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Zuffa knows best – WEC PPVs at $45. Everybody has a price…
By Zach Arnold | February 4, 2010
…but I don’t think $45 will generate more than 25,000 PPV buys for the April 24th event with Urijah Faber vs. Jose Aldo.
Then again, Affliction did decent PPV buyrates (not enough to stay in business, however). To Affliction’s credit, they built their deal around the best Heavyweight in the world who had a name from the PRIDE days. Yes, WEC has the best talent at 145, but it’s America and the heavyweights still draw more interest.
Even if Zuffa gets a 50% cut of the PPV profits at $45 a clip, it becomes an issue of math regarding whether or not the move to PPV becomes more profitable. We’ve seen UFC do some ridiculous business in terms of converting cable viewers to PPV customers (UFC 100 will forever be the peak example of this), but it’s hard to see how a largely “I won’t pay a dime” audience on Versus TV converts a lot of the TV viewers into PPV customers. If WEC draws on a good day 500,000 viewers, 25,000 PPV buys would be about 5% of the audience. Sounds about right? Over or under 25,000?
I don’t have a large issue with the $45 price point in the following sense… If they charged $30 for the show, would they really entice more people to buy the show? It’s hard to believe that a drop off in price point would generate any more buys than will happen. Just like with WWE, if you want to pay to watch the show, you will pay to watch the show. If it was $70 or $80, OK, that’s one thing, but $50 right now seems to be the price point range for most PPV events. Let’s say you do drop the price point from $45 to $30 — that means you would need 3 people to buy the show at the lower price to match the 2 people you counted on to buy it at $45. Do you think that there would be enough fans to make up for the 50% slack to buy the show? Doubtful.
Many fighters in WEC said they wanted to be on PPV. Well, here you go. Their wish has been granted. But it’s not under very good circumstances. The 4/24 date opens up Zuffa to get hammered by Strikeforce on CBS (should CBS choose to run that date). We already know that Strikeforce’s show last December from San Jose matched the same amount of viewers as the WEC show from LV did on Versus (Donald Cerrone vs. Ed Ratcliff). By opening themselves up to Strikeforce on CBS, it will no doubt create the urge in Zuffa circles to run UFC programming on Spike against the CBS show. By doing that, Zuffa would be essentially cannibalizing the WEC show and would also give Strikeforce a bump up in media coverage because of the easy storyline that the media would bite on.
Which may be the point of Zuffa’s experiment here. They accomplished keeping off competition from Versus by having WEC as the vehicle to do it. Anything else WEC-related is gravy for them. If the PPV experiment works, great, they make money and the fighters stay happy. If the PPV experiment fails (most likely), then they can turn around and say hey, the marketplace has a verdict, and it’s they don’t want to pay to see you fight. Of course, as alluded to up above, UFC’s brand is so strong (it’s not a meme) for bigger shows that without the UFC label, it’s going to be really difficult for Faber and company to get the PPV buys.
It’s not as if you can tell Faber, Torres, etc. that they need to go out and sell the tickets and PPV buys. They’ve done everything they can already to put on the most exciting fights possible. They had their chance to go to Strikeforce and they decided to stay with WEC. Will it prove to be a mistake for the fighters?
The odds are likely that WEC on PPV will struggle, but it doesn’t mean that I am rooting against the fighters. Far from it — I’d love to see the shows do really well, but the tea leaves suggest otherwise. Which leads us to the long-ball question — if a PPV bombs or you have a couple of WEC PPVs that fail to meet standards internally in Zuffa, then what? WEC keeps saying that they are in it for the long haul and are starting to expand worldwide through various TV contracts, but if the league stagnates business-wise then what? Will a vaunted talent exodus happen with WEC guys demanding to fight on UFC shows?
One thing is for sure — the WEC PPV announcement got zero air time on American sports media. When I saw the “MMA” tab on ESPN’s news ticker yesterday, I thought the WEC PPV announcement would be covered. Nope. What was ESPN’s MMA story? That Jose Canseco wrote on his Twitter account that he wanted to fight Herschel Walker.
