It's good that UFC 215 and 216 had such low PPV numbers

[RockyLockridge]

This is important

The UFC can't feed us manlets, women and non PPV worthy main events and expect people to pay

Your post was alright until this shit tbh, Mighty mouse had the only fight worth watching between those 2 main cards. Nunes is shit and one of the worst champs, but leave mighty mouse out of this.

ferguson vs lee was in no way worthy of headlining a ppv.

 

[RockyLockridge]

They did it to themselves completely. They turned the UFC into the Mcgregor show, and then when he took a year off ... surprise, all those fans go away. remember the build up to Rousey vs Nunes? barely mentioned Nunes. Rousey gets blown out, and Nunes coming off that win, scores 100K PPV in her next fight. Does this surprise anyone.

They didn't need to mention nunes, Everyone saw the fight between her and ronda. If anyone cared for nunes after ronda, they would have tuned in for nunes vs shevchenko. Promoting nunes in the ronda fight wouldn't have helped much I don't think. Nunes is pretty unmarketable when you think about it.

 

[RockyLockridge]

Well, the #2 Lightweight against the #7 Lightweight and MM vs Ray Borg aren't exactly the best versus the best.

But otherwise I agree with your post, most people wouldn't give a shit even if Tony fought Khabib and MM fought TJ. Hardcores would give a shit, though.

Honestly if mighty fought tj and Tony fought Khabib it MIGHT do 350k buys but it'd still be a failure of a card ppv wise.

 

[Europe_MMA]

The UFC cannot create stars and you cannot predict when the next will come along. Throughout Zuffa's run there were only 2 or 3 big stars at a time. But what the UFC did was market fighters so at least the general public knew who they were. You had a bunch of the Franklin, Machida, Hughes, Koschek,..etc types. People actually watched the Ultimate fighter. You could look at a UFC PPV main card and know who all the fighters were. Now, the talent is so spread out that casuals barely know the headliner's opponent. There are too many shows, too many belts, and too many fighters to keep track of.
Let the stars shine, but you cannot surround them with an anonymous cast.

I dunno. For me, if you're only intrigue is the stars, there is plenty of reality TV shows and Youtube vloggers for you to follow.

For me, the expression "too many shows" and "too many fighters" are oxymorons. While you're complaining about a bunch of nobodies on a card, MMA fans are like "Man Zabit Magomedsharipov is on this card, can't wait for his fight".

If there aretoo many cards, stop watching them all. Or stick to Bellator's flagships. When there's no UFC on at the weekend I'm gutted.

 

[SMEGMA]

- Stop filling cards with 90% no names that no one gives a shit about
- Kill the manlet division
- Keep WMMA on the preliminary cards
- Fuck USADA off
- Make champions defend their belts
- ??????
- Profit

 

[Europe_MMA]

Whenever someone jumps on the "UFC is dying" train, they really need to look at boxing or WWE. When PPV buys are going down all across the board in sports, why do you think it's UFC specific? I doubt you've be gettin 1mil on a single UFC card had a random guy not became a superstar.

 

[Senzo Tanaka]

The truth is there are a good 100k UFC/MMA fans that will buy every PPV and probably 500k that will watch every free show.

That’s it. That’s your UFC audience. When they hit 500-1 million PPV buys, that’s coming from casual fans and people that want to see a particular fight.

UFC has to decide if they want to be a freak show organization and have inconsistent numbers or just put on the best fighting the best and get low but consistent numbers.

 

[dertdent]

I dunno. For me, if you're only intrigue is the stars, there is plenty of reality TV shows and Youtube vloggers for you to follow.

For me, the expression "too many shows" and "too many fighters" are oxymorons. While you're complaining about a bunch of nobodies on a card, MMA fans are like "Man Zabit Magomedsharipov is on this card, can't wait for his fight".

If there aretoo many cards, stop watching them all. Or stick to Bellator's flagships. When there's no UFC on at the weekend I'm gutted.

The general public does not know "the nobodies". Hence the 100k ppvs.

 

[Roukas]

Eh ... If this is the predominant attitude of the majority of so-called "fans", the sport is doomed anyway. Personally, I'll watch fights all day long if they're good. I'm a fight fan. I don't care at all whether it's women, 130 pound men, as long as the fights are good, I'm there.

The problem for me has been that between the fight cancelling injuries (that have plagued the sport for years now), constant failed drug tests, and the fact that the UFC's own leadership don't seem to take the sport seriously anymore, I've lost interest.

I think it's hilarious how every1 is like "I don't like watching manlets fight" when in boxing "manlets" are the biggest draw... pacquiao and Floyd mayweather r manlets pacquiao used to fight at fuckimg 112 lbs and Floyds small too he only weighed 150 against Connor . Pretty sure Mighty Mouse weighs just about 150 not cutting. The problem with DJ is he is not as marketable as Floyd or pacquiao . He's a lil nerdy even tho he's a great fighter he's a lil weird and plays video games in his spare time. He's not like Conor and doesn't talk a lot of shit. Great fighter but it's unfair to say the whole division isn't marketable when it's clear u need more then being a great fighter to sell PPVs. DJ doesn't have the personality of Conor mcgregor . People like small fighters cause the technique shows more . Less 1 shot fluke power allows more of the technical game to be shown

 

[moreorless87]

This is important

The UFC can't feed us manlets, women and non PPV worthy main events and expect people to pay

Rousey's decline is one of the big reasons for the PPV dropoff this year.

