News UFC's First Quarter Financials Out, Still Carrying Endeavor

[avenue94]

I’d hardly call it “complaining”. Did you watch the video?

He was asked a question about the gate by a reporter and he brought the money they loss as an example to help answer the question. There really isn’t much else to it.

I think you’re reading into this too much.

But hey you are entitled to your own interpretation.

There is a pretty clear "woe is the UFC but under our great leadership we will profit and succeed" vibe in all these Dana White statements from last year. Notice how Dana is saying he assumes all the risk as the promoter, because the guys taking brain damage for crappy pay have it so good apparently.

“The big problem for all sports right now, me, them, is the gate. We’ll lose over $100 million this year. Over $100 million,” White claimed. “It would be much easier for me to sit back and say, ‘Let’s wait this thing out.’ Waiting this thing out is a good option for a lot of people right now because there’s no gate.

“Why aren’t they releasing all these movies? They have all these movies in the can right now. They could be pumping these movies out left and right. Because they’re gonna lose possibly hundreds of millions of dollars in releasing these movies without people going and buying tickets in movie theaters. It usually goes to movie theaters, then it goes to some exclusive pay window, and then it gets released everywhere, then on TV. Financially, it’s hard to operate right now with the way that things are going on, but I’m moving forward. I don’t care. I’m gonna push through this.”

“In this business, I am the guy that assumes all the risk,” White said. “I’m gonna get you to fight for this, and you’re gonna fight for that, you, you, we build a card. When we came out in this pandemic, common sense would tell you we’re gonna do good. There’s no guarantees that we’re gonna do well. I assume all the risk and that is my job to figure out. I haven’t paid too much attention to it ‘cause I got my own problems.

 

[You Will Vote For Dreyga]

There is a pretty clear "woe is the UFC but under our great leadership we will profit and succeed" vibe in all these Dana White statements from last year.

I don’t it’s “pretty clear”... there is an obvious element of subjectivity in how the statements are interpreted. I certainly never picked that “vibe” during the scrums.

But once again you are allowed to have your own interpretation. Hey, it’s possible that I’m wrong and being too charitable. Who knows?

Notice how Dana is saying he assumes all the risk as the promoter, because the guys taking brain damage for crappy pay have it so good apparently.

I believe he is referring to specifically financial risk involved.

 

[brownsmith76]

Does the statement show what percentage of the profits goes to Dana White or Fertitta?

Or can they still hide those expenses as a publicly traded company?

 

[avenue94]

I don’t it’s “pretty clear”... there is an obvious element of subjectivity in how the statements are interpreted. I certainly never picked that “vibe” during the scrums.

But once again you are allowed to have your own interpretation. Hey, it’s possible that I’m wrong and being too charitable. Who knows?

Given he says "The big problem for all sports right now, me, them, is the gate." is factually a lie as the UFC had a record year for revenue and profit, it seems to be the angle he's taking. Which is fine, everyone wants to be the hero of their own story, companies, countries, etc. It makes for good press.

I believe he is referring to specifically financial risk involved.

Which is also an iffy statement given it's really hard to lose money on a UFC event just based on the guaranteed revenues alone.

Does the statement show what percentage of the profits goes to Dana White or Fertitta?

Or can they still hide those expenses as a publicly traded company?

Those aren't public. Dana traditionally got 8 percent of profit if I recall, so he presumably has a better deal these days. And he and the Fertitas get a cut of dividends, they paid one out last year if I recall (Fertitas didn't have a stake for that one). And Dana, or most likely Dana as the name is private, banked 2 bonuses tied to UFC value in the last few years that were pretty big. And with WME having a big IPO, he likely banked an even bigger bonus that was tied to WME valuation. On top of UFC execs banking pretty big bonuses too.

Those numbers are in the S-1 if you want them.

 

[Substance Abuse]

Conor is an anamoly. Rashad Evans, Jon Jones level draws are something they’ve been able to reproduce consistently

This is actually 100% true.

 

[avenue94]

This is actually 100% true.

That's not really true. Guys who can do 500k buys or 750k buys are pretty rare. For example, most people wouldn't consider Rampage Jackson a huge draw for PPV, but he banked 4 PPVs that did over half a million buys (2 of them over 750k). And he was considered a middle class draw at that point, even though he's selling almost as good as a top tier non-Conor draw in 2021.

People also neglect that modern UFC draws benefit from free ESPN advertising and more public awareness, so 500k buys in 2012 is more impressive and indicative of star power than 500k buys in 2021.

 

[You Will Vote For Dreyga]

That's not really true. Guys who can do 500k buys or 750k buys are pretty rare.

UFC averages around 500k PPVs. Literally half of their shows break the 500k mark. How is that rare?

 

[avenue94]

UFC averages around 500k PPVs. Literally half of their shows break the 500k mark.