I guess I may have to show Herschel Walker who the real bad Boy of the Sports industry is. If the powers that be are reading, I want in.
My people spoke with Cesar Gracie today. Looks like things are moving at a fast pace. Dan Black and Cesar seem to have a plan together.
The irony of Canseco mentioning Cesar Gracie’s name is that Cesar can’t get any media ink for his boy Nick Diaz’s win over Marius Zaromskis at last weekend’s Strikeforce event. The two big stories coming out of that event: 47-year old Herschel Walker beating a jaybrone and Rex Ryan getting fined $50,000USD for flipping the bird. I got a kick out of how many times the general US sports media called Strikeforce’s event “the Miami MMA show” on ESPN, about 8 million times.
As for Herschel’s response to Canseco…
“Jose wants to do this for money,” Walker said. “My thing is, if he wants to fight me and he thinks it’s going to be a circus, I will hurt him. This is not a joke, I will hurt him, because I don’t do things as a joke. I don’t do this as entertainment. If we go out and play a flag football game, that’s entertainment. We’re having fun. But this MMA fighting, is real. You can get hurt, and he doesn’t understand it. I do this as an MMA fighter, not as a joke.”
Jose Canseco vs. Herschel Walker is getting more sports media attention than the WEC… and we’re in 2010. Ugh.
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, UFC, WEC, Zach Arnold | 37 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I’m addicted to MMA worse than Amy Winehouse is addicted to crack so of course I’ll pony up the money to see the show. But I’m in the minority that just love watching MMA, the general public won’t watch WEC for free much less spend the same amount the UFC show that month will cost. So if you order both shows you’ll owe your cable company $90. Not happening for the non-addicts, so they’ll choose one and the choice will be the UFC show if anything at all.
I say the show does under 25K. Maybe 20,000 tops. I think that’s what PRIDE shows used to get in the US.
How much better would Walker have done with Hong Man Choi than Canseco on that night?
WAR CANSECO
They should bring in Hong Man Choi for Walker’s next fight so we can see.
^ Post tumor, the man is atrophying over time.
He wouldn’t be the same Techno Goliath who did battle with the former Bash Brother.
According to mmalogic, the April 24th date is not available to Strikeforce on CBS. Which is why they announced it so early without a worry.
Every few years in this sport, there comes a month or two that could potentially change the landscape of the sport. April 2010 is one of those months. We could very well see a very different Zuffa.
1) WEC – By putting on a $45 PPV, they are basically letting the WEC sink or swim. My guess is that it will sink, and then they can use the PPV buyrate to go back to Urijah Faber, Versus, and even SpikeTV and say: “See, this isn’t working, we need to make a change.”
That change will likely be a restructuring of Zuffa. We are likely to see all 7 weight classes under the UFC banner. Those fights will happen on both Versus and SpikeTV (assuming the UFC on Versus show gets solid ratings). I’m not sure if the WEC will still be around. My best guess is that it is officially turned into a feeder organization and used the house talent to get them ready for the bigger show.
2) The UFC is going to be countering Strikeforce. My guess is that either the Abu Dhabi show will be a direct counter OR they are going to set up a different card with Kimbo Slice on it and go for a juggular with a huge ratings draw on SpikeTV.
The goal is likely to hurt Strikeforce’s target audience on CBS (young males). That demographic is the only thing keeping Strikeforce on CBS. If it gets slashed considerably, Strikeforce has no future on CBS…. It also means they are sitting on contracts for Fedor Emelianenko and Dan Henderson that they likely can’t afford for typical Showtime cards.
Of course, this might backfire. The UFC might get good ratings but might not make a big enough dent into Strikeforce’s young demographic ratings. IF THIS HAPPENS…
It’s all out war. The UFC has never issued war on another organization. They have always let the companies implode themselves. It is always possible that Coker has a good combination of brains and luck to not have that happen. The UFC has never tried to raid their talent. They have never increased their payscale to compete with another company.
