I can't help but wonder what effect streaming had in this. If a shit load of people are streaming the events instead of purchasing it, then BT needs to find a way to make ends meet, so they increase prices. The price increase drives people to cancel subscriptions and stream instead. The circle of death is complete.
The way I understand things is that viewership means everything. High viewership means more advertising dollars. More advertising dollars means the individual consumer is able to pay less. Streaming is stealing in the world of digital broadcasting because the provider can't say, "look at all of the people who will see your ads."
I think the whole "BT Sport is fucking up by charging more" is an argument made by people who don't have all of the information. My question to those people is, if you're running BT and you're locked into a bunch of contracts and your're bleeding money, what would you do? Cut the price in half and hope everyone will decide that £20 per month is way better than streaming for free?
Obligatory disclaimer to ant psychos: I'm not trying to be a dick. Spare me your angry responses.
I think you need to look at it like this, BT Sport got the rights to air UFC in the UK after the Eleven Sports deal thankfully fell through. The deal with Eleven Sports was that they had to secure a TV deal alongside this which they failed to do, hence why BT Sport got it back and signed the deal to get it back after they lost a handful of subscribers also (or were about to with cancellations due) from UFC fans who were (at that time) going to go with Eleven Sports (many being left in limbo due to not knowing where to go due to Eleven's lack of TV platform). The whole Eleven Sports was a nightmare for the UFC and would have absolutely ruined the sport and it's growth in the UK so when BT Sport announced they continued the rights they promised that the UK fans would get the UFC the same way as they did before, which meant many of these fans all flocked back to sign up to BT Sport under this impression which was great for the fans, great for the sport and great for BT Sport who were gaining all their subscribers back due to underestimating how many fans would leave once they no longer had the rights for UFC.
So on this basis they've seen that the UFC does have a good loyal fan base, as much as the sport is still new and growing it still does have a good fan base here, many being casuals but fans all the same who were happy enough to pay for BT Sport to get the UFC under this impression.
Then BT Sport all of a sudden announce this Box Office channel they are bringing in, mainly for boxing events (UK established sport) while promising that they wouldn't be putting UFC events on to Box Office while fans were asking if this would affect the UFC before signing up to new contracts with BT Sport for their UFC coverage but what do BT Sport do? They go against all that which not only feels like a kick in the teeth to many fans but they also feel completely mislead and lied to basically to dupe them back into contracts, take away the UFC from the regular viewing they promised and try see if they can get away with putting these on Box Office too, only to find out it's probably the worse thing they could have done because it's mislead fans, they're already paying what they are for BT Sport under the impression mentioned above and it's on at early hours of the morning for a sport that's mainly got more casual fans than hardcore at the moment and growing in the UK.
So where as they underestimated how beneficial it was for BT Sport to have UFC twice now they also saw this and thought "Hang on a minute, we can make some money off these fans" going against everything they promised when the fans subscribed to BT Sport again for UFC, a lot of fans subscribe to BT Sport solely for UFC (myself included) and this is what made BT Sport have a huge selling point to compete with Sky Sports (the leading sports channel) here in the UK, which BT Sport were doing very well with and fans were very happy as they weren't being greedy like Sky are known for.
But they've completely let fans down with all this situation and gone against that so I think this plays a huge part for why fans are so upset in regards to this whole situation which has no only resulted in tons of cancellations for BT Sport but they're pretty much all refusing to pay for this for various reasons as well as the principle in regards to what's mentioned above.
The other problem is, BT Sport decided to put out this Box Office channel but haven't covered all their subscribers who subscribe to them through various platforms. For example, Plusnet TV and various others which use the Youview platform have no access to the channel, so they don't even have the choice to purchase PPV events meaning BT Sport have taken it away from them with
NO consideration what so ever, not a great way to treat your loyal customers. Then they have
NO PS4 app,
NO Now TV app,
NO Xbox app,
NO Smart TV app, I could go on and then they expect people to go out and buy Chromecasts (not beneficial for everyone) or sit and watch on their phones or laptops, which again, not many people feel they want to do considering they've to pay £20 to watch on a phone or laptop when people want it on their TV easily. They basically want the customers to do all the work and then complain when they have a lack of buys or hear about people streaming their events, if they made it more accessible too then maybe they would cut down on this but they don't and they expect customers to work around this for them, it's not only cheeky but a kick in the teeth to those fans they do this to. They really should have covered all bases before even launching this Box Office channel.
Point is, they're actually losing more this way than they were when they had it as they did normally without the Box Office event as they were gaining and keeping subscribers all the time where as now, they've been inundated with tons of cancellations, mislead and upset customers and barely any PPV buys is looking likely, they've completely shot themselves in the foot.
I don't think many UK fans would have a problem with purchasing the odd Box Office event if it was on at a reasonable hour, say if it was a huge UK event or something then the odd one or two (as long as they don't do it
TOO much) probably wouldn't meet quite as much backlash plus alongside the fact they've also made it difficult for some of their customers who can't even access the BT Sport Box Office due to lack of supported ways to get it and certain platforms not even being updated in their channel lists (which by the way are all easily done as I've been told this myself from numerous people at BT, Youview, Plusnet etc.. and various other platforms) they've also taken it away completely for them expecting them to just buy it on their phone, which isn't gonna happen.
They've just completely messed it up basically and gone against everything they said they wouldn't do, broken their promises they gave fans and just completely mislead many of them and that is what has also caused so much of a backlash, specially while the sport is growing here in the UK which is not only hurting the sport, it's hurting the UFC (Dana White was happy to have UFC broadcast to us the way it was because he wants his product to reach our audiences while the sport is still growing which means events will sell out (where the real money is) and merchandise will sell continuously throughout the year via the EU store and at events also (another place where the money is) which is where it's hurting the UFC because it's driving fans away from the sport) and it's also hurting BT Sport as mentioned above because this is also driving people away to the streams or to not watch at all (UFC want people to see their best fights while the sport is growing too) and it's hurting all this also with their decision which really is just a case of trying to milk it out of fans since they brought in this Box Office channel last August/September time.
The Box Office works for Boxing here because it's a big sport and (usually) on at a reasonable hour but most fans of the UFC here are casuals that aren't going to pay for PPV events however have got into the UFC due to having BT Sport and being fans of football or whatever and combine that with the fact it's on at early hours more times than not, it's ridiculous to think this would be a good idea and be more profitable for BT Sport than it was the way they were doing it when they were gaining (and keeping) subscribers all the time as opposed to losing subscribers through loads of cancellations and refusals to pay for the Box Office events, so it doesn't work (profit wise) for BT Sport at all, it does the exact opposite.
I hope this helps