Bellator PPV Buy Prediction

How many buys?

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Trojanlegal said:
You may be right and your Bellator weekend idea may have worked better financially. If Bellator NYC (which has most of Bellator's big stars from MSG) does a worse buyrate than UFC 208 (which was considered a very weak card from Brooklyn), then the Bellator experiment cannot be deemed a success. I don't think PPV will work for Bellator but we will see tonight.
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As Meltzer said. They are hoping for over 200k.
Its possible but there was more buzz for Holly/GDR in NYC than tonight.

I just think it was a weird decision to make by Viacom since they care about TV ratings & basically took two big TV events off TV to experiment in PPV which has proven to be tough without a superstar.

Lets be honest here
They get $25 per PPV
If they do 200k that is $5m.
MSG is the most expensive arena in US to run, so gate will pretty much cover that/production.
Add in they over-pay for names & they might make a few million if they do $200k.
Not bad, but IMO not enough to take away & hurt TV.

People don't get that the reason Bellator can survive is the TV station owns them. That means there is one less piece of the pie to be shared.
They are cheap programming on Fri/Sat nights which are TV's lowest rated.

I think focusing on putting better TV was their way to be "different" from UFC & be seen as more fan friendly.

Instead they charge for Mitrione & 3 guys that should be retired ;)
 
FrankieNYC said:
As Meltzer said. They are hoping for over 200k.
Its possible but there was more buzz for Holly/GDR in NYC than tonight.

I just think it was a weird decision to make by Viacom since they care about TV ratings & basically took two big TV events off TV to experiment in PPV which has proven to be tough without a superstar.

Lets be honest here
They get $25 per PPV
If they do 200k that is $5m.
MSG is the most expensive arena in US to run, so gate will pretty much cover that/production.
Add in they over-pay for names & they might make a few million if they do $200k.
Not bad, but IMO not enough to take away & hurt TV.

People don't get that the reason Bellator can survive is the TV station owns them. That means there is one less piece of the pie to be shared.
They are cheap programming on Fri/Sat nights which are TV's lowest rated.

I think focusing on putting better TV was their way to be "different" from UFC & be seen as more fan friendly.

Instead they charge for Mitrione & 3 guys that should be retired ;)
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Good analysis. You said it better than I could.
 
Bellator has to try PPV cause they are paying fighters far more than they did in the past cause they are bringing in UFC guys.

And really the ratings havent gone up except for Sonnen/Tito and Kimbo really. These fights on TV would do well but guys like Meathead,Davis, Bendo, Punk etc havent done any better ratings than homegrown cheap Bellator guys.

They cant pay these guys more and get the same tv money. They have to do well on PPV to afford all these fighters salaries.

They could do 200k buys, have the mma media screaming success and they might actually have lost money on the show.
 
How do buys work? Will movie theater tickets be factored in? Do people outside of the U.S. (or pretending to be) through youtube get factored into that number?

Or is a buy strictly a purchase through a U.S. cable company?
 
CC27 said:
They could do 200k buys, have the mma media screaming success and they might actually have lost money on the show.
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Probably right. Especially with my limited knowledge of MSG being a venue that keeps a higher % of profits than almost any other venue. If you aren't filling a vast majority of the seats you are better off holding it elsewhere.

Coker said they need to hit 250k; so i'd say that's what they need to do to make profit. Now 200k could maybe be worth while in terms of losing a bit of money but building a brand...arguably. But 250k is probably closer to what is needed for profit.
 
jeicex said:
My biggest concern with this card is that I don't want to have two orgs that I have to buy fights for now. I love the fact that Bellator (besides that one time, and that wasn't worth it at all) is free on Spike. If they keep trying to capitalize on these big names, I fear they will try to do more like this, where they have big Dynamite-like card every six months that I have to shell out 50 bucks for. I root for all MMA orgs (besides ACB for other reasons now) but I find myself struggling to hope that this card is successful
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Well that's what their business plan is. Of course they want to move more and more to a PPV model if they can. And if they are able to do that they are able to steal more fighters from the UFC.

