I'm not knocking streamers but you're crazy if you don't think you're hurting the sport and the figh

[IDGETKTFO]

When push comes to shove, and IPTV is no longer a safe option, I will just go back to waiting the next day to DL from the usual places. Back before ESPN+ I used to buy the really stacked must see live PPV's from my cable tv provider. But there is no way on a cold day in hell that i am going to buy a PPV from ESPN+. Its worst then IPTV.

 

[GoGetSomeFansJon]

Dana needs to take notes from Vince McMahon and offer a subscription based fee. I would sub to fight pass if it included ppvs but pink goof is gonna goof

 

[Poatan Power]

To be fair Napster proved a point. Bands where shifting more towards promoting singles instead of full albums and touring leading up to Napsters demise. The future was in streaming and individual single sales.

UFC would be the equavlent of the music industry in 2021 saying "sorry we don't offer affordable and user friendly streaming services like Amazon Music or Spotify, you want to support us you need to buy our CDs for $30 even though we know there's only 3 songs on the CD that you actually want"

I totally agree with your assessment of the UFC, but I don't think that justifies piracy.

Also, the UFC is a live event model, which makes it different -- you can sample music before purchasing, even if the whole album with 3 good songs was $30. In a live sporting event, you can't. It's an unpredictable product to an extent.

I think it would make a lot more sense if they offered "season passes" such as hey pay $400 for a yearly subscription, or $500, or $50 a month, or something that gives you 100% access to every PPV and UFCTV, etc. but they do have to fight piracy tooth and nail. Even if only 1% of illegal streamers would have still purchased, that's a shit ton of money.

It also sucks that ESPN+ is such an awful platform. UFC would have been better off partnering with YouTube lol

 

[560ti]

I totally agree with your assessment of the UFC, but I don't think that justifies piracy.

Also, the UFC is a live event model, which makes it different -- you can sample music before purchasing, even if the whole album with 3 good songs was $30. In a live sporting event, you can't. It's an unpredictable product to an extent.

I think it would make a lot more sense if they offered "season passes" such as hey pay $400 for a yearly subscription, or $500, or $50 a month, or something that gives you 100% access to every PPV and UFCTV, etc. but they do have to fight piracy tooth and nail. Even if only 1% of illegal streamers would have still purchased, that's a shit ton of money.

It also sucks that ESPN+ is such an awful platform. UFC would have been better off partnering with YouTube lol

Yeah i'm in a weird inbetween as well. Normally I don't support piracy but if the UFC puts out a shit business model (90s era PPVS along with ESPN+) then I kinda don't feel bad for them.

It doesn't help that other sports don't pull this crap. With a $15 antenna I can watch NFL, PGA tour, NCAA football, Nascar, Playoff baseball, and Tennis grand slams. Add in an entry level streaming service (for like half the price of a single PPV) and I can watch every game of my local NHL and MLB team.

Dana blaming streaming is a scapegoat for him making his sport more frustrating, expensive, and difficult to watch then 90% of sports leagues.

 

[Prologue]

Let me put this plainly. Streaming and piracy happens when the price for the commodity is too high.
Spotify offered for $10 a month entire music libraries, it dramatically reduced music piracy and people were happy to pay it for the convenience of not having to download and store all their free downloaded music.

Netflix killed a lot of movie piracy, rather than look for shaky links online like Spotify they are convenience at a price that’s enticing enough to deter people away from it.

People stream PPV sports events because quite frankly they aren’t worth $60. Because if they were people would pay, they want to force main cards with WMMA fights no one wants? Nope. If the UFC said for $15 a month you’ll get access to all fight cards they would probably find a lot more people buy it and piracy is minimised

This. Not sure when the ESPN deal is up but when it is I'd like to see them commit to the Fight Pass route. Pay a bit more for everything and go for subscription volume.

Also, things like the ESPN deal, where the UFC has to make a quota for events, is what's watering cards down. Not streamers. The Fight Pass route gives the UFC full control, and they could put on fewer, but higher quality events. So many events these days is just time slots filled by DWCS dudes.

One last, separate thought. Many of us plebs went to the pub to watch PPVs. People would "support" the UFC PPVs, as well as our locals in this way. But with the pandemic and all, its not really been an option.

