UFC PPV Production Cost Breakdown: 145,000 Buys Required to Break Even

[LampShade94]

no logical reason.

Umm yes there is. Even the lowest paid fighters arn't quitting and going elsewhere, so clearly the small prices they are receiving is enough to keep them around. You also arn't factoring in the UFC's G&A Expenses (lease expenses, transportation expenses for shipping their equipment all over the place, Staff Salaries - Dana White needs to get paid, accountants for payroll, etc). Lets not forget direct costs like AIRFARE, which I'm sure is a huge one. Surely these fighters arn't paying for flights out of their own pockets. Pretty sure Dana White isn't sitting coach. Hotel fees as well.

These expenses each month are probably massive. If they make extra money in a PPV, they have to hang on to whatever they can get. The small breakdown TS provides is not even close to what it takes the UFC to break even. You gotta consider the company as a whole.

 

[blokeybloke]

I wonder why the Fertittas have never built an arena at one of their own Casino's

 

[tenniswhiz]

I don't remember Pride spending much on advertising their PPV's. Many of their events would have been on at very inconvenient hours in other parts of the world; remember Spoiler forums and all the threats of spoilers being banned?

They also sold tons of DVD's and VHS's. There was no youTube for most of Pride's life. Fans HAD to get their hands on a solid copy to watch those fights.
They also sold out 20,000 seats in Saitama Arena several times.

That was serious money they must have made. Some might even call it Yakuza level money.

 

[clift]

Hilarious figures. According to that chart the only means of revenue for th ufc is the gate and PPV's. Guess all that sponsorship that you see in all their adds, banners, posters etc is worth nothing, plus all the adds we hear constantly from Harley Davidson and random movies during the ppv. Id say it costs them close to nothing for advertising by the time you see the money from all the adds they have for their sponsors. Lets not forget the DVDs and gear you can buy with ufcs logo, the online video access, multiple deals with networks and associated advertising dollars

That's the most laughable breakdown I've ever seen, the ufc would be losing money if that were the case.

 

[clift]

Thanks for posting this, but honestly, this is a bit of a joke, and pure propaganda.

VERY FEW PPV's are going to have a $750 K gate, much less gate plus sponsors. Shit, a PPV is probably generating over $750.000 in sponsorship $ alone for the UFC. Rousey vs Carmouch was the only PPV this year with a gate under $2.4 million. Silva vs Weidman was almost $5 million.

As far as sponsorship is concerned, that's a very low figure. Harley Davidson is probably paying that themselves to advertise, let alone the multitude of companies on the banners and shorts. Back a little while ago I saw a post claiming sponsors had to pay 500k to the ufc to be allowed to sponsor a fighter, thus the reason the fighters need to have approved sponsors.

 

[Bigj383]

Terrible chart is terrible. There is no factual basis to those figures. But yes Pride and Affliction PPVs lost tons of money more than that chart shows.

 

[Bigj383]

Pride didn't generate revenue form PPVs until later. They relied on TV deals so the model does not apply to them.

Pride never made money from PPVs they relied on their TV deal. Once they lost that they lost their shirt and had to sell.

 

[KimuraArmLock]

Still can believe I allowed myself to buy that shit card. My justifiable thinking was at least we get a free ufc on fs1 coming up soon but that card was so bad it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I cant blame you. I would be disappointed if I paid for that card also. Wonder if this is a sign of things to come as there need to be more cards to fill the TV spots?

 

[axion]

You're forgetting the other revenue for UFC on FOX - Money from the Fox deal

And I'm sure fighter purses and production would have been higher than the 700k gate

No, I didn't. I was just using it to show how ridiculous the gate revenue number was. The 2 previous shows were 1.2m and 1.5m. No PPV is going to do 750k.

Cooks explained in more detail.

Rousey vs Carmouch was the only PPV this year with a gate under $2.4 million. Silva vs Weidman was almost $5 million.

And this is before you start to add up all the money they make selling UFC swag at these things.

