Media UFC now forcing British fans to pay PPV fee to watch certain events on BT Sport

[kirsky]

I think it is about time you socialist pig-bangers got around to not being subsidized at our expense!

Sir if americans are dumb to pay for ppv, why others have to archive same level of stupidity?. Europe differs from America... we got brains...

 

[ThoseAreMyShoes]

Tbh if you're going to institute a paywall it's only fair to hit everyone. Not so sure that's business savvy but I don't think people are going to complain. Brits can stream or go to restaurants as alternatives also. It's been a long time since your only choice to watch a PPV fight was to order it at home.

The UK isn't like the US. We are civilised here and tucked up in bed at 5:30am. Not out in "restaurants" eating tacos & plastic cheese or whatever else they eat in Trump-land.

 

[micahl]

I don't think its UFC fault, but it blows chunks

 

[GSP Rush]

I don't think that this is justifiable given the fact that European fans have to stay up all night to watch these cards live.

What do you UK guys think about this?

Really infuriates me this. I basically have Virgin Media at about £70 per month purely because I get BT Sport, and I can record UFC events.

Even whilst free, since going into recovery from alcoholism I wouldn't stay up until 3am start to watch a main card.

Like fuck would I pay £19.99 to watch a card that finishes at 6am local time. It's an absolute disgrace.

I am an avid fan of the sport and I wont pay for it, so I cant imagine that casual fans will. This is so detrimental for the development of the fan base here.

Gonna flop and lose customers

I don't wanna stream cards but they are kinda forcing my hand

Haha, good luck getting people to pay 20 quid for a 3am card..

Lol no
I’m gonna have to illegally stream it. I’ve got my streams lined up

Good luck with that..

I can only imagine that this is a dry run for a Conor fight they're planning because I can't see more than a couple of thousand people paying.

Yanks fail to realise how small a following the sport has in the UK. Switching to PPV, will kill interest..
Extremely counterproductive in the long term.

except in the US its on during prime time, in the UK the PPV starts at 3am duhh. Also the fact that we have to pay for the BT Sports package in the first place and now a PPV cost on top of that

I'll just watch all the prelims on BT and then stream the main card, am I fuck paying

This is a joke. I already pay for Bt Sport and as others have said there’s no way I’m paying for something I have to wait till 3am to use. They need to make the ppvs at a more reasonable time but then that cuts into their American market. This is just greed.

I usually wake up around 4-5am so I just watch the main events in bed on the iPad.
I will not be paying to watch the fights, the internet isn’t good enough there anyway to record tv or get pay per view on the tv. I can get pay per view on my ipad.
I already pay for bt sport and fight pass.
No one will pay

This.

so you'd have to pay a subscription to a cable/satellite company, then pay a tv licence fee, then pay a fee for the card. thats gonna work a treat. not.

Being spoiled lmao, we pay between £30 and £40 a month for BTSport itself, this is £20 on top of that which actually with conversion rates makes it as expensive, or even more expensive than in the US.

Don't talk about things you don't understand bud

Nah, this was going to be a thing the UFC were doing with the Eleven Sports deal before that fell through last year.

Well I cancelled BT when UFC was free because BT TV is absolute muck. I'll stick to streaming fights I'm super excited for. And come to sherdog for the rest.

Just refuse to buy the PPVs. If revenue drops wholesale, they'll change their tune.

WME conned BT Sport.

When you have a job and family then yes. Staying up until 6am to watch UFC is a fair trade for not paying for PPVs. We do still pay around £60 A month for the channel that UFC is on. UFC would die in a year if you Americans had to stay up to 6am and pay subscription for every card.

I'm sure people will buy it. They've been giving the fights cheap to the UK for a long time. At some point, they were going to open the profit gates. No matter how aggressive the UFC is with pricing etc, seems like it always works. I guess we'll see.

This isnt the UFC;s doing

this is BT Sports doing because they are in the shit for money.

Their CEO was even quoted a little while back saying they are switching strategy from "recruiting new customers with cheap deals to getting more money from our existing customers"

When all is said and done; it's a joke. Forgetting BT altogether, 95% of the cards they are putting on are NOT worth parting with money for.

LOL if they think I will pay to watch some bullshit WMMA interim garbage at 4am.

yes this is a sad continuation of the pricing policy that basically extorts UK customers. THere is no justification for this, and no justification for why UK customers should have to fork out MORE than US customers, even completely ignorning the fact the main cards are happening at 3am or something like that.

