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Report: UFC 161 & 163 Ratings Flop, Do Under 200k PPV Buys

Damianj said:
Do you realize how many people have to be paid to do one of these events? You're talking about 100's of people, staff, etc that require a healthy salary to do their jobs. The UFC also does not receive 100% of the PPV fee, they receive a small percentage and the cable companies get the rest.

Some of you have no clue how expensive it is to put on one of these events. At 200K buys, I'd be willing to bet they barely broke even.
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Didn't they release math on a Fuel show earlier this year suggesting ~125,000 buys as the break even point?
 
Damianj said:
Do you realize how many people have to be paid to do one of these events? You're talking about 100's of people, staff, etc that require a healthy salary to do their jobs. The UFC also does not receive 100% of the PPV fee, they receive a small percentage and the cable companies get the rest.

Some of you have no clue how expensive it is to put on one of these events. At 200K buys, I'd be willing to bet they barely broke even.
Click to expand...

Implying the UFC doesn't make serious bank from every sponsor laced on the mat, from every product they name drop in commentary, their fee from sponsors appearing on fighter shorts, their branded product line, etc, etc......also, how many shows are they putting on a year now? PPV sales aren't nearly their only income stream.
 
i bet 163 had a ton of ufc.com buys from asia and brazil
are those included when they say 200k buys??
 
Game over, man.
 
Damianj said:
Do you realize how many people have to be paid to do one of these events? You're talking about 100's of people, staff, etc that require a healthy salary to do their jobs. The UFC also does not receive 100% of the PPV fee, they receive a small percentage and the cable companies get the rest.

Some of you have no clue how expensive it is to put on one of these events. At 200K buys, I'd be willing to bet they barely broke even.
Click to expand...

They made money. Even at 150,000 buys they pull in 4.5 million. 60.00 - 30.00(provider cut) X 150000. plus the gate(unknown), sponsors, etc... also at that low of a buy rate there was very little if any PPV bonus paid out. Even a card at this level makes money, mostly due to the lack of purse paid out.
 
Just for comparison, last year's WWE Summerslam did about 350,000 buys. Wrestlemania did 1.3 million.

It's tough when the UFC spams the market with so many shows. I think the biggest "problem" is that there is no difference in quality between PPV shows and free TV shows... heck the free TV shows usually have higher quality top to bottom, so why would a fringe fan shell out $50+ when he can get his fix for free every couple of months?

kimocomplex said:
i bet 163 had a ton of ufc.com buys from asia and brazil
are those included when they say 200k buys??
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I could be wrong, but I believe UFC is on regular TV, not PPV, in most international markets, including Brazil.

CC27 said:
WHy do people keep saying watered down cards? Do you see the cards coming up?

These are two cards that got smashed by injuries and were always expected to be the lowest PPV of the year. But people keep running with this watered down card bullshit.

164 watered down? the Fox cards watered down? 166? 165 167 168, the fight nights? These are watered down cards?
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I am with you here. Most people drastically overplay the idea that cards have been watered down recently. The UFC has always put on its share of shitty PPVs. For example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFC_60

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFC_78

Those are some shitty cards. But UFC 60 did 620,00 fucking PPV buys and 78 did 400,000! The quality of the PPV product is not the main problem. I don't know what is.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
the UFC can't be expected to hit it out of the park with every card.

Some cards will only appeal to the hardcore fans and do low numbers. The majority of their cards to decent to good numbers.
 
Bellator can't be happy to see numbers like that either. It only makes things worse for them.
 
flop? if u were able to pull off even one of those events ud be loaded. not a flop...
 
i suspect those numbers are on the high end as well. i would bet its more like 160-170k for 163 and than the 35k less for ufc 161.
 
UFC needs reduce the number of events on PPV...
 
I honestly can't remember the last time they had a PPV that I thought was worth $50 on paper. Cards are weak lately, most of the good ones are free.
 
both cards weren't that good, not surprised that they didn't do well. hopefully this will lead to the ufc putting together more high quality events.
 
It doesn't make sense how a card like Fox sports 1 was free, then you wanna try and charge for Evans/Hendo? No thanks. UFC is too proud to bit the bullet and lower the PPV costs sometimes when the event is going to shit from injuries and such
 
Hans Gercmiov said:
Well both cards sucked on paper. 200k buys is still like $9M gross. I think they'll be ok.
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lose 50% to the distributor

and there are loads of costs (production, advertising and salaries)

161 likely made a loss

163 might have done too

cu2MDVO.jpg
 
CinemaKingdom said:
Why anyone would order any ufc PPVs is beyond me. Total waste of money. I've been a fan of MMA since the first few UFCs came out but none of these cards are worth buying. People seem to forget how stacked Pride cards used to be, even UFC cards, now you get 1 or 2 big name fights and thats about it. I wouldn't even watch most of them for free.
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Mr badass over here. Why watch MMA at all?
 
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