Whats weird about the Apex arena

[The_Renaissance]

Yeah, I dont get the Apex thing at all. It fucking sucks.

 

[HHJ]

Yeah, I dont get the Apex thing at all. It fucking sucks.

"why stop at no crowds, we should try having no fights! That's the solution!"

 

[Sms_productions713]

Can't say I've ever watched, I was thinking about it more like WWE house shows.

A example of that here in Toronto, instead of coming to the Leafs/Raptors arena, go to a minor league arena like the Leafs farm team.

Or think back to the Hard Rock Hotel type fight nights back in the day.

I dare say that in the early days of the ufc's rising popularity, the events generated a lot of local buzz in places they hadn't been before. Perhaps such buzz no longer exists.

It doesn’t. Even back in the days with those Legacy FC days here in Texas, those Houston arena theater shows had atleast 1 or 2 names on the card and we would always have quite a bit of celebrities there in terms of fighters, rappers and some actors.

Once mick Maynard came to ufc, it died and no one cares about the local scene anymore. Same happened with the UFC. These cards don’t do anything anymore when they come to town

 

[Rhood]

Prelims at the Apex are decision fests.
Even the most hardcore fans skip it.

 

[Foghorn Leghorn]

It doesn’t. Even back in the days with those Legacy FC days here in Texas, those Houston arena theater shows had atleast 1 or 2 names on the card and we would always have quite a bit of celebrities there in terms of fighters, rappers and some actors.

Once mick Maynard came to ufc, it died and no one cares about the local scene anymore. Same happened with the UFC. These cards don’t do anything anymore when they come to town

Fair enough, we don't get many events in Canada, so there's still a some amount of buzz when they come to town. Doubt they'd be willing to price these events reasonably, either. Ticket prices are getting crazy

 

[Tweak896]

They build it up because of the pandemic to keep the show going, good. But then they realized that is real cheap to make cards there and because of their deal with ESPN they dont need to sell tickets to profit. After that they started to bag on the cards as money is flowing in anyway.
On top of that there are no other major organization to push them to put an effort. They don't even put an effort to promote anymore, just pay some influencers and let ESPN/the algorithm do the rest of the work. Smart fighters try to promote themselves more them the company.

It can be a problem on a new media deal negotiation, but even so they'll keep profiting since most of the revenue stays with organization. I can't see it changing anytime soon as going to the road with shitty cards always is riskier as the expenses are bigger.
IT's a shame, Apex should be used only for Contender series.

The only way out of this I can see is if in new rights negotiations ESPN/netflix/amazon play hardball and wants smaller packages with only ppv cards, road cards, etc... but I don't see it happened anytime soon.

Other way would be if a serious organization showed up to put some pressure, but we all now it's not feasible in the short/medium future

I can't wait for the day that the UFC gets called out like Saudi Arabia did for shit cards to fulfill contracts. ESPN looks almost negligent for what counts as a quality card. Hope whoever ends up signing a deal with the UFC for rights ends up putting in a quality card. If mma nerds on a forum can spot it, it is dumb as fuck that a billion dollar company overlooks it. It will happen one day eventually, now or 7 years from now. Hope its happens now.

 

[podsox]

Instead of shelling thousands promoting these guys to only have them on a ppv card n stick up the show...UFC is putting them in an apex cage that's free for them and having them prove thier worth and at the same time hopefully build a ufc fanbase. It's kinda smart

Yet most fans don’t even know who Michael morales is. It’s why they are struggling so hard to put together cards. Nobody knows who anybody is anymore until they are on a ppv or big fight night Card. Financially it’s great short term but its slowly killing the sport imo

 

[Lord Pyjamas]

I love the Apex, you can often hear the corner advice, and on occasion hear some interesting jeering from the witnesses. Much more of a back alley/school yard fight atmosphere, than the glitz, glitter, and made for TV drama of the larger venues.

It sometimes have some moments of that!
But mostly the cards are just too bad so one often feels a bit punished for watching them instead.
Bad fights without an Arena just makes the thing even worse.

 

[markys00]

Are you retarded?

There are audiences in the apex you stupid dope

 

[Söze Aldo]

They probably ran the numbers and they couldn't actually fill any arena halfway with fans for some the fight night cards they are putting out.

They probably would have to do what AEW does and deliberately avoid filming the large empty sections of the arena.

 

[Joe.KO]

We will see if ESPN decides not to renew their contract. Netflix doesn't seem interested in a package deal.

Need ESPN to drop them. Everything so nonchalant right now.
Netflix would be great.

 

[volcom5]

i love how people on here complain about Apex card like they’re obligated to sit down watch it, like you’re being forced to.

I usually just leave it running in the background while i go about my day working around the house.

It’s a free card on cable tv………ya’ll acting like you paid for it.

 

[IDGETKTFO]

Need ESPN to drop them. Everything so nonchalant right now.
Netflix would be great.

Of course, the last thing UFC wants to do is worry their shareholders.

 

[volcom5]

Part of it is just that MMA is seen as a low-class, carny sport for degenerates.

These days, the UFC gets the majority of its money from ESPN/Site fees, so ticket/fan money isn't very important.

That's why we get these no-effort cards fought in a Las Vegas warehouse. Its comfortable for the UFC and they're still bathing in money.

Do that in a real sport and people would be outraged. Imagine the NBA in a warehouse. But MMA is just thought of as such slop that people go along with it.

the NBA G league is essentially in a warehouse, i mean on average is like 1k-2k people.