Official Women's Division Discussion #25

[Better Every Day]

I started a thread for Invicta FC 32.
It has a comprehensive poll to show who you are rooting for on the card.
Feel free to add to the thread, vote, and comment.

http://forums.sherdog.com/threads/invicta-fc-32-november-16-2018-shawnee-oklahoma.3865247/

 

[PolarBearPaulVarelans]

I don't know how TUF is doing since I don't care about it, but I did make a post regarding the Fox TV ratings.
http://forums.sherdog.com/posts/146025793/
Summary: Women got all the best ratings of the year.

Dude, I like your posts, and especially your technical analysis, but this is a very deceiving way of presenting the data.

Okay, so the ratings get worse over time. One simple reason for this is that the main events notably degraded in quality. Initially, there were a slew of championship fights in popular divisions between popular fighters. Then, that went away, minus Mighty Mouse fights, which we know simply don't draw.

Out of 24 total Fox cards, ones where the women were the main event ranked were 7th, 9th, and 22nd. Mean ranking? 12.67, which is...average.

Yeah, if you only consider the ratings from 2016 and no previous years, women finished 1 and 2 out of 5 total cards. And of the two 2017 cards, BOTH of which did disastrously, Shevchenko vs. Pena barely edges out Johnson vs. Reis.

But this is deceiving and arbitrary. What makes 2016 so much different than 2014 or 2015?

Actually, I do think there is a very important fact we can glean from these numbers. Despite being a fight between two middling contenders at 115, Van Zant vs. Waterson did very good numbers, surpassing a far superior fight in Shevchenko vs. Holm, probably two of the 5 best female fighters in the sport then.

Why? Well, Van Zant and Waterson each have large fanbases due largely to their looks. We can learn from this that physical beauty plays a major role in the popularity and success of a female fighter.

 

[aerius]

But this is deceiving and arbitrary. What makes 2016 so much different than 2014 or 2015?

You just answered your own question:

Okay, so the ratings get worse over time. One simple reason for this is that the main events notably degraded in quality. Initially, there were a slew of championship fights in popular divisions between popular fighters. Then, that went away, minus Mighty Mouse fights, which we know simply don't draw.

UFC's Fox cards went from being 1st tier events in the early years to being a neglected 3rd line production that they don't give a shit about. They're not even trying anymore, and it shows.

Actually, I do think there is a very important fact we can glean from these numbers. Despite being a fight between two middling contenders at 115, Van Zant vs. Waterson did very good numbers, surpassing a far superior fight in Shevchenko vs. Holm, probably two of the 5 best female fighters in the sport then.

Why? Well, Van Zant and Waterson each have large fanbases due largely to their looks. We can learn from this that physical beauty plays a major role in the popularity and success of a female fighter.

No shit. And no one ever argued otherwise. Pretty chicks punching each other in the face and rolling around on the ground in questionable positions will get good ratings in the UFC's target demographic. Who could've known?

The point stands. Ratings for WMMA events on TV are solid. As has been noted in other threads, the UFC is moving their revenue stream over to TV & network deals and away from PPV. It doesn't particularly matter if women can't get respectable PPV buys, the revenue model is moving away from that anyway and towards TV where they do get good ratings. They don't need PPV stars, nice to have of course, but they don't need a Ronda or Cyborg.

 

[PolarBearPaulVarelans]

You just answered your own question:

UFC's Fox cards went from being 1st tier events in the early years to being a neglected 3rd line production that they don't give a shit about. They're not even trying anymore, and it shows.

And within that framework, the ratings for the 3 cards headlined by women were perfectly average. Certainly, Holm vs. Shevchenko was a 1st tier event as far as starpower went.

No shit. And no one ever argued otherwise. Pretty chicks punching each other in the face and rolling around on the ground in questionable positions will get good ratings in the UFC's target demographic. Who could've known?

The notable aspect is the degree to which this is true. To the point where the looks will often supercede massive differences in fighting ability and excitement in the fights themselves. Although I probably should have mentioned that Van Zant was coming off a stint on Dancing with the Stars earlier that year, which undoubtedly helped immensely with the ratings.

The point stands. Ratings for WMMA events on TV are solid. As has been noted in other threads, the UFC is moving their revenue stream over to TV & network deals and away from PPV. It doesn't particularly matter if women can't get respectable PPV buys, the revenue model is moving away from that anyway and towards TV where they do get good ratings. They don't need PPV stars, nice to have of course, but they don't need a Ronda or Cyborg.

You point out the problems with the PPV model...only to hype up an even more dead, outdated model, that of TV ratings.

TV ratings are more irrelevant than ever. People watch shit on demand. Or they record it and fast forward through all the commercials. Advertisers pay much less and TV ratings are down across the board.