We will see the UFC actively try to raid Strikeforce’s talent. This includes signing talent that has already signed with EA MMA. This includes upping their payscale in order to sign anybody credible they can get their hands on.
April is an exciting month.
My prediction is…
WEC gets between 50,000 and 75,000 PPV buys. Which will be decent, but not enough to save the structure of the company.
Strikeforce is going to have decent ratings but not good enough to justify a 3rd show on CBS. They might even slightly beat out the UFC in the overall rankings and people will claim it is a victory. But they will take enough of a slash in the key demographic that CBS will be done with them.
50k would be an unabashed success; I think 20k sounds about right, maybe even lower.
I’m guessing 1,253 people buy the show.
@45 Huddle
“It’s all out war. The UFC has never issued war on another organization.”
Putting together an event on the fly featuring Anderson Silva moving up a weight class appears to me to be a declaration of war…
“Strikeforce is going to have decent ratings but not good enough to justify a 3rd show on CBS.”
I highly doubt that CBS will bail on Strikeforce if the April show does anything resembling ‘decent’ numbers.
Let’s not forget that they stuck with EliteXC after their flat-out abysmal second CBS show. If they were willing to give EliteXC a third show after the AWFUL ratings their second show pulled, then I think Strikeforce is safe.
I predict around 10k buys.
“Putting together an event on the fly featuring Anderson Silva moving up a weight class appears to me to be a declaration of war…”
That’s war?
The UFC never once tried to match an offer Affliction made to their leaving athletes. Heck, they let Tim Sylvia off his contract…
When the UFC changes it’s pay structure or gets rid of the EA Game rule in order to lure Nick Diaz, Gilbert Melendez, Jay Hieron, Gegard Mousasi, Robbie Lawler, Jake Shields, and maybe a few more guys over…. Then you know it’s game on….
It should be noted that the WEC show is reported to being budgeted as profitable as long as there are 50,000 buys and that the model they’re shooting for isn’t UFC, but Latin Fury.
In short; I expect nothing hugely massive to come out of April. Expect August to look a lot like it.
August? Is that when Fedor’s contract is up?
I won’t buy the WEC PPV. I’ll look for fights the day after if I hear they’re good. Those guys get paid so little that 20,000 buys (I think they’ll be hard pressed to do much better than 30k) will probably be a break even point.
I think Strikeforce has a lot riding on the April show. The reason Elite XC got another shot after their awful second show is that all of the commercial inventory got sold for the first and second shows.
I heard from an in the know friend that CBS was having trouble selling the inventory to the December show in the weeks before the event. If you recall that show there were lots of video game ads and duplicate ads. Suggesting that the price was low and companies were getting bundle deals.
If that’s the case, Strikeforce is going to need to deliver a big audience.
It’s a loaded WEC card, so I can pretty much guarantee the fights will be amazing. In fact, this WEC PPV card might well be the most exciting fight card of the year. It’s in the must buy category for me.
Also if you have any first time friends, it’s probably the perfect card to introduce MMA to them. Highly skilled fighters in exciting matches is the perfect combination to get somebody hooked.
45 Huddle is the only guy who believes the “EA Sports” rule. If Mousasi’s contract was up tomorrow, UFC would be interested. Same with the other guys you mentioned.
Trigg just got announced for the EA game this week and is fighting on UFC’s PPV Sat. He claims he signed the contract before his UFC deal, but why did it take so long to come out?
“According to mmalogic, the April 24th date is not available to Strikeforce on CBS. Which is why they announced it so early without a worry.”
LOL why do you still quote this douchebag with impunity? He has proven time and time again that he knows nothing about the inner workings or plans of the UFC. He makes all these vague predictions that mouth-breathers start jerking off over b/c they think they’re hearing “inside scoops” from an insider, when it’s really some desperate fanboy loser trying to be “cool” (how you’re cool on an anonymous blog is another question altogether) to a group of other losers. Surely he must know things about the BIZ though, he uses “monetize” and “metrics” all the time…and once he put up an MSPaint graph to prove and argument that was later proven to be way off.
