pay-per-view
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Thomas Hauser of secondsout.com has a great
article on HBO and it's affect on the state of boxing as a whole.
The Key points of the article.....
-HBO is overpaying for fights that are mostly mismatches or mediocre fights that aren't drawing ratings.
-HBO is no longer building fighters for the future, just throwing money at the current big names.
-HBO is leaning too much on Golden Boy Promotions to the detriment of their product.
-HBO PPV is leading to the watering down of the cards on HBO proper.
-The Higher-ups at HBO that control boxing on the channel aren't boxing guys and are out of touch with the sport.
-HBO corporate is leaning on HBO Sports to have better fiscal responsibility
While not MMA-specific, the article is a great primer for the pitfalls that are faced when the reins of power for an industry are placed in the hands of folks that aren't of the industry. Say a lot of things about Dana White, but he eat, sleeps, and breathes Ultimate Fighting and very much has his finger on the pulse of the sport. Dana has been hesitant to cede too much power over the product away for a network deal and this article gives some credence to that view.
A lot of the stuff dealing with PPV is very instructive as to why HBO and the UFC were never able to come to some agreement on a television deal. With boxing, HBO is able to do shows on the pay channel and then cash in big time when superstar fighters move over to PPV fights. IF HBO did a deal with UFC they would be hyping up and paying for a product where they would see none of the huge back-end profits on PPV, a one way deal very much in the UFC's favor.
Written by admin on June 7th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on TV and pay-per-view and Boxing and MMA.
(Photo courtesy of UFC.com.)
Breaking into the U.K. is still a battle, and they’re just starting to dip their toes south of the border, but the UFC’s foray into Canada can now be considered a big, fat, stinking success. Dave Meltzer estimates that UFC 83 brought in as many as 650,000 pay-per-view buys — which would tie it for the third best-selling PPV event in UFC history — on the strength of a record number of Canadian buyers (estimated at about 100,000).
Expect the UFC to return to the Great White North on a recurring basis; and expect those events to be The Traveling Georges St. Pierre Roadshow. You thought Marcus Davis was typecast as “the guy who always fights in the U.K.”? Ho baby. GSP is a true star in Montreal now, and the UFC will be giving the new fans what they want. Now if they can only find a couple of other Canadian fighters to give a marketing push to, because right now they’re stuck with that one guy, and the other one, and what’s-his-face, and the dude with the crazy hair.
Somewhat related: Travis Lutter thinks Matt Serra should be worried about his job security after UFC 83. In an interview with FightHype, he said:
“I would guess Serra will have a similar fate as me if he loses the Matt Hughes fight…I mean, he was in the same locker room with me, Kalib and I think there were five other fighters that shared a locker room with him that night. Usually, the main event guys and the guy that has the belt get the nice locker room and stuff like that and here he is with one of the most crowded locker rooms. It’s really strange. They wanted GSP to get that title back so bad and he is marketable, but so is Serra. Serra is as funny as they come, but I’m sure there is a rhyme and a reason in their eyes behind doing everything; it’s just unfortunate.”
Written by admin on May 6th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on Montreal and Canada and Canadians and Rumors and pay-per-view and UFC and News and UFC 83 and MMA.
Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer reported today that the preliminary estimate of pay-per-view buys for UFC 81 was a big, girthy 600,000. As Meltzer wrote:
That show was not going to do more than 325,000 buys with the Tim Sylvia vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira match and a semifinal of Nathan Marquardt v. Jeremy Horn. In fact, that would be an optimistic expectation. So if this holds up, Lesnar was worth $12.36 million in overall revenue.
Adam Swift of MMAPayout explains that the figure may put UFC 81 among the all-time top-five UFC shows in terms of gross buys, and thanks to the $45 price tag, #3 in revenue after Ortiz/Liddell and Ortiz/Shamrock III. As Swift points out, the final number is usually significantly higher than the early estimates.
Swift also calls into question the sustainability of Lesnar’s drawing power, and the show’s success in taking wrestling fans who were first-time UFC buyers and converting them into regular fans. We’re of the opinion that Lesnar’s wrestling fans will keep paying for UFC events whenever he’s on the card — and only those events — meaning that Lesnar’s appearances will continue to translate to a spike in UFC PPV buys, but not an overall bump of the average buyrate. But hey, we don’t need those yokels anyway.
Written by admin on February 18th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on UFC 81 and pay-per-view and Brock Lesnar and News and UFC and MMA.