You know another indicator we can use? Attendance and live gate. And guess what? That reflects worst of all on the financial draw of WMMA, even for Cyborg.

 

[aerius]

You point out the problems with the PPV model...only to hype up an even more dead, outdated model, that of TV ratings.

TV ratings are more irrelevant than ever. People watch shit on demand. Or they record it and fast forward through all the commercials. Advertisers pay much less and TV ratings are down across the board.

I don't think this can be answered either way without inside info on how the UFC negotiated its TV deals. In any case, they recently secured a massive deal with ESPN so they obviously see a future in TV.

You know another indicator we can use? Attendance and live gate. And guess what? That reflects worst of all on the financial draw of WMMA, even for Cyborg.

Pull up the numbers. I'm curious to see what they look like.

 

[PurpleStorm]

WMMA is a financial disaster because Nunes is a pay per view failure. By the same logic the UFC should get rid of black fighters because Woodley and even Cormier aren't doing great numbers. Meanwhile Cyborg's numbers are as good as anyone without an Irish accent.

Also let's ignore the evidence of the Fox cards and even the current season of tuf - poor as the season ratings are the women's fights are still pulling in bigger numbers than the men.

The UFC getting rid of 125 is a puzzle - boxing thrived for a century with three similar or lower weights, fly 112, bantam 118 and feather 127. Even Mayweather fought half his career at 130. Kind of confirms my old boxing prejudice that UFC fans are largely attracted to big muscular guys with trashy tattoos.

If the UFC is really is turning its back on Asia then that's a puzzle too, don't these guys look at the long-term economic trends? I'm guessing there's more to it than that though.

The 105 division? First off what's with this obsession with 10 pound steps. The step between fly and bantam in boxing was just 6 pounds, it makes sense to narrow the bands when you get to these lower weights. How about a 107 or a 108 division, I'm sure the likes of Waterson would appreciate that. Will we see a UFC atomweight class, well I don't think its completely off the table, but I'm not going to call folks retards if they disagree.

Great post. Discussions that focus solely on removing fighters who 'aren't profitable' can get to the point of cutting off the nose to spite the face. Any organization needs a variety of rising stars, gatekeepers, fighters who aren't merely popular on instagram. I enjoy undercard fights, love seeing up and comers. For example Barber - Cifers. Barber could be an upcoming star but Cifers interests me more in that she's unique i.e., not from some cookie cutter mold. I love the underdogs who keep coming back. And comeback stories like GDR who looked very strong the other night.

There are good arguments to be shared on various sides about a lot of things. Maybe a way to frame an argument about a division or organization would be to speak of short term versus long term strategies. They often conflict and that's only natural. Calling others ignorant, retarded or whatever only undercuts whatever argument someone's trying to make. A personal favorite of mine is when someone says 'don't read or respond to that person's posts.' It cracks me up because I'm a contrarian and I've got a bit of that rage against the machine mentality of 'fuck you I won't do what you tell me.' Haha! But I've gotta admit it makes for some hilarious reading. Hope you enjoy a good day!

 

[PurpleStorm]

How dare you bring your maturity here?

Haha!

 

[PurpleStorm]

I have no idea who Zapittella is, but how is it remotely relevant to the problems with a 105 pound woman's division?

Unless, of course, you're arguing that Zapitella is a trascendent, Ronda-like savior who will single-handedly carry the division. Which is absolutely silly, considering she can barely even finish anyone right now.

She can start by choosing a crazy nickname. Led Zeppelin Nutella. Zapatista Zapitella. ZAP! Do whack shit like enter riding a motorcycle. With an entourage swinging bushido swords. Make videos driving a bus off a cliff. Blow up wax figures of her opponents. Be instagram famous. That's how peeps measure value these days.

 

[leto1776]

She can start by choosing a crazy nickname. Led Zeppelin Nutella. Zapatista Zapitella. ZAP! Do whack shit like enter riding a motorcycle. With an entourage swinging bushido swords. Make videos driving a bus off a cliff. Blow up wax figures of her opponents. Be instagram famous. That's how peeps measure value these days.

Be intimidating in stare downs. I'm being told in the Heavies that looking timid in the stare downs equals being a can.

 

[PurpleStorm]

I don't know how TUF is doing since I don't care about it, but I did make a post regarding the Fox TV ratings.
http://forums.sherdog.com/posts/146025793/
Summary: Women got all the best ratings of the year.

Yay! I love all kinds of mma but one reason I enjoy wmma is because as just a fan it's easy for me to follow. I see a name and a face and can identify them in later fights. Follow their career. There's so many men fighting and after a while it can become a blur. Of course there are great male fighters that stand out to me. Korean Zombie & Yair Rodriguez the other night - that was one of the greatest fights I've ever seen. Lately I've gotten into Israel Adesanya.