It simply seems ENTIRELY indefensible due to plain fucking corporate greed and them asking their advisers "how much can we fuck these subscribers in Region x, y, z ?"

The UFC won't be too happy surely with BTS for doing this. It sucks that the US has to pay so much but making the UK pay just as much with events being on at silly times suck even harder. There should be some kind of discount for the UK fans same for the US fans when it's over here. Most of there market is the US fans. I get they are running a business and can't make it free for everybody but should at least be equal for all. Their events they hold over here everybody will be priced out and have no fans here to attend which will be a loss for the company so they will end up pulling the plug on UK events. Madness I tell ya how can they justify it.

wellgoodluckwiththat.

I cancelled BT sport last month. Fight pass is 5 quid a month. I don’t mind being two weeks behind. It gives me enough time to read on here which stinkers to skip.

More money will be lost on cancelled BT subscriptions than gained from people buying the PPVs.

People say we brits were spoilt and maybe we are. But if anything the americans are spoilt. They get pretty much all the cards prime time. I'd love to be able to watch UFC fights out at a bar and make a night out of it, but starting at 3am doesn't make it possible.
No doubt the UFC rip off americans, but if I lived there I wouldn't mind paying ppv for a decent card, as I know I'll be able to watch it "live" and "prime time". If I couldn't afford it, I'd go to a bar. I think americans don't realise how shit it is to have every card finishing at 6am.
So yes we were spoilt. but would any of you pay that much for cards that you can't even watch live and have the experience of it being saturday night and being able to watch all fights without being exhausted.
Some people will still pay it, but to send a message, people should avoid paying.

Won’t be buying, they need McGregor to be fighting for a move like this to be successful.

Fuck UFC and BT sports, staying up till 6am whilst paying for the event on top of the BT sports subscription? fuck that

Nice might get some sleep on saturday nights now. I might buy one in the future depending on the card, won't be buying any of the first couple of PPV regardless of content, to hopefully get them to rethink this model.

If you had to stay up til 3am to watch it, you wouldn’t be quite so thrilled.

Fucking trash, only got BT sport all of one month ago. Back to streaming then..

This is how it all works. Get people hooked then charge em. This has been a long time coming.

Same boat as a lot of people here. Paying £30 a month for BT Sport just for the UFC and if they are going to charge pay per view for the UFC now may as well cancel. Its already a joke that any decent Boxing event is Pay per view here and boxnation dont show anything decent anymore.

Don’t forget we also have to pay £155 a year for a shitty bbc tv licence despite the fact I watch fuck all on the bbc.

Bye BTsport...

I phoned BT Sports earlier today, and got passed onto someone regarding the subject. Anyway, he told me that 3 PPV’s will be on PPV and the rest will be free. He said the 3 biggest cards of the year will be on the PPV channel.

I'm not entirely sure it's because of illegal streaming, from what I've read the owner of BTSport has said that instead of attracting new customers he wants to get more money from the existing customers which would indicate it isn't.
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money...-coverage-looks-make-money-18m-customers.html

Of course I don't have all of the information, BT may profit from this, but I just fail to see how. Let's say the PPV sells 20k which I think is almost unobtainable but just as an example let's use it. That would be £400k from sales. Now with that in mind BTSport is roughly £40 a MONTH, so it would only take 10k people cancelling for a single month for them to lose that extra profit, let alone if they don't renew that membership at all. Not sure if you've used BTSport before but it's littered with mainly gambling site ads and I wonder if less people watching, meaning less bets on their sites, could have some impact on them too?

If they wanted to charge for PPV I think it should've just been for non BTSport customers. So people who pay for BTSport get it as part of their package, but people who don't pay for it would be able to pay PPV to watch each individual event, which if you only have BTSport for the UFC would turn out cheaper than paying monthly.

But I don't run a multi billion pound company so who gives a fuck what I think.

BT pays a substantial amount for the rights to broadcast UFC events, it sounds like some of you idiots thought the UFC just gifted the PPVs to the rest of the world or some shit.

The big story here is that BT Sports are bending the brits over, while in America, UFC/Espn are trying to make it difficult to watch a whole card on a single channel.

oh well, I'll hit Pirate Bay first thing in the morning and grab the entire card for free, Their loss, not mine.