 

[Poatan Power]

Yeah i'm in a weird inbetween as well. Normally I don't support piracy but if the UFC puts out a shit business model (90s era PPVS along with ESPN+) then I kinda don't feel bad for them.

It doesn't help that other sports don't pull this crap. With a $15 antenna I can watch NFL, PGA tour, NCAA football, Nascar, Playoff baseball, and Tennis grand slams. Add in an entry level streaming service (for like half the price of a single PPV) and I can watch every game of my local NHL and MLB team.

Dana blaming streaming is a scapegoat for him making his sport more frustrating, expensive, and difficult to watch then 90% of sports leagues.

The UFC is worth about what, 4-5 professional sports teams?

How much money do I have to spend per year to watch every single Tampa Bay game if I live in CA? I don't actually know the answer j/w lol

If they could get someone to perfect the pay-for-fights model for UFC I think they could blow up and become way more mainstream. That MAY mean having less fights, or weekly fights for developing talent and PPV's only for big fights.

 

[mjfan23]

You sound like a guy who just bought his first PPV

 

[NoContest]

This thread feels a lot like a bunch of shills decided it was time to strike back with faulty logic and bourgeois moralising. Get rid of leeches like Dana White and pay the guys getting punched in the head what they deserve and piracy will still be morally valid.

 

[Iron Nick]

What's hurting the sport is more than anything Dana White being a greedy goof.

 

[Feardoesnotexistinmydojo]

This. Not sure when the ESPN deal is up but when it is I'd like to see them commit to the Fight Pass route. Pay a bit more for everything and go for subscription volume.

Also, things like the ESPN deal, where the UFC has to make a quota for events, is what's watering cards down. Not streamers. The Fight Pass route gives the UFC full control, and they could put on fewer, but higher quality events. So many events these days is just time slots filled by DWCS dudes.

One last, separate thought. Many of us plebs went to the pub to watch PPVs. People would "support" the UFC PPVs, as well as our locals in this way. But with the pandemic and all, its not really been an option.

Problem with the pub logic is that in Europe these fight cards and main events are on at 4-6am. No ones going to be in the pub for that, nor do they want to watch it live. In boxing and MMA America always exclusively caters to the North American market and leaves out the potential of billions of viewers, even switching the main event to 8pm would open up to a lot more markets

 

[chardog]

streamers are for the i wasnt going to pay for it anyway crowd, I dont believe there is meaningful income to be made by going hardcore and destroying the internet. it costs money to try to stop this, so they'll have to weigh that.

 

[SovereignPhantom]

This. Spotify currently has over 150 million subscribers. I’m certain the vast majority of them illegally downloaded music before because that was most certainly the norm. But when you give easy access for a reasonable monthly fee people will pay and it’s been proven. Exorbitant prices are the reason for a significant portion of illegal streaming/downloads.

Not to mention that while the streaming model is flawed too, there's def a shift in perception from when you're feeling like buying a CD is just supporting the fat cats in suits rather than the artists who mostly made money from touring. There's a lot more to illegal media consumption then everyone wanting free shit lol.

 

[Dirge]

Look I don't stream, i never have and never will and I've been watching MMA since the beginning. I did however pirate DirecTV back in the 90's when it was no longer possible to get UFC PPV events in Canada. However, given I had to pay an arm and a leg to keep it running I don't feel overly guilty.

That said, i don't really have any issue with streamers. PPV events are 70 bucks.. For young fans, that's a lot of fucking money to be spending on what amounts to 3 hours of tv. And really those streamers become fans, attend live events that they pay for, maybe buy fighter merchandise, subscribe to the UFC channel to watch the old archival stuff and most probably end up eventually starting to pay for events.

There is a good parable to this. Book piracy... When Ebooks started coming out on various purchase platforms (Amazon Kindle, B&N Nook and Apple) there were all kinds of efforts made by publishers and authors to go after sharing sites that pirated the books and shared them for free.

But then a funny thing happened. Authors starting seeing huge increases in their book sales once their materials had started being pirated. Why? because people were pirating books, reading them and enjoying the authors. Then they would either start buying the authors books because they were fans or they would grow out of the piracy phase and start buying stuff. As a result many authors are now releasing books on the digital platforms DRM free which means they are easy and simple to share with anyone. The digital book market has exploded globally in part due to piracy.

Even authors that had hard core stances against digital formats for their books like J.K. Rowling eventually realized that their books were being scanned from hardcopy and digitally distributed (for free!) so they had to get on the platform.