The women fights often bring me in to watch. I'm a bit more emotionally invested in following them. Wanted to see how Yoder & ABC would fight with their futures on the line (okay I guess), how Barber & Cifers would do in their debuts (both came through with flying colors imho) and how GDR & Pennington would do after their layoffs (GDR looked awesome, I'm worried for Rocky).

The men's fights are 'icing on the cake' for me. They can often be amazing. That brings me in to watching other organizations too. Got into Rizin from seeing Reina, Kanna & Rena then got into Tenshin. KSW I found via Lipski. Invicta brings me in with the unique personalities & styles. Crazy amateur fights from around the world that are posted here. Just speaking as one fan of course. I love it all.

 

[PurpleStorm]

Be intimidating in stare downs. I'm being told in the Heavies that looking timid in the stare downs equals being a can.

Especially love when the self-proclaimed geniuses say after the fact 'I could tell from the staredown he was shook.'

 

[msm1981]

Is it my imagination or is the women's team at American Top Team
dysfunctional because if anyone has seen photos on Instagram all
that is seen is everyone broke into individual groups and it is with
separate coaches instead of one coach.

 

[PolarBearPaulVarelans]

I don't think this can be answered either way without inside info on how the UFC negotiated its TV deals. In any case, they recently secured a massive deal with ESPN so they obviously see a future in TV.

The ESPN deal isn't based on traditional TV, but rather, on their new streaming service. Most of the UFC events are on ESPN+, which is a streaming subscription service the company launched this year. It's similar to Bellator's deal with DAZN.

They mostly care about subscription numbers, not ratings.

Specifically, 20 out of 30 UFC events in 2019 will be on ESPN+, and will only 10 out of 30 will be on ESPN itself.

Starting in January 2019, ESPN+ and ESPN become the exclusive digital and linear distributors in the United States for UFC, showcasing 42 live events, 30 of which will feature a full card of 12 UFC bouts. ESPN linear networks will broadcast 10 exclusive events as well as all UFC pay-per-view preliminary fights, while ESPN+, the recently-launched multi-sport, direct-to-consumer subscription streaming service, will offer 20 exclusive events and all preliminary fights for “UFC on ESPN Fight Night” programs.

Pull up the numbers. I'm curious to see what they look like.

https://www.tapology.com/fightcenter/promotions/1-ultimate-fighting-championship-ufc

While we don't have gate totals for the events in Brazil, we do know the attendance. Nunes vs. Pennington had an attendance of only 10,700 (including Machida vs. Belfort on the undercard), only slightly larger than the last two Fight Nights in Brazil, Santos vs. Anders at 9,500 and Machida vs. Anders at 10,100. Even if we're looking at the same city and arena, the last time UFC was there was for Machida vs. Brunson in late 2017, and that had an attendance of about 10,300.

Cyborg vs. Kunitskaya, despite the respectable 260k PPV buys, was a very weak $1.37 million live gate in Las Vegas of all places.

Comparing it to PPVs with similar buyrates, Whittaker vs. Romero 2 did 250k PPV buys, but had a $2.55 million live gate. Dillishaw vs. Garbrandt 2 did 300k PPV buys with a $2.85 million live gate.

To be fair, Nunes vs. Shevchenko 2's live gate, while still below average, is actually better than one might think from its 100k buyrate, as it garnered $2.03 million in Edmonton. That's slightly better than Woodley vs. Till (second worst event of 2018 after Nunes vs. Pennington) in Dallas, which had 130k buys and a live gate of $1.71 million.

 

[Eater of Souls]

Is it my imagination or is the women's team at American Top Team
dysfunctional because if anyone has seen photos on Instagram all
that is seen is everyone broke into individual groups and it is with
separate coaches instead of one coach.

Quite a few gyms are like that. They are under the umbrella of ATT but different athletes work better with different coaches. If you look at the women at Jack Wink, for example, they all make a lot of the same mistakes. And a large team of women (or men) is often more than one coach can handle.

At a boxing gym there are often many coaches, some with only one fighter.

 

[aerius]

https://www.tapology.com/fightcenter/promotions/1-ultimate-fighting-championship-ufc

While we don't have gate totals for the events in Brazil, we do know the attendance. Nunes vs. Pennington had an attendance of only 10,700 (including Machida vs. Belfort on the undercard), only slightly larger than the last two Fight Nights in Brazil, Santos vs. Anders at 9,500 and Machida vs. Anders at 10,100. Even if we're looking at the same city and arena, the last time UFC was there was for Machida vs. Brunson in late 2017, and that had an attendance of about 10,300.

Cyborg vs. Kunitskaya, despite the respectable 260k PPV buys, was a very weak $1.37 million live gate in Las Vegas of all places.