You are confusing median and average here. If we're talking 2020, probably half the shows did hit 500k, but there are a few things skewing the average.
-They only had 10 PPVS compared to the usually 12,
-McGregor/Cowboy and Usman/Mas heavily skew the average
-Covid helped the UFC do better with less sports competteing with PPVS, best example is UFC 249 heavily overperforming (neither Gaethje or Ferguson are draws)

The UFC has a good top tier of PPV draws, but they don't have as many middle class draws as they used to. And also, again, drawing 500k back in the day was much harder than drawing 500k today. Just off the top of my head, the number of active fighters who can do over half a million.
-Conor
-Jones
-Izzy
-Diaz
-Masvidal
-Kamaru
-Maybe Francis???

I might have missed one or two, but I'm also not completely sold on Diaz and Masvidal being huge draws going forward because of their inactivity/poor performances and the fact that Diaz has always been a strong b-side and never really the a-side who carries a PPV. Point being, that's not a very long list compared to 10 or 12 years ago, especially given the roster is two or three times as large and the sport is so much bigger. So I'd expect the number of draws to be naturally larger.

Now, this isn't to say the UFC is doing badly, they're doing great financially.

 

[You Will Vote For Dreyga]

You are confusing median and average here. If we're talking 2020, probably half the shows did hit 500k, but there are a few things skewing the average.

No, I'm talking about the average. Below is a chart with the yearly average PPV buys of the UFC up until the ESPN deal when stopped getting numbers. The average PPV buys from the last 10 years of available data is 532.7k Buys.

SOURCE: https://www.statista.com/statistics...ting-championship-average-ppv-buys-per-event/

 

[greatsantini]

No, I'm talking about the average. Below is a chart with the yearly average PPV buys of the UFC up until the ESPN deal when stopped getting numbers. The average PPV buys from the last 10 years of available data is 532.7k Buys.

SOURCE: https://www.statista.com/statistics...ting-championship-average-ppv-buys-per-event/

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Saying you are talking about the average doesn’t clarify if you are referring to the mean or median.

 

[You Will Vote For Dreyga]

Saying you are talking about the average doesn’t clarify if you are referring to the mean or median.

It's been a long time since I've taken a math class. I assuming that PPV buys have a normal distribution so mean and median should be roughly same. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[avenue94]

No, I'm talking about the average.

Again...average and median are different, and you are treating them the same. The former is much more prone to skew, such as a McGregor PPV. In real world terms, just because a year averages 500k buys per PPV event, that does not mean half of the PPV events were 500k or even close to that ballpark.

It's been a long time since I've taken a math class. I assuming that PPV buys have a normal distribution so mean and median should be roughly same. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Median is just the middle of all data points. That's why people talk about median income, because it doesn't get skewed as easily. If you want, you can calculate skewness for UFC PPVs, but I'm way too lazy to look up the formula and math it. In terms of the UFC, PPV buys are absolutely not normally distributed it.

To put it in real terms. From 2012-2015, top 5 draws accounted for 56 percent of all PPV buys. That's an insane amount of skewing, and it's only gotten more skewed post-Conor.

SOURCE: https://www.statista.com/statistics...ting-championship-average-ppv-buys-per-event/

Yeah, your source is wrong and doesn't match the Project Basquiat info.

 

[You Will Vote For Dreyga]

Again...average and median are different, and you are treating them the same. The former is much more prone to skew, such as a McGregor PPV. In real world terms, just because a year averages 500k buys per PPV event, that does not mean half of the PPV events were 500k or even close to that ballpark.


Median is just the middle of all data points. That's why people talk about median income, because it doesn't get skewed as easily. If you want, you can calculate skewness for UFC PPVs, but I'm way too lazy to look up the formula and math it. In terms of the UFC, PPV buys are absolutely not normally distributed it.

To put it in real terms. From 2012-2015, top 5 draws accounted for 56 percent of all PPV buys. That's an insane amount of skewing, and it's only gotten more skewed post-Conor.


Yeah, your source is wrong and doesn't match the Project Basquiat info.

What is Project Basquiat?

 

[avenue94]

What is Project Basquiat?

UFC report they prepared for potential buyers when Zuffa was shopping around for a sale. So internal numbers essentially. They aren't perfect, but they are much more likely to be accurate than your source since Dana, like any promoter, tends to overstate PPV buys. A lot of good internal info came out during the lawsuit, but most people seem unaware of those documents.

 

[You Will Vote For Dreyga]

UFC report they prepared for potential buyers when Zuffa was shopping around for a sale. So internal numbers essentially. They aren't perfect, but they are much more likely to be accurate than your source since Dana, like any promoter, tends to overstate PPV buys. A lot of good internal info came out during the lawsuit, but most people seem unaware of those documents.

Where can I find them??

 

[avenue94]

Where can I find them??

They're heavily cited in these articles.

And if you want to make a scribd account, here are some of the full documents, along with various mma and boxing litigation.

As an aside, if you really really have no life and want them, public records request will probably get you some of the exhibits. And media and lawsuit members like John Nash or Nate Quarry attended the hearings, so they've seen exhibits that haven't been released in any form yet. Although the judge is supposed to do a huge dump of documents in the next few months.