Should UFC be lowering PPV price, not raising?

[Sakuraba7]

It's insane how much the UFC is milking out of the US fans.

Here in Sweden we pay $32/month which is about the same price that you pay for top soccer leagues and other sport channels. UFC events are usually at 3 am though, so it's on-demand for a couple of days afterwards.

The UFC has always ripped off its fans. For God's sake they have a $100 million/year TV deal (probably doubles in a year time now) and they're still on that 2000s PPV model except its expensive as hell. PRIDE used to put all its events in Japan for free on FujiTV and theirs was an infinitely better product. I used to think UFC needed PPV to survive because they didn't have a major network, well now they do but they're still ripping fans out the ass. Most professional sports rely exclusively on TV deal and maybe an optional subscription to website/channel.

WWE, one of the pioneers of PPV, the model that UFC copied, moved away to a subscription model for its monthly events. How come the UFC gets $100 million for TV, then Fight Pass, merch, and international TV fees on top, and still delivers a mediocre and watered-down product? For the same price as 1 UFC PPV, you can get 5-6 months subcription to HBO, Showtime or WWE Network. For what costs 2 UFC PPVs, you could get both SHO and HBO, that's all your boxing need right there.

 

[boudstyle]

I pay like $20 a month for Fox Sports. It gives me all my football and every UFC event including the PPV live and a delayed broadcast.

 

[BLACKWOLF]

A fight pass discount and a premium membership with free PPVs wouldn’t be a bad idea

 

[jarj]

just raise it to $1 billion, and hope some random rich guy accidentally buys it

 

[Quietus]

Yes especially considering fights are getting pulled from a large % of cards due to injury or missing weight, there were a number of events last year that had their main events taken off. I don't think you can justify the price even when all the fights are on, let alone when fights are off.

 

[andmcq]

In Australia we only pay $49.99AU which is $39.10USD.

 

[fedoriswar37]

They should have a system with 4 major cards a year (stacked with title fights) for 64.99 and a another rate for the rest of the cards . Asking somebody to pay 64$ for some of the cards is ridiculous

 

[juncito]

The fighters on a card don’t impact the price of the ppv. They impact the amount of people willing to pay that price. The ufc knows this. It’s not about valuing the ufc over the fighters. I don’t even know what that means.

The op said should the price lowered when there are shitty cards and my post was in response to the op. You're post is a rebuttal against mine without the op in mind.

 

[King of Fists]

i have little reason to believe that twice as many people would buy a card if it were $30.

and i have every reason to believe that the resentment over the higher priced PPV's would drive some fans bonkers.

alas, the times of stacked cards are over. the good news is, we have more free MMA. accept the good with the bad, i say.
~~~
PS on a barely related topic, i remember when Bushido 9 came out. one of the most stacked events ever. definitely the most stacked LW event ever. it was $20. it barely sold. i think 50k? i cannot find the answer on google.

but the point is, it was $20. and even many knowledgeable MMA fans on sherdog didn't bother with it, mostly because a) it wasn't UFC and b) the time start (Sunday afternoon if my memory serves me correctly). so because it was inconvenient and not UFC, one of the sickest MMA cards ever - at half price - barely sold in the US.

and if it were $10 it wouldn't have sold more.

I think they'd do about 1.3-1.6x the buys if they cut the price in half, which wouldn't really be worth it.

I loved/hated how Pride events were on when they were. You could chain a night of watching UFC into watching Pride when they were on the same day and get bombed in the process, but that usually meant struggling to stay awake, not easy to do after drinking and smoking all night esp in between cards. That long ass gap between when the UFC fights ended and the Pride ones started was a killer.

I'm pretty sure that's why they didn't sell well in the US, that was an awful time to be on for the ppv buying crowd on the east coast. Plus people didn't buy many cards back then period.

 

[TheRassler]

they should copy the WWE Network model.

 

[Pakman]

This.

If you have two or more title fights, I'd handle a slight increase, but the cards are not worth more, and honestly, they would likely sell a lot more with a lower price.

The price keeps people away. At a time when you need more eyes on the fights, they have employed a two-fold system of keeping people away: lack luster cards + high prices.

Thats going to equate to oblivion if it keeps up.

If they wanted to, they could easily have them for like $30-40 even. I don’t know how many PPV’s they have in a year, but it seems like it’s a # that’s close to like 12-14 and sell something via fight pass or something to buy them online n stream them for a bundle price of like 400, they’d make a killing I think. Def get more people paying 400 to get all 12 than having people buy 7 PPVs in a year to equal that amount. I don’t know anyone who buys 7 UFC ppv’s a year.