UFC 110’s Domestic Disturbance
Jake Rossen Mar 12, 2010
Pay-per-view events broadcast on a delay from international feeds
traditionally never sell quite as well as domestic, live events.
Part of it is the idea that you can go online and get results
immediately, lessening the need to spend $45 on alleviating your
suspense; part of it is the idea that delayed events don’t give off
that lurid, anything-could-happen vibe. (If something did, it
probably got edited out.)
So what do we make of February’s UFC 110 event, by the measure of Dave Meltzer a show that may have attracted as few as 215,000 purchasers? That’s roughly 1,400,000 fewer than those who ordered UFC 100 last July. Foreign-itis would be an easy explanation -- but even though the event was held in Australia, it was broadcast live. (Poor time-zone-afflicted Australians, getting up at the crack of dawn so the Yankees don’t get their day disrupted.)
Theories on why this show landed with a thud vary from coming too close to UFC 109, held two weeks earlier, to market saturation. I’ll float a third theory: the idea that Web and even print media have a substantially more difficult time spinning tales from events that take place overseas. Fighter availability shrinks, mass media can’t take cues from regional press, and as a result, the tension surrounding the fights evaporates.
While the UFC likes to think of their trademark as the primary attraction, it’s becoming clear that audiences have earmarked some of their disposable income only for certain athletes. None of the fighters who headlined the UFC’s top-earning shows of 2009 -- Brock Lesnar, Frank Mir, B.J. Penn, Anderson Silva, Forrest Griffin, Georges St. Pierre -- have reappeared in 2010 yet.
Those same fans might prefer fewer, more substantial cards, but if the UFC can split high-profile bouts between two low-profile events and sell a quarter-million buys each, that’s better than one at 400,000 -- not including the sponsor dollars, ticket sales, and ugly T-shirt inventory. Less is more? Nope. More is more.
So what do we make of February’s UFC 110 event, by the measure of Dave Meltzer a show that may have attracted as few as 215,000 purchasers? That’s roughly 1,400,000 fewer than those who ordered UFC 100 last July. Foreign-itis would be an easy explanation -- but even though the event was held in Australia, it was broadcast live. (Poor time-zone-afflicted Australians, getting up at the crack of dawn so the Yankees don’t get their day disrupted.)
Theories on why this show landed with a thud vary from coming too close to UFC 109, held two weeks earlier, to market saturation. I’ll float a third theory: the idea that Web and even print media have a substantially more difficult time spinning tales from events that take place overseas. Fighter availability shrinks, mass media can’t take cues from regional press, and as a result, the tension surrounding the fights evaporates.
While the UFC likes to think of their trademark as the primary attraction, it’s becoming clear that audiences have earmarked some of their disposable income only for certain athletes. None of the fighters who headlined the UFC’s top-earning shows of 2009 -- Brock Lesnar, Frank Mir, B.J. Penn, Anderson Silva, Forrest Griffin, Georges St. Pierre -- have reappeared in 2010 yet.
Those same fans might prefer fewer, more substantial cards, but if the UFC can split high-profile bouts between two low-profile events and sell a quarter-million buys each, that’s better than one at 400,000 -- not including the sponsor dollars, ticket sales, and ugly T-shirt inventory. Less is more? Nope. More is more.