By "free" do you mean paying around £40 a month for the channel it's on and now being asked to pay an extra £20 on top despite it not starting until 3am?

Typical American thinking they know it all.

Don't be a dosser then

Watched every UFC event on B.T sport since it started. No chance am i paying for it on box office. Will have to stream it

Simple as that

Starts next month with Jones vs silva.

Apparently not going to be every numbered show, YET..... But let's face facts the only way bt sports make money with a ufc ppv is if conor is fighting. And even then I'm not sure.

Just a shitty move to hit already paying subscribers with an additional cost. Fuck 'em

That's all very well but i'd be very surprised if the ppv model picks up here. I will continue to watch through other means and I suspect many others will

In the UK the main events don't finish until 5/6am.
Can't see many people paying for that.
I'll just stick to fight pass and watching the main fights on YouTube when I wake up.

Was fine by me. I cancelled BT Sport on the spot, saves me money each month.

I mean, we still have always had to pay £25 a month all the time anyway.

We always had to pay extra for BT Sport. It wasn't included in standard TV Channels.

Petition is getting signed but at a snail pace sadly
https://www.change.org/p/btsports-stop-btsports-charging-ppv-for-ufc-in-the-uk

Got a bad feeling brits are gonna still pay for it still but hopefully not !

I don't pay for UFC events anymore. I gave up with BT Sport last year. I'm always open to hearing new stream links. Feel free to message.

So cliffs

FUCK BT SPORT

I’m IN

correct

i don't like any other sports so whatever else it comes with is irrelevant

imagine UFC was on the Disney channel, and all day every day was 3rd rate straight to TV sequels to films and these teeny shows, but you had to pay for the whole channel, well that's what its like to me, might have soccer on, or tennis etc etc, but to me that may aswell be 24 financial news,

If the UFC put on good events in Europe at decent times then I would gladly pay to watch it live. Seeing as many events start very late to accommodate the US market and the fact that we get mostly shit cards of epic proportions, I am definitely not paying a penny. It will be the usual - enjoy Saturday, wake up Sunday, download UFC and fastforward through the crap fights.

I just switched to 3's unlimited 4G Internet for £20 a month all in, can stream 4k on it, faster than the speeds I was getting with a bt line and Sky broadband.

Yeah I won't be buying the first couple regardless in an attempt to stop them doing it.

It's weird i've been staying up watching fights since the 90's. I think the first ones i payed for was Bruno Tyson 2. But generally i've been staying up each Saturday night for decades to watch fights happening in America and generally it's been free.

This might be the catalyst i need to just go to bed and watch the fights in the morning as live no one will spoil them the results if i stay off the net.

If consider paying £10 for an absolute stellar top to bottom card, otherwise I'll be back to downloading from Sir Paul the morning after.

'Can't stop the Internet baby ' Kenny Florian

I'm also a boxing fan so there's a few decent fights on BT Sports (although recently the bigger fights have also slipped onto PPV which I assume was a trial run for the UFC following suit) & i enjoy the 30 for 30 Documentaries they show plus free access to Boxnation channel. Nothing else interests me though.

i don't get free access to boxnation on mine? wonder why

yeah i also am a boxing fan but as you say most of the good fights are also going PPV, (how Fury Schwarz was PPV level i will never know)

I at least watch the football, so it makes it worthwhile, but I feel most sorry for the guys and gals that are only paying to watch the UFC. £240+ p/a extra? GTFO

Yep. There's no reason why it would pick up here... Most people in the UK don't even know what PPV stands for.

You can't introduce something bad and expect people to embrace it.

"Hi customers, we're introducing this new bad thing that will make your viewing experience worse AND you'll have to pay us more for this. Hope you like it!"

BT sport is 28.99 a month. That’s 347.88 a year. For the pleasure of staying up until 5.30am

The UFC is not very popular in the UK. That is a boxing region. They get behind local boys, but I don't think the average drunk Brit is going to bother to stay up until dawn to watch two lesbians hug each other for 25 minutes.