Did you also see the post from the people who looked up the programming blocks on CBS for the 24th? Golf from 12-6pm and then Lifetime movies.
There was also a post from someone that works in the same office as the promotional partner for CBS:
“I asked the guys across the hall from me who work on CBS promotional spots what they have scheduled on the 24th. Their producer gave me the schedule. It doesn’t actually mean anything, but it is what they have listed in-house right now. Of course, it is not as if I am speaking to Leslie Moonves, so take it with a grain of salt.”
I think I’d take the word of someone that actually knows something and can back up their source than the guy who makes vague assertions, with no sources offered and is always wrong.
“45 Huddle is the only guy who believes the “EA Sports” rule.”
So does Jay Hieron when he said that him being signed to EA MMA was the sticking point with Zuffa.
Look, I think if a big enough star comes along, they will absolutely break that rule.
However, if they start breaking it for lesser fighters, it’s because they just want to hurt Strikeforce.
The Gaijin,
So you are bashing me for referencing an internet poster…. by referencing an internet poster?
45,
I think Gaijin is referencing another internet poster only because you quoted one in the first place who was proved wrong by others when it came to this particular topic. Normally I find your posts here to be quite informative, but this one it almost seems like you jumped the gun a bit.
Maybe WEC could pull this off with their payroll being less than Affliction’s was. I want to see the Walker/ Canseco fight in a Wrestlecrap way
“The Gaijin,
So you are bashing me for referencing an internet poster…. by referencing an internet poster?”
I’m not so much bashing you big cat, as I am still baffled by your worshipping and adherence at the altar of mmalogic.
Either your ability to comprehend a simple point is woefully inept, or you have a wonderful talent for distorting someone else’s point…
Regardless the point being – he has been proven time and time again to be totally wrong and not have some inside scoop, yet you still quote him as this reliable, trustworthy, unquestionable source – when his entire vaguely worded gloating about inside info was blown to smithereens by someone who did 2 minutes of legwork on it and backed it up with a source.
LOL at 45 Huddle still quoting mmalogic.
I agree with Gaijin, that douchebag has been wrong again and again.
Oh, and for those not keeping count, there are 3 current UFC fighters in the EA Sports MMA game: Randy, Vlad, and Trigg. Expect a couple more.
IMDB shows 4/25, not 4/24, as the air date for the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie on CBS, and those movies have run on Sunday nights in the past, not Saturday. The only upcoming CBS special I can think of that might be scheduled for 4/24 would be the Brooks & Dunn concert that CBS is taping on 4/19 for “broadcast at a later date”. Last year on Saturday, April 25, CBS ran a Barbra Streisand concert from 2006, so I guess the Brooks & Dunn concert might be scheduled for 4/24, but that hardly seems like a program that couldn’t be bumped back a week.
The only high-rated programming that CBS has run on Saturdays in April during the past three years has been the NCAA Final Four games. Everything else they’ve aired in that time frame has been reruns of their popular police procedurals or “48 Hours Mysteries”, so it really doesn’t seem likely that they’ve got something so great planned for 4/24 that it couldn’t be pre-empted for Strikeforce.
PLEASE! I don´t come on this site to read rumors by mmalogic. What is this?
Herschel v Canseco will be epic! I hope both are in the EA game.
Strikeforce: Miami had a gate slightly above $300,000….. Not good. Sold slightly less than 5,000 tickets.
It will be above 100,000.
You guys are really underestimating the power of a fight card on saturday night. This will be the jump off point of the WEC. I know most of the guys on here like to bash most things Zuffa, but this card is gonna be freaking awesome.
The UFC will push this fight card to no end, and Urijah Faber is somewhat of a star already.
I definately think you guys are underestimating the WEC.
“I definately think you guys are underestimating the WEC.”
No one’s underestimating anything. The facts are that WEC has always got abysmal TV ratings, even though WEC usually has more better fight cards than any other promotions out there. The PPV will more than likely be awesome, but let’s face facts; their ppv numbers will be low, and less than 100,000. They will probably be marginally better than most TNA ppvs get.
