UFC 108 PPV Buys between 255k and 270k

[Liquidrob]

Current trending patterns for UFC 108 are at this point looking like 255,000 to 270,000 buys, which if those numbers end up accurate, would be the lowest for a North American show in several years.

http://www.f4wonline.com/content/view/11953/

[Warner2BruceTD]

I've said it in several threads--2010 will break the streak of 5 consecutive years of PPV growth for the UFC.

-Too many shows = shallow PPV cards that even hardcores are starting to pass on.

-Serving too many masters...Spike wants shows, now Versus, plus 13, 14 PPV's.

-Overexposed product. 20+ UFC's, 20+ potential Strikeforce shows this year, TUF, WEC, plus Japan & fringe groups on HDNet if you're a hardcore. Most of that is free. Me personally, I get my fix most months from free stuff.

-Lack of draws. Lesnar is on the shelf, Rampage is AWOL, GSP & BJ can only fight 2 or 3 times each. It's no cooincidence Dana switched gears and brought Chuck back.

[CrimsonGhost56]

pretty bad numbers. the card ended up being good, but it didnt look so great on paper. should be interesting to see how the numbers bounce back after 109, which will most likely have low numbers again. UFC 110-113 are all shaping up to be pretty big cards.

[Steel Mamba]

I've said it in several threads--2010 will break the streak of 5 consecutive years of PPV growth for the UFC.

-Too many shows = shallow PPV cards that even hardcores are starting to

UFC 111

Mir vs Carwin
GSP vs Hardy
Fitch vs Alves

UFC 112

Silva vs Belfort
Penn vs Edgar
Hughes vs Gracie

UFC 113

Machida vs Shogun
Rampage vs Evans

UFC 114 is with the fan expo so we know that'll be a big event.

I think 2010 is shaping up to be a decent year once they get over this initial hurdle. Also, the UFC is growing into a world wide brand now, so there's much more to examine than just the American PPV numbers.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Have you seen the cards for UFC 110 -112? They're all stacked.

Their PPV sales will be fine if they continue to put on shows like those.

I didnt say the numbers won't be "fine". I said they wouldnt have growth. The business is still strong.

[Warner2BruceTD]

I'd argue no company would consider stagnant sales a "strong business."

Let's say UFC comes up short of 2009's buys by, say, 500k.

You wouldnt consider that a strong business year? They dont need PPV growth to keep the company strong, or even profit.

[calgaryballer]

I've said it in several threads--2010 will break the streak of 5 consecutive years of PPV growth for the UFC.

-Too many shows = shallow PPV cards that even hardcores are starting to pass on.

-Serving too many masters...Spike wants shows, now Versus, plus 13, 14 PPV's.

-Overexposed product. 20+ UFC's, 20+ potential Strikeforce shows this year, TUF, WEC, plus Japan & fringe groups on HDNet if you're a hardcore. Most of that is free. Me personally, I get my fix most months from free stuff.

-Lack of draws. Lesnar is on the shelf, Rampage is AWOL, GSP & BJ can only fight 2 or 3 times each. It's no cooincidence Dana switched gears and brought Chuck back.

Reading the whole article, Meltzer doesn't sound too concerned. All the injuries killed any buzz people had

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

This was the event coming off a 4 event in 4-week stint...at this point, it isn't out of the realm that people were just UFC'd out for the time being.

[Warner2BruceTD]

This was the event coming off a 4 event in 4-week stint...at this point, it isn't out of the realm that people were just UFC'd out for the time being.

Again, oversaturation of the product.

They have two events coming up that won't do anything significant, 109 & 110. 110 could bomb tremendously. That's 25% of the year with no big buyrates.

Then the next 3, you have Mir/GSP/Penn/MachidavShogun/EvansvRampage. All should do well (particularly 113), but then what? All of the draws will have been used on 3 shows.

They better hope Chuck/Tito catches fire, or a star emerges, or like I said, the streak is over.

[Liquidrob]

The UFC will be fine, but I think this is a good thing, it shows people are paying for the quality of the card 'on paper' and the UFC can't coast and get 500k buys, this will help the product, but W2B has a point, once you start getting a lot of free stuff you dont want to keep paying, Strikeforce isnt really a threat now, but if they can run a couple PPV quality cards on CBS it starts to make a dent, throw in the Showtime stuff, all the HDNet, etc...and you have more than enough 'free' MMA

People dont want to pay top dollar to follow a sport, you should just be able to follow a sport and not have to budget to watch a fights every month

[Warner2BruceTD]

The UFC will be fine, but I think this is a good thing, it shows people are paying for the quality of the card 'on paper' and the UFC can't coast and get 500k buys, this will help the product, but W2B has a point, once you start getting a lot of free stuff you dont want to keep paying, Strikeforce isnt really a threat now, but if they can run a couple PPV quality cards on CBS it starts to make a dent, throw in the Showtime stuff, all the HDNet, etc...and you have more than enough 'free' MMA

People dont want to pay top dollar to follow a sport, you should just be able to follow a sport and not have to budget to watch a fights every month

Agreed, nobody is saying they need to press the panic button, or that some massive business slide is around the corner...

5 years of PPV growth is a big deal, especially in a struggling economy, and when others who are far more established entities (namely WWE) have seen domestic PPV business slide during the same period.

The way the year is shaping up, it just looks like they wont be able to acheive (yet another) record year.

Right or wrong, someone will bump this shit in December.

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

Again, oversaturation of the product.

They have two events coming up that won't do anything significant, 109 & 110. 110 could bomb tremendously. That's 25% of the year with no big buyrates.

Then the next 3, you have Mir/GSP/Penn/MachidavShogun/EvansvRampage. All should do well (particularly 113), but then what? All of the draws will have been used on 3 shows.

They better hope Chuck/Tito catches fire, or a star emerges, or like I said, the streak is over.

Agreed.

That last quarter of the year and the first month of this year was/is just a complete over saturation of the product...do not need that much pay per view mma, especially coupled with a ridiculous amount of FREE events around. Just way too much and there wasn't enough name value to get most to tune in.

[Liquidrob]

Don't worry, Mark Coleman will save 109, you know, the guy Dana said was washed up a couple years ago

[calgaryballer]

Don't worry, Mark Coleman will save 109, you know, the guy Dana said was washed up a couple years ago

He went to the third round against UFC #1 contender Shogun Rua. So he has to be good

[Steel Mamba]

I disagree about the over saturation. What ridiculous amount of free events are there? StrikeForce puts on great events and aside from the lame intros I personally like their shows a bit more than the UFC's, lately at least. But StrikeForce doesn't put on many fights throughout the year. How many did they do last year? Unless I'm mistaking they only have 2 events scheduled for the next 5 months or more, which is nothing. The UFC is starting to put on more free events, but those are what, about 4 a year, and we know how those go. If you want to see the top talent in the UFC you gotta pay.

The product isn't over saturated I don’t think any fans are growing tired of MMA. If they do 12 quality PPVs (or more) then they’ll have 12 quality buy-rates. Fighting is a year round sport that people just can’t get enough of. The UFC just needs to start focusing more of their resources on guys like Shogun instead of these green fighters who lost a reality TV contest. If they did that they'd be even better off IMO.