My prediction is 100-150k. Fedor isn't the draw he used to be.
 
jeicex said:
My biggest concern with this card is that I don't want to have two orgs that I have to buy fights for now. I love the fact that Bellator (besides that one time, and that wasn't worth it at all) is free on Spike. If they keep trying to capitalize on these big names, I fear they will try to do more like this, where they have big Dynamite-like card every six months that I have to shell out 50 bucks for. I root for all MMA orgs (besides ACB for other reasons now) but I find myself struggling to hope that this card is successful. I don't want to encourage them. The UFC is hard enough to keep up with, about 60 bucks a month is a noticeable drain. If Bellator wants to slide into the PPV market if this card is successful, I could find that number ramping up to 70-75 bucks a month if you average out the costs, and that's starting to push it for even me, the hardcore that gets every card.

July is already going to be tough, with 213 and 214 within four weeks of each other. If 215 is three weeks later and still on PPV (I doubt it at this rate), I'm not so sure I'll be able to buy every card comfortably anymore. And I don't want to be in a place to have to make that decision about opportunity costs.
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If they are doing 2 ppv's a year for me that's not a concern. If they start increasing that number of shows; then I will agree with you. But for time being there are UFC PPVs that can be skipped and replaced by 2 other stacked cards.

215 for example looks like something that will be terrible based on who is available and how much time they have left to get a card together. So skip that and pick a Bellator NYC.
 
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I would say way below 100,000 buys. Somewhere around 80K sounds about right.
Fedor is not a draw and no body cares about Chael's cringe-worthy BS anymore. So, there won't be much interest.
 
TRT Champion said:
I would say way below 100,000 buys. Somewhere around 80K sounds about right.
Fedor is not a draw and no body cares about Chael's cringe-worthy BS anymore. So, there won't be much interest.
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Really?
You think it does less than Rampage did 2 years ago?
Bellator are bigger now
 
I'm going to watch it on fox sports 2 Latinamerica for free (we'll, kind of, I'm paying my TV subscription and it's the only day I'll watch TV for the whole month).
 
According to Dana, first Bellator PPV did less than 100K.
I know, I now, Dana isn't the best source of info when it comes down to competition's numbers, lol.
 
I went with 100-150K as I have a ton of friends who are into MMA and not a single one of them even know this thing is happening tonight. I haven't seen one single iota of advertising anywhere and that doesn't bode well. Some big names here but every one of them far beyond their prime and some of them haven't fought in quite a while. The longer an older fighter is out the more people just assume they have retired.

Good luck to Bellator but I'm not paying to see this.... I think Wandy and Fedor are going to look terrible (2 of my favorite fighters) and get finished quickly. : (
 
Yeah I really think unless it hits 300k plus I don't see how they honestly make money. 2 Million gate, MSG takes some of that. PPV Provider takes half the PPV buys. You have to pay Chael, Wand, Mike, Davis/Bader, Fedor, Meathead, Lima/Larkin. Even Pico probably gets paid decent.

But I think they fully expect to lose money on this. Even at 250k with the price being 50 bucks, they take home 25 a buy. I mean they pull 9 million if it sold 300,000 with buys and the gate not taking out whatever MSG takes from them.

So maybe they'll make something but I can't imagine much.
 
Meathead Jock said:
Probably right. Especially with my limited knowledge of MSG being a venue that keeps a higher % of profits than almost any other venue. If you aren't filling a vast majority of the seats you are better off holding it elsewhere.

Coker said they need to hit 250k; so i'd say that's what they need to do to make profit. Now 200k could maybe be worth while in terms of losing a bit of money but building a brand...arguably. But 250k is probably closer to what is needed for profit.
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It isn't that MSG keeps a % of profits, it is they charge the highest rent of any arena in US, plus the NYC unions are killers. They also add a premium on top of the rent for TV/PPV broadcast.
They also have OT to consider since the PPV will run to 1am & load-out will be all night ... that cost
WWE stopped doing PPV/TV from there bc Barclays is so much cheaper to run.

Can you link me to Coker saying 250k?
I heard they are hoping for 200k
250k I don't see
 
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TRT Champion said:
According to Dana, first Bellator PPV did less than 100K.
I know, I now, Dana isn't the best source of info when it comes down to competition's numbers, lol.
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Meltzer said 110k & they are hoping for 200k+ tonight
 
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