Isnt this the weekend before Mayweather-Mosley (which is 1 week before a UFC mega event)? I doubt most consumers want to spend 3 Saturday nites in a row watching fights, and if they have to sacrifice one of the three, they will sacrifice WEC.
So April 10th is the Abu Dhabi supercard with two title bouts featuring two of the UFC’s most popular fighters. Then April 24 will be WEC on PPV. May 1st is the Mayweather fight. May 8th is Shogun/Machida 2 featuring Kimbo.
Thats a four week period with four PPV’s. Thats a huge as of $200 for all four shows, at a time when a lot of people would have to chose one or the other if there were only two event in that time period.
I can’t see many fans taking a WEC show over UFC 112 or 113. It’s just not happening. Keep in mind that there’s hardly an MMA drought around that time either. You have three free Zuffa shows in March, a can’t-miss UFC 111, the free Strikeforce card in April and a big UFC towards the end of May. There’s an overload of MMA between March and May…I just cannot see the UFC putting a WEC show in the mix with any posotive expectations.
“IMDB shows 4/25, not 4/24, as the air date for the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie on CBS, and those movies have run on Sunday nights in the past, not Saturday.”
Sorry – it actually 48 hrs mystery…whatever, same difference, point being its not like CBS is married to the program that’s on that night.
If Coca-Cola comes out with a new drink, they for branding reasons call it “Coca~Cola Arriani Celeste”. Do they sell it at a discounted price right off the bat? or do they charge you the same as they do for Coke Classic?
You gotta sell all your brands as equal regardless of how much one brings in over the other, at the end of the day it’s all about profits. If Zuffa charged you 30 bucks today, then 45 for a Jaime Varner fake-a-thon afterwards 6 months down the road, we’d all be bitching about the price hike being unjustified. $45 bucks seems to be the going trend for top tier special live events for North American PPVs. UFC, WWE,Boxing(abit more I know)& now WEC. We’ve paid 45 bucks before for way shitter events than the WEC show.
Personally I would have liked the aggressive approach and sold the event for 30 bucks and run a 2 hour hype block on Versus as well as Spike with Cerrone/Henderson 1, Aldo’s last 3 fights,& Buttchin/Assuncao as prime examples of what you’ll see when “The UFC presents WEC…”. Then the whole hightlight training camp hype hour long setup.
TV spots like that push UFC events into the 400k range, why couldn’t a WEC event w/ piggyback marketing pull 300k @ 30 a pop?
If this PPV does more than 50k, I’ll be shocked.
I think overall, I’m a pretty typical fan of MMA at this point — much less “hardcore” than I used to be — and I can’t be bothered to remember to watch WEC live on free TV much less having to pay $45 for it.
[…] but from a business perspective it makes a decent amount of sense. Here’s Zach Arnold’s pragmatic take: If they charged $30 for the show, would they really entice more people to buy the show? It’s hard […]
Grape Knee High really summed me up with his post–I am hardcore, but not as hardcore as I was, and I forget when the WEC is on live on Versus. Market is too saturated for people to pay 45 dollars to watch something they are used to seeing for free. I dont know why they dont just merge teh UFC and teh WEC..
“Market is too saturated for people to pay 45 dollars to watch something they are used to seeing for free. I dont know why they dont just merge teh UFC and teh WEC..”
If they merged the 2, then you would be paying for Faber/Aldo anyways. Either way, they are not giving that fight away for free.
I agree with you that there is too much MMA out there to ask people to pay for something that use to be free. I just wonder if people will say the same thing when Strikeforce attempts to make that move.
“mmalogic”
LOL.
The guy who said that he would quit posting if Fedor next fight was not in the UFC after the demise of Affliction, which was “guaranteed” according to him?
The guy who said that EA Sport would be rebranded into a WEC game? (seriously?)
You have to be very very naive to believe him.
WEC PPV will not do big numbers, and I think that eventually, the UFC will have to take the top fighters and turn it into a farm system.