What you do need to consider of course is that the UFC got a sizeble cut of the Conor/Floyd purse, no idea how much but I'm guessing it could end up similar to or above Conors MMA fights given the massive PPV numbers and price.

The standard draw for "normal" UFC cards has really not been good for a very long time now, its been the stars that have brought in the money not the ability to draw in around 500k buys consistently as sued to be the case.

 

[qw3rty]

Your other two lines from that post aren't really related to what I was saying, but this one is. You're right, people pay for fights they want to see. Unfortunately, like I said, if the attitude of the average "Fan" is "I'm just paying to watch Nate fight Conor again, or "I want to see GSP take a title fight after being retired for several years, and you had better not put anyone on the the card who isn't male and also over 155lbs because "manlets", then the sport will fail no matter what.

As an example, this is the same attitude that allowed Conor to log-jam two divisions and not defend a single title before leaving the sport entirely. Short term, that made money for the UFC. It's also a pretty good strategy for long-term failure. Conor didn't bring new people to MMA. He brought new fans to Conor (as evidenced by the difference in PPV buys when he's not on a card). That's great for Conor but when leadership has decided to throw everything behind him, and he decides he's either done, or at least done w/MMA, what are they going to do?

Same deal w/GSP. I would actually like to see Bisping defend against someone in the currently active top 5. But yeah, let's go ahead and screw those guys and let GSP walk right out of retirement and into a title fight. This is the kind of stuff I mean when I say leadership doesn't take the sport seriously. It just makes me feel like nothing really matters as far as the real rankings go because you can just get on the mic and be a d-bag and talk yourself into title contention, or play on past legacy, etc etc and suddenly the rankings are meaningless. As a fan, if it means that little to the people who are actually running the sport, I'm not sure why I should care either. If people want to see that kind of thing, then go for it. You're not "wrong" for liking or disliking something. Just realize that the reason numbers are dipping has a lot less to do with "women and small fighters" and a lot more to do with the attitude that seems to be expressed in you OP. You can't create a sustainable sport off of super-fights and freak shows, and that's exactly what the UFC has tried to do since around 2014/15.

I gree with you but at the same time UFC need those fights.
What they are doing wrong IMO is the schedule of the cards

If you have Conor main eventing, instead of putting another "recognized" name as co main event (Woodley, Rumble, Miesha) you should put MM or Cody there to get some viewers on them.

I mean, imagine if 1M+ viewers would have watched that MM's slam-to-armbar, I'd believe at least 1/4 of those viewers could be interesed on watching that guy again

 

[Munnings242]

This week's fight night event might be the weakest card of all time.

Nah that Mexico card with Alexa it was so bad it became laughable

 

[czitos188]

Nah that Mexico card with Alexa it was so bad it became laughable

"The peak viewership of the fight card came during the 12:00-12:15 a.m. ET quarter-hour (Alexa Grasso vs. Randa Markos) with 988,000 viewers and the post fight show drew 327,000 viewers."

co-main Grasso vs Markos drew more people than any other fight on the card including main event:
Pettis vs Moreno

 

[superpunch]

Eh ... If this is the predominant attitude of the majority of so-called "fans", the sport is doomed anyway. Personally, I'll watch fights all day long if they're good. I'm a fight fan. I don't care at all whether it's women, 130 pound men, as long as the fights are good, I'm there.

The problem for me has been that between the fight cancelling injuries (that have plagued the sport for years now), constant failed drug tests, and the fact that the UFC's own leadership don't seem to take the sport seriously anymore, I've lost interest.

Is the NBA doomed because people don't like 5'3" basketball? The NFL doomed because people don't like 6th grade football?

 

[Only Here for Attachments]

It just shows MMA isn't a real sport, people only pay to watch freak show fighters like Brock or over hyped celeb fighters like Ronda or Conor.
If you have the best fighting the best, no one cares.

It's why ranking and belts don't matter, just fill cards with popular fighters.

Ultimate Fighting Celebrities

Owned and promoted by Weasel Mashugana Enterprises

 

[UL]

I wonder if Meltzer is accurately reporting now as Lorenzo/Dana are gonee

 

[MCS]

PPV's were fine in 2010-12 without Conor or Ronda, and only Brock as a freak show-type. Stacked cards and dominant champs facing elite contenders. Crappy numbers can be good since the promotion has to put on better cards or it keeps going downhill. Hopefully the freak show alternative is pushed aside and it's back to stacked cards.

 

[Joseph_McBride]

WME stepping it's game up for NOV & especially DEC tho. Hope they have a better gameplan for 2018 because even if 217/218/219 combine 2m buys it will still be an awful year

 

[Munnings242]

"The peak viewership of the fight card came during the 12:00-12:15 a.m. ET quarter-hour (Alexa Grasso vs. Randa Markos) with 988,000 viewers and the post fight show drew 327,000 viewers."

co-main Grasso vs Markos drew more people than any other fight on the card including main event:
Pettis vs Moreno

I wasn't saying they're fight was bad it was actually entertaining but when u look at the card on paper u had to laugh rashad Evans and his opponent look like they were about to pass out no joke

 

[Joe Rogan's Kettlebell]

ppv model sucks