Tweet
From WON:
We’ll have a better number next week, but UFC 123 looks now to have done around 500,000 buys as an update. I consider that good given it’s three weeks before a fight that is expected to do close to monster numbers.
It looks just below the numbers of the Liddell vs. Franklin show (which speaks volumes for Liddell as a draw) and the 8/28 Penn vs. Edgar and Couture vs. Toney show. Based on what we can gather, the two interesting things is that for the first time in recent memory, the home location (Detroit) didn’t appear to do significant PPV business.
We were told the media wasn’t behind the show anywhere close to the level of some of the other recent cities, even though live attendance was strong. I never mentioned this before, but Detroit is a heavy African-African American city and it was all white faces in the crowd at that show.
Even with Quinton Jackson in the main event, UFC doesn’t draw African-Americans live, even though Jackson vs. Evans definitely drew African-Americans at the bar locations. The other thing is, there was a lot of discussion about whether appearing in “The A Team” would make Jackson a bigger draw in UFC, and it sure doesn’t look like it made any difference. Based on trending patterns, it looks like San Francisco and Cleveland did better than usual.
By far, the strongest market was Honolulu, which tells you who the big draw on the show was. Not only that, which tells you about Matt Hughes dream match vs. UFC lightweight title, this show appeared to do better in Hawaii then Penn’s two previous title fights with Edgar, and better than any Penn fight since Sanchez.
It looks just below the numbers of the Liddell vs. Franklin show (which speaks volumes for Liddell as a draw) and the 8/28 Penn vs. Edgar and Couture vs. Toney show. Based on what we can gather, the two interesting things is that for the first time in recent memory, the home location (Detroit) didn’t appear to do significant PPV business.
We were told the media wasn’t behind the show anywhere close to the level of some of the other recent cities, even though live attendance was strong. I never mentioned this before, but Detroit is a heavy African-African American city and it was all white faces in the crowd at that show.
Even with Quinton Jackson in the main event, UFC doesn’t draw African-Americans live, even though Jackson vs. Evans definitely drew African-Americans at the bar locations. The other thing is, there was a lot of discussion about whether appearing in “The A Team” would make Jackson a bigger draw in UFC, and it sure doesn’t look like it made any difference. Based on trending patterns, it looks like San Francisco and Cleveland did better than usual.
By far, the strongest market was Honolulu, which tells you who the big draw on the show was. Not only that, which tells you about Matt Hughes dream match vs. UFC lightweight title, this show appeared to do better in Hawaii then Penn’s two previous title fights with Edgar, and better than any Penn fight since Sanchez.
