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I get your point, and agree with it to a certain extent, but I wouldn't say Fedor had nothing to do with it. Affliction was essentially paying Fedor what the UFC would be paying him, but Fedor failed to produce for them. 100k pay per views. The UFC hasn't had PPVs that low in a number of years and routinely gets about 5x that number. They paid him a lot more than he produced for them.
On the other hand, if the UFC had signed Fedor and had him fight Brock at Cowboys Stadium or another large venue, the PPV numbers would have been through the roof, the live gate through the roof, everyone would have made off handsomely. But Fedor and his team overestimated their own brand and underestimated the UFC's. The UFC brand has proved time and time again that it's what sells PPVs to a large extent. Fedor with the UFC brand behind him sells a fuck ton more than Fedor without the UFC. It's not like boxing where a Mayweather fight sells itself and no one gives a shit who the promoter is. That's why Mayweather and other top pro boxers make much more than the top UFC/MMA fighters.
Solid post, but in regards to the Affliction sales figures you mention, it doesn't include whatever M-1 may have co-promoted/branded and sold outside of the USA. What if some Russian Cable Company paid an enormous sum to air the event?
That is my beef with using US/Canada PPV sales as a benchmark of an event's success. It gives no indication as to how much money was made in Brazil, Korea, Japan, Russia, and Europe. As a matter of fact, we have no idea if those outside markets (maybe by far) exceed revenues generated within the USA; it is very likely they do. So using USA/Canada PPV sales could possibly be some 10-20% of revenues, for all we know, and be an irrelevant figure.