Where are you? Bellator is on Skysports in the UK

Brits aren't "spoiled" by any stretch

They have to pay at least £40 per month for BTSport, and the cards don't start until 3am local time

Instead of being mad at the Brits, be mad at the UFC for price gouging

Any Briton who has been following MMA for long enough, going back before BT Sport, Bravo, and so on, is already firmly entrenched in piracy circles because that used to be the only way to follow it. The way to overcome piracy is to A) Focus on the next generation who haven't developed a habit for piracy yet, and B) Promise more convenience than piracy can offer.

BT have lost me on both counts. I pay a BT Sports subscription and still just torrent the events I want to watch because fast forwarding in VLC Player the next day is so much more convenient.

Yup told this to 2 other mates the other day and they said there still buying it.

The UK isn't like the US. We are civilised here and tucked up in bed at 5:30am. Not out in "restaurants" eating tacos & plastic cheese or whatever else they eat in Trump-land.

You guys really should all join the BT Sport forum and leave your concerns there. The heads at BT Sport are reading this and taking into consideration (or supposed to be), apparently they want the feedback there.

It's in this thread here: https://community.bt.com/t5/TV-Cont...-be-shown-on-BT-Sport-Box-Office/td-p/1947956

Quickly sign up and add a reply in the thread in regards to this, they need to know!!

Thanks

 

[moogie101]

You guys really should all join the BT Sport forum and leave your concerns there. The heads at BT Sport are reading this and taking into consideration (or supposed to be), apparently they want the feedback there.

It's in this thread here: https://community.bt.com/t5/TV-Cont...-be-shown-on-BT-Sport-Box-Office/td-p/1947956

Quickly sign up and add a reply in the thread in regards to this, they need to know!!

Thanks

Cheers. Joined & posted. Not sure what difference it will make though.

Still say the few PPV sales they make won't offset the regular monthly subscriptions if even a few subscribers leave.

 

[Mug]

Really infuriates me this. I basically have Virgin Media at about £70 per month purely because I get BT Sport, and I can record UFC events.

Even whilst free, since going into recovery from alcoholism I wouldn't stay up until 3am start to watch a main card.

Like fuck would I pay £19.99 to watch a card that finishes at 6am local time. It's an absolute disgrace.

I am an avid fan of the sport and I wont pay for it, so I cant imagine that casual fans will. This is so detrimental for the development of the fan base here.

I am the same pay stupid money just for BT sport, used to stay up for every card but when you arent drinking with friends its tough and ruins the next day so record and watch in the morning
The other problem with this like other PPV we get for boxing you buy it you cant record it, and you cant access it any time you want the have specific replay times you have to wait for and then after that its gone
Who's going to pay £20 to stay up to 6am or have to wait to only be able to watch it once

 

[GSP Rush]

I am the same pay stupid money just for BT sport, used to stay up for every card but when you arent drinking with friends its tough and ruins the next day so record and watch in the morning
The other problem with this like other PPV we get for boxing you buy it you cant record it, and you cant access it any time you want the have specific replay times you have to wait for and then after that its gone
Who's going to pay £20 to stay up to 6am or have to wait to only be able to watch it once

Let them know here, this is where they're getting the feedback: https://community.bt.com/t5/TV-Cont...-be-shown-on-BT-Sport-Box-Office/td-p/1947956

Cheers. Joined & posted. Not sure what difference it will make though.

Still say the few PPV sales they make won't offset the regular monthly subscriptions if even a few subscribers leave.

There is a huge amount of cancellations, I've seen loads on Twitter with people screen grabbing their cancellations too. I guess we'll just have to see but when they put the Tweet out about this they had over 1000 replies yet they normally get less than 5 replies per tweet, the odd one's will get up to around 30 but in general it's nothing compared to the response they had on this.

There's this video here too with a petition in the description some fans have put together. From what I can gather the Irish guys talking about this have been supported by Conor McGregor on their podcast so it really supports the petition of the fans too what they're saying and backs it up.



If fans buy it, they'll continue to do it but if they don't, they won't however they have had a massive amount of cancellations from this which I think is going to sting them a little but we'll have to see I guess

 

[Fraz]

The UFC has won, we are at each others throats just like they planned.

 

[Ukram]

The UFC has won, we are at each others throats just like they planned.

The thought did run through my mind if someone at BT sport is just testing the waters, its icy right now and its got heated up a little, they are just ready to provide the ice......for a small fee no less.

 

[GSP Rush]

The thought did run through my mind if someone at BT sport is just testing the waters, its icy right now and its got heated up a little, they are just ready to provide the ice......for a small fee no less.