Comparing it to PPVs with similar buyrates, Whittaker vs. Romero 2 did 250k PPV buys, but had a $2.55 million live gate. Dillishaw vs. Garbrandt 2 did 300k PPV buys with a $2.85 million live gate.

To be fair, Nunes vs. Shevchenko 2's live gate, while still below average, is actually better than one might think from its 100k buyrate, as it garnered $2.03 million in Edmonton. That's slightly better than Woodley vs. Till (second worst event of 2018 after Nunes vs. Pennington) in Dallas, which had 130k buys and a live gate of $1.71 million.

Interesting. So if we look at Cyborg's fights, she's pretty mediocre when it comes to PPV live gates. Even her fight against Holm was only $1.76 million, whereas Holm vs. GDR was $2.27 million. She's behind Shevchenko, Nunes, and Holm on live gates.

Which brings us back to one of your earlier posts:

I never stated WMMA is a "disaster", merely that it's not a financial draw outside Cyborg right now.

For instance, I'm a fan of Amanda Nunes, a fine champion. Unfortunately, she is simply not a draw for the larger public in the same manner Mighty Mouse wasn't. Her PPVs against Shevchenko and Pennington were both disasters.

So, Cyborg does bring in PPV buys, but how important is that in the big picture? She's not doing much if anything for live gates and she also has the highest base pay by far of any woman on the UFC's roster. You contend that TV numbers don't mean shit and we both acknowledge that the UFC is moving away from PPV as a revenue source. In this new model, how do you propose we should measure the financial importance/contribution of the women in MMA? How do we come up with a metric for saying yes, this fighter is a financial asset, or no, we should dump them like men's 125?

 

[Kaybee]

Is it my imagination or is the women's team at American Top Team
dysfunctional because if anyone has seen photos on Instagram all
that is seen is everyone broke into individual groups and it is with
separate coaches instead of one coach.

There's like a million fighters training out of ATT right now, there's bound to be cliques in a camp that massive.

 

[leto1776]

There's like a million fighters training out of ATT right now, there's bound to be cliques in a camp that massive.

Considering ATT has a crap load of gyms, and they don't all train at the facility, it certainly makes sense. I forget how many gyms they have in Florida alone.

 

[PolarBearPaulVarelans]

You contend that TV numbers don't mean shit and we both acknowledge that the UFC is moving away from PPV as a revenue source. In this new model, how do you propose we should measure the financial importance/contribution of the women in MMA? How do we come up with a metric for saying yes, this fighter is a financial asset, or no, we should dump them like men's 125?

It's a good question, and I'm sure that WME has quants working full-time to answer it. I imagine they probably use a combination of numbers, with PPV buys, live gate, and merchandise being the most important, and things like TV ratings being lumped in with social media numbers.

 

[Rizz]

It's a good question, and I'm sure that WME has quants working full-time to answer it. I imagine they probably use a combination of numbers, with PPV buys, live gate, and merchandise being the most important, and things like TV ratings being lumped in with social media numbers.

I am trying to stay away from most of the arguing but I just wanted to add a little input on something you said. You can't dismiss the TV ratings and just lump them with Social Media. TV ratings are actually very important. The importance of it only comes up when its time for a new TV deal though. If MMA on FOX TV was getting consistent numbers like PVZ/Waterson and Holly/Valentina got then no way would FOX have let the UFC go to ESPN. While PPV draws and live event draws are probably valued more than TV draws due to the immediacy of their Monetization. Sooner or later the importance of TV draws will reveal itself with these TV deals.

 

[PolarBearPaulVarelans]

I am trying to stay away from most of the arguing but I just wanted to add a little input on something you said. You can't dismiss the TV ratings and just lump them with Social Media.

I'm not entirely dismissing them, but TV ratings are comparable to social media in scale of importance, yeah. For instance, there is a pretty good correlation between how many people watch an interview with a certain fighter on the UFC's Youtube channel, or their free fight before an event, and how big of a draw they are.

And certainly, the UFC cares about live gates, PPV buys, and merch way more than they do TV ratings.

TV ratings are actually very important. The importance of it only comes up when its time for a new TV deal though. If MMA on FOX TV was getting consistent numbers like PVZ/Waterson and Holly/Valentina got then no way would FOX have let the UFC go to ESPN. While PPV draws and live event draws are probably valued more than TV draws due to the immediacy of their Monetization. Sooner or later the importance of TV draws will reveal itself with these TV deals.

This all sounds very nice, but as noted above, UFC's deal with ESPN is primarily to boost their new subscription service ESPN+. It's completely independent of ratings.

If the UFC draws even worse on ESPN than they did on FOX for their 10 yearly events, but there is a massive increase in ESPN+ subscriptions thanks to their 20 yearly events, ESPN will be very happy indeed.