shown in Times Square. It was also on ESPN which had to use its censor liberally due to all of the profanity. Conor’s late arrivals at the presser and ceremonial weigh-ins really put stress on the networks to deal with stretching out the time. With more losses, networks will get tired of this habit.
ESPN did air the UFC Countdown show on its network in addition to it airing on FS1.
Dana White appeared on Jimmy Kimmel’s show to promote the fight. Conor McGregor made an appearance on Conan O’Brien’s show and shared Proper 12 with his Irish counterpart.
In addition, there were multiple radio ads in addition to the television commercials. Most of which highlighted the infamous Brooklyn bus attack.
Sponsorships
There were some new sponsors for this event including Conor McGregor’s Proper 12 Irish Whiskey and San Manuel Casino. The latter sponsor is based out of Highland, California and was shown during the ceremonial weigh-ins.
One of the newest UFC sponsors, Portable Protein Pack aka P3, appeared on the front paneling of the UFC/Reebok shorts. We may see more of this with existing official sponsors having secondary opportunities on fight gear.
In addition, Air Asia made a significant splash in its sponsorship activation which included stewardesses on stage with UFC Octagon girls during the ceremonial weigh-ins and with signage in the red corner of the Octagon to match the company’s branded color.
It was reported by Ariel Helwani that Conor McGregor signed a lucrative deal with Monster Energy which was said to be in the millions.
Conor McGregor has just signed a new one year-deal with Monster Energy, Monster rep @HansMolenkamp told @espn. Molenkamp said the deal is worth millions and puts McGregor in the same category as other Monster athletes like Tiger Woods, Rob Gronkowski and Lewis Hamilton.
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) October 4, 2018
EA announced a new edition of its UFC3 video game featuring Conor McGregor. EA conducted a fight simulation in which Conor McGregor KO’d Khabib in the 3rd round.
In the octagon, Toyo Tires, Harley Davidson, Bud Light, Nemiroff, Motel6, MetroPCS, P3, CircleK, Modelo, Air Asia, UFC3’s Notorious Edition, Autozone and the return of the Walking Dead and Monster Energy held the center. It was clear that there were more sponsors than ever before within the Octano on its corners and canvas. Harley Davidson had the fighter prep point.
Ratings
The UFC Prelims on FS1 drew 1.3M viewers on Saturday. The prefight telecast on FS1 drew 373,000 viewers. The prefight show matched the one from UFC 223. The 222-prefight show was the highest-rated this year with 431,000.
Odds and Ends
I wrote about the UFC brawl in depth and how the promotion of the fight allowed for this to happen. The UFC faces a lot of fallout (good and bad) from the event. Khabib and Conor are facing NAC sanctions for their actions and at least two fighters from Khabib’s team will likely be expelled from the UFC and from fighting in Nevada. For a promotion that is looking to grow the sport and find blue-chip sponsors, one has to ask whether UFC 229’s brawl was good or ad for business.
Conor went after Khabib’s manager, Ali Abdelaziz, a controversial MMA manager that has been linked to terrorist groups if you believe McGregor and some journalists writing on the subject. Despite these alleged ties, it seems that a majority of MMA fighters trust Abdelaziz with their career. During the fight, Abdelaziz and members from both camps stayed in the back as the UFC tried to prevent what happened Saturday from happening.
The internet searches for this event were huge. On Friday, UFC 229 drew over 2M google searches. McGregor-Khabib drew over 2M searches as well.
Conor McGregor drew over 5M google searches on Saturday. Derrick Lewis drew over 200,000 and Michelle Waterson drew over 100,000 searches. “McGregor Fight” drew over 1 million google searches on Sunday.
Derrick Lewis’ post-fight interview was an all-time classic and was one of the reasons he drew as many google searches. He took off his pants, said Donald Trump called him and told him to be Alexander Volkov.
Khabib appeared at the post-fight press conference and indicated he received congratulations from Vladimir Putin.
Matt Damon turned down the opportunity to be on Saturday Night Live to go to UFC 229. There were many other celebrities drawn to this event as well and the aftermath had everyone on social media talking about it.
Internal numbers for Internet purchases of the event were up over 60% from Mayweather-McGregor according to Dave Meltzer. This would be an indicator (although maybe not the strongest) the buy rate surged past the record of 1.6M PPV buys. White indicated that it did not reach 3 million but was over 2 million.
The UFC received a ton of mainstream coverage due to post-fight brawl. But, does this tarnish their image or encourage the promotion to try more of this?
Conclusion
Dana White touted that based on the viewership of Embedded episodes and YouTubes views compared with McGregor-Mayweather, the PPV would break the UFC record and it appears he will be right. Despite the lack of expanded promotion of the event, its clear that the UFC hit all of the trigger points to garner the casual fans to buy the event. The controversy is whether it was right to include footage of the bus attack or allow McGregor to continue personal attacks on Khabib’s religion, family and friends. But, the PPV buy rate will likely go over 2 million (say 2.2 million) buys and show that marketing the bus attack footage helped more than it hurt. There will be a rematch and you can believe that they will show the post-fight melee.
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