UFC's Dwindling Attendance in Japan (2012-2017)

Bogeyman said:
Was it really on at 6am? If that's true then there's your answer.

I know that this card was on FOX. They seem to have moved all of what previously would have been Fight Pass cards over to FOX, so that's why it would have been on at 6am. In my opinion the FOX deal has been terrible for the UFC, fight night cards are now unwatchable because of the constant breaks. A few years ago, a fight night card could be just as good as a numbered card. Now they're nearly all complete garbage and when their on in a country other than the USA, the times are changed in a way that makes the locals lose interest.
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They're making $100 mill a year from the FOX deal.
What's terrible is they're still making you pay $60 a month for the PPV. Fight Pass isn't even included. No one else is doing that. WWE Network is on subscription, and its 1/6th the cost with 10x as much content. HBO and SHO are on subscription.

The time changes are only an issue when they do Japan when they hold it in the morning to live broadcast at night in the States. Since its like 12 hour time difference. When they do the shows in other countries like Central Europe or elsewhere in Asia, they hold it on the local time and just air it on Fight Pass, or rebroadcast on Fox Sports at an appropriate time on delay.
 
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Undying Poster said:
Also, MMA was never nearly as popular as Kickboxing. In fact I recall back in the day from people who actually knew about JMMA would criticize PRIDE for being shitty promoters and not promoting their guys like K-1 did.

That really opened my eyes because in comparison to what was happening in America, PRIDE seemed incredibly well promoted and well paid. But K-1 guys were bringing in more money and had commercials, TV appearances, products, etc
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That's cause PRIDE didn't have their fighters act like clowns on variety shows, and do monkey skits like Bob Sapp did. They promoted their fighters very professionally. Not to mention, the reason K-1 had fighters with a bigger name is cuz it was the same 10 guys in every WGP. While PRIDE had more guys coming in and out.

K-1 did have MAX, which had Masato who was an icon appearing in all sorts of press and TV, mainly for his looks more than anything. PRIDE wasn't trying to find pretty boys, Gomi and Sakuraba were enough, they just didn't have the "look" to garner some of the celebrity attention. Its like what UFC did with Rousey, PRIDE never had that.
 
UFC puts on a shit show compared to what Pride used to do and RIZIN current produces.
 
Theres legit documentaries about how the Japanee go hard for FADS and then bang, they vanish. Thats what PRIDE was.
 
a little off topic but its on my bucket list to go to japan and dick down some jap girls, they love americans
 
covenant said:
Theres legit documentaries about how the Japanee go hard for FADS and then bang, they vanish. Thats what PRIDE was.
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then why havent baseball and soccer vanished as fads? Not to mention sumo wrestling which dates back to 1500 years.
 
Is Normal when you give them below average cards. Come on, these guys were used to Pride. Now get Fight Pass.
 
Gokhan Saki vs Shogun Rua
Mark Hunt vs Cain Velasquez
Teruto Ishihara vs BJ Penn
Seo Hee Ham vs Kailin Curran
Michelle Waterson vs Carla Esparza

Done and done
 
kimocomplex said:
Gokhan Saki vs Shogun Rua
Mark Hunt vs Cain Velasquez
Teruto Ishihara vs BJ Penn
Seo Hee Ham vs Kailin Curran
Michelle Waterson vs Carla Esparza

Done and done
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Sounds good.

When Shogun gets hurt then Okami steps in.
 
Doesn't every mma promotion over a number of years decline to the point of going out of business in Japan? Maybe the Japanese are just not that into mma...
 
Bogeyman said:
Was it really on at 6am? If that's true then there's your answer.

I know that this card was on FOX. They seem to have moved all of what previously would have been Fight Pass cards over to FOX, so that's why it would have been on at 6am. In my opinion the FOX deal has been terrible for the UFC, fight night cards are now unwatchable because of the constant breaks. A few years ago, a fight night card could be just as good as a numbered card. Now they're nearly all complete garbage and when they're on in a country other than the USA, the times are changed in a way that makes the locals lose interest.
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Is it a Fox thing to not show fighter entrances/walkout music? Because it seems like they just show commercials forever and then the fighters are in the cage. Like what the fuck, that's one of my favorite parts of the show.
 
leto1776 said:
The "90k attendance" event that Pride nuthuggers like to brag about was actually put on by K-1.
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That's a lie by omission. The event was co-promoted by PRIDE and K-1, more specifically by DSE and FEG. It was called "Dynamite!" in Japan, actually the full name is "Dynamite! Biggest Mixed Martial Arts World Cup - Summer Night Fever in the National Stadium" (neither K-1 nor PRIDE were officially part of the event's name).

The DVD was published by a company called Fauvlic. The hands-on production of the event (pyrotechnics, ring entrances, camera crew, etc.) was actually done by DSE.

The three biggest fights on the card were Sakuraba vs Cro Cop, Yoshida vs Gracie and Nogueira vs Sapp. So in the three biggest fights, there were 4 fighters under contract with PRIDE/DSE and 2 with K-1/FEG (Sapp and Cro Cop).

Attendance was claimed as 91107 by the promoter, there is also an unsourced (to my knowledge) attendance figure of 71000 floating around online.
 
Probably didn´'t help but every main event looked weaker by year
 
leto1776 said:
Business wise? Event the well known shows like Shooto, Deep and Pancrase do what would be regional show numbers in the U.S. They have been for years. When Pride went bust, the market went with it. MMA was a fad in Japan. Kickboxing was always more popular. The "90k attendance" event that Pride nuthuggers like to brag about was actually put on by K-1.
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There were many PrideFC events that were not co-promotions with K-1 that had a good live gate from 30-50k in attendence. And the Japanese crowd numbers for K-1 have also fallen in tandem with MMA making it just as much as a fad. K-1 hasn't had a grand prix tournament in years and is focusing on lower weight classes.
 
rorschach51 said:
Is it a Fox thing to not show fighter entrances/walkout music? Because it seems like they just show commercials forever and then the fighters are in the cage. Like what the fuck, that's one of my favorite parts of the show.
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Yeah, anything that's not fighting is advertisements. That wasn't the case with their previous television partner. I think that they walk a very fine line with it, I have completely switched off a lot of their fight night cards because I was unwilling to watch 45 minutes of advertising for 10 minutes of a fight. It becomes unwatchable at that point.
 
Pyreen said:
..........
Attendance was claimed as 91107 by the promoter, there is also an unsourced (to my knowledge) attendance figure of 71000 floating around online.
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I don't think the stadium could fit 91k and 70-80k is more realistic. It was held in Shinjuku Tokyo stadium which had to be reconfigured for extra seating capacity (the centre and the field).

And iirc at the time, UFC were having to paper their events heavily as much as 30-50% of their "sold out" 15-20k figure given by Dana in the post fight press conference. After a while the UFC told the stadiums not to tell journalists the papered numbers any more.
 
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