They are, they're just doing it to see how much money they can make and expecting fans to cave.

I hope they don't cause if fans do cave and buy into this, well they're only gonna do it again and again even more so.

Edit: It's BT Sport by the way who are doing this, it's nothing to do with the UFC at all (in regards to the previous quote that said UFC)

 

[GSP Rush]

Just to add BT Sport have got the new WWE deal too. From January next year they'll be showing Raw and Smackdown on their channels with the PPV's being on their Box Office.

Full details here if you fancy a read: https://sport.bt.com/news/bt-sport-...artnership-in-multi-year-deal-S11364370135846

This is obviously a good thing for them and I'm glad they've got it but I just hope they sort out this BT Sport Box Office situation not just for the pricing of it, charging and being on Box Office in general (for reasons fans have expressed) but also cause of the fact they haven't even covered all platforms either for their customers to even purchase BT Sport Box Office events even if they wanted to, it's just not good.

I hope this WWE deal they've got doesn't make them more greedy either because honestly, it's working for them right now the way they are (apart from the recent UFC thing) and they're slowly but surely getting better than Sky but if they start to get greedy, it's not going to work for them and they WILL go downhill (like all companies who get too greedy eventually do).

WWE have been with Sky for over 30 years so this is a big change for them letting this go but I do feel BT Sport will do a much better job (again, as long as they don't become too greedy still).

 

[GSP Rush]

Don't forget though too, if people are unhappy with the BT Sport situation with the UFC, they're still wanting feedback here are BT Sport where they're reading it.

If people are unhappy with the recent UFC situation they really should let them know here and quickly sign up to let them know how you feel in regards to this, it's just a pain is all this lately though hopefully they'll sort it but they DO need the feedback and to be aware from as many people as possible.

Leave your vibes here in regards to it: https://community.bt.com/t5/TV-Cont...wn-on-BT-Sport-Box-Office/td-p/1947956/page/4

 

[tonytime]

I don't think that this is justifiable given the fact that European fans have to stay up all night to watch these cards live.

What do you UK guys think about this?

im not paying

 

[aldeniro78]

I'll just watch all the prelims on BT and then stream the main card, am I fuck paying

I don't know...are you fuck paying?

Would it make more sense for the shows to start at 4 am US time so the 10 wankers in England watching don't have stay up past their precious bedtimes?

 

[ApplesVild]

I don't know...are you fuck paying?

Would it make more sense for the shows to start at 4 am US time so the 10 wankers in England watching don't have stay up past their precious bedtimes?

I don't care what time the card is on I just don't want to pay twice for the same thing. I already paid my subscription that gives me 'all numbered cards', why would I pay an extra £20 randomly on top of that, and the same week also have a price increase on the subscription itself...

 

[kalabula]

The US has been getting pimped for years. Join the crowd.

 

[blaseblah]

Because there us no espn+ here, So all the espn+ stuff, early prelims, contender series etc is on fightpass

So you get everything from ESPN+ on fightpass, while Americans get them divided between the two platforms. That means we are paying more than you because we have to subscribe to both services to get the same content.

 

[uk fan in usa]

Cool, I'll admit I'm getting old and history class was a long time ago but it was one of the few classes I really got into.

We were always taught it was the regiments defending what is now Canada that actually pushed through to Washington and burned down the White House though, but obviously still technically British at the time.

Not that it really matters mind you and history is kind of subjective depending where you are being taught it.

Sort of unrelated but from the same vein as my last line there I remember having a discussion about WW2 on here a few years back with some guys from Finland and Russia and there knowledge from what they had been taught compared to what we had been taught was quite fascinating and eye opening.

For the record I grew up before the Internet so everything we learned came from actual books with no real way to see another perspective.

In that regard kids who grew up in the internet era were kind of blessed though it seems to have created a generation with a lot of information but very little actual knowledge because everything is so easy to look up nothing is really retained.

By this I mean they have the answer but can't show there work so to speak.

You sound as old as me!

 

[DarkneT]

The US has been getting pimped for years. Join the crowd.

Remind me again when you have to wake up at 3am and stay up till 6am to watch ufc

 

[boss429]

You sound as old as me!

Haha, I'm 38 so yeah, pretty old around these parts, lol.