Or put another way, they come pretty fucking close to breaking even most of the time without a single PPV dollar. Which makes sense, when you consider that there are other MMA orgs out there surviving and turning a profit without PPV's

In places like Japan they are actually paying money out of pocket to put their product on TV.

Got a source for that? It may have been that way before but I think the Wowow deal should see them making money with all the content they're providing.

 

[Funkasaurus]

Hilarious figures. According to that chart the only means of revenue for th ufc is the gate and PPV's. Guess all that sponsorship that you see in all their adds, banners, posters etc is worth nothing, plus all the adds we hear constantly from Harley Davidson and random movies during the ppv. Id say it costs them close to nothing for advertising by the time you see the money from all the adds they have for their sponsors. Lets not forget the DVDs and gear you can buy with ufcs logo, the online video access, multiple deals with networks and associated advertising dollars

That's the most laughable breakdown I've ever seen, the ufc would be losing money if that were the case.

Take another look

 

[Cosmahorio]

Hmmm interesting.

May explain the exorbitant PPV/ticket prices.

One would assume they'd start stacking their PPV's.

 

[Maybeshewill**]

Lmao @ Dana propagating Rashad is a draw.

150,000 buys haha

 

[Shogun Rising]

I thought they were trying to scale down an idea what the Bellator PPV would need to do to be profitable. Pretty they said that during this segment. They led with Tito and Rampage before talking about this.

And yeah, UFC cards usually do a lot better at the gate than that.

 

[axion]

I thought they were trying to scale down an idea what the Bellator PPV would need to do to be profitable. Pretty they said that during this segment. They led with Tito and Rampage before talking about this.

And yeah, UFC cards usually do a lot better at the gate than that.

That would make more sense.

 

[blingking]

The thing about the model is that other then maybe production and misc the expenses are largely variable inputs.

Salaries are variable largely based on who is the card and there is also the unknown factor where the actual payout can vary significantly based on who wins.

Advertising is based largely on what the UFCs expected buys are. And the gate is usually dependent on who`s fighting, unless the event is in Winnipeg or Calgary and the main event and co-main gets cancelled long after the event is sold out.

 

[ms4n]

The thing about the model is that other then maybe production and misc the expenses are largely variable inputs.

Salaries are variable largely based on who is the card and there is also the unknown factor where the actual payout can vary significantly based on who wins.

Advertising is based largely on what the UFCs expected buys are. And the gate is usually dependent on who`s fighting, unless the event is in Winnipeg or Calgary and the main event and co-main gets cancelled long after the event is sold out.

Advertising is probably pretty complicated. FOX advertises on their own networks which doesn't cost them much and is, in essence, free for the UFC. The UFC probably only has to pay for billboards, online, etc. FOX has been advertising some of the events, especially and obviously FS1, like crazy.

 

[mhomburg]

Averages?

Production would the one concrete figure I think

Production might be concrete, but advertising and fighter purses are certainly not concrete. Of course the more they are advertising, generally the bigger the fight and they don't have to worry about that "break even" number.

 

[Gates of Janus]

sooo when you ufc gets like 750,000 ppv's and a gate of like 3 mil...why are fighters still only getting small amounts of money if their not main or co main event..

so, when the ufc had to cancel a show like when jon jones didn't fight, why didn't they just take some money from the fighters?

 

[Jmarc]

Don't read in to this too much guys. 99% of you wont be able to get any useful information from it. That is a SAMPLE PPV BUSINESS MODEL, not an example of UFC PPV Production costs. It is NOT NOT NOT based on UFC specific numbers. Its just a general example of the breakdown of costs for putting on a PPV event.

 

[mhomburg]

Because those people likely weren't the driver behind the PPV buys being that high. The main and co-main event fighters were, which is why they'll be compensated in that manner.

Don't waste your breath, people don't understand this.

Surely they will ignore the fact that no main card fighters received the bonuses last Saturday.