I think streaming for the UFC is building the fanbase. Dana and co. know this and are blowing a lot of hot air but ultimately any growth in a fanbase of a televised sport is a good thing.

After all think about it. All the free televised events are being watched by the streamers on their respective cable services. They watch the commercials etc, that indirectly contribute tot he UFC's revenue stream.

 

[GrantB13]

Both sides make valid points. I've never watched a stream for MMA but it's mighty tempting with those ridiculous prices and structure. You pay for something to get the privilege of paying for something else.

If everyone bought the cards they would have more money. The UFC COULD pay the fighters more with that extra money but that absolutely does not mean they will as it would very likely go towards the execs or some other company program and not the fighters. My employer has been making many cuts to different areas of business even though they've been making more money every year for several years. And I look at how much money they show off that they give away to such and such causes every year (many, many millions). They don't put it back into the POS tools we use and they don't put it towards making sure every employee has one of those POS tools without having to scavenge for one just to be able to do basic job tasks.

I don't believe UFC watered down the product because people were stealing. I believe they watered it down because they saw that they can make more money by splitting up one great card into two decent ones. If 1.2 million people bought a card with McGregor and Lesnar but they took each of those and turned it into a 900k McGregor card and a 700k Lesnar card they effectively turned 1.2M buys into 1.6M buys at $70 a person. The filler fights don't deter the casuals who will buy the shittiest cards because their favorite fighter is the headliner.

In the end the idea of exchanging money for a product is that you give the business your money and you get the product. If you don't pay, you're not intended to have the product. The digital realm is tricky because there's not finite quantities of product, but the principle is the same. You don't pay, you don't deserve the product. I believe there's a lot more of a moral/integrity aspect to digital services but it's less harmful than shoplifting.

 

[SovereignPhantom]

I totally agree with your assessment of the UFC, but I don't think that justifies piracy.

Also, the UFC is a live event model, which makes it different -- you can sample music before purchasing, even if the whole album with 3 good songs was $30. In a live sporting event, you can't. It's an unpredictable product to an extent.

I think it would make a lot more sense if they offered "season passes" such as hey pay $400 for a yearly subscription, or $500, or $50 a month, or something that gives you 100% access to every PPV and UFCTV, etc. but they do have to fight piracy tooth and nail. Even if only 1% of illegal streamers would have still purchased, that's a shit ton of money.

It also sucks that ESPN+ is such an awful platform. UFC would have been better off partnering with YouTube lol

When I see Twitter going crazy for ESPN+ going down during a huge PPV, I crack up realizing this is the best they can do with people's hard earned money.

 

[AaandStill]

I'm not giving Dana money. A poor Asian camgirl on Chaturbate gets a better percentage of the revenue than a UFC fighter. And that's after CB cut, her studio cut and bank wire cut. Her prelims are free and her ppv is guaranteed with a finish.

 

[GrantB13]

Problem with the pub logic is that in Europe these fight cards and main events are on at 4-6am. No ones going to be in the pub for that, nor do they want to watch it live. In boxing and MMA America always exclusively caters to the North American market and leaves out the potential of billions of viewers, even switching the main event to 8pm would open up to a lot more markets

They did switch to an hour early years ago but it didn't last long. They said they lost sales or something. Because Americans are the ones who have to pay for most cards and pay much more than anyone else for those same cards.

 

[Prologue]

Problem with the pub logic is that in Europe these fight cards and main events are on at 4-6am. No ones going to be in the pub for that, nor do they want to watch it live. In boxing and MMA America always exclusively caters to the North American market and leaves out the potential of billions of viewers, even switching the main event to 8pm would open up to a lot more markets

Yeah I see that for sure. The pub thing is tough trying to cater to different time zones. Have the fights too early, then they won't be on during peak hours. That said, I'd be happy if main events started at 4pm PST/7pm EST. Happens every once in a while and I kind of prefer it that way. Europe might be a whole different thing all together though with BT Sport and all. Hard to say, I'm not 100% sure how it all works there.

 

[jk7707]

They keep upping the price for PPV's and it'll drive people away/to streaming. There isn't any other sport where watching consistently on TV costs anything close to the UFC.

 

[eighterumg5]

I'm not paying close to 80 bucks on shit cards.