Ennis' Take
ENNIS: Examining UFC 150's poor paid attendance figures
Aug 14, 2012 - 3:00:55 PM ENNIS: Examining UFC 150's poor paid attendance figures

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By: Shawn Ennis, MMATorch Senior Columnist

I came out of Saturday night's UFC 150 card feeling much the way that Rich Hansen did: perplexed, a tiny bit ambivalent, and frustrated. That's not because of anything besides the decision in the main event and the kind of back-and-forth of how I felt about some of the fights. But I don't want to talk about that today. Most of the narrative about UFC 150 has already been addressed on this site and everywhere else, so I'm going to clean out the docket with one last talking point: the attendance figures.

In case you hadn't heard, the event drew just over 15,000 attendees for a gate of $650,000. This is staggeringly low considering that the last time the UFC went to Denver, they drew a crowd of 16,344 and a gate of almost $2.1 million. The initial knee-jerk reaction to this has been the requisite hand-wringing about the number of events that the UFC runs, and how they can't draw big numbers consistently because they're oversaturating the market.

While there's something to the worry over how many events the UFC runs, that figure alone is simply not going to solely account for a dropoff in gate receipts of about $1.5 million year over year in the same market and the same venue. Dana White came out on Saturday and said something to the effect of Denver having a rough summer between wildfires and the movie theater shootings, etc. This was met with scorn and derision as members of the MMA media mocked his reasons that would have nothing to do with gate receipts. But you know what? I'm going to agree with Dana on this one, and I don't even have to pull out the BS meter.

While it's true that Denver's rough summer doesn't have any direct correlation to the UFC's poor box office for UFC 150 on the surface, if you dig a little deeper there could be something to it. To start with, tickets to UFC shows are expensive. When there are natural disasters and things like wildfires going on, people tend to be more conscious of their financial situation and what they need to be doing to prepare for such a potential event, even if the event doesn't affect them directly. Whether it's buying more insurance, stocking up on provisions, or just deciding you need to put some money away, tragedies (and especially local ones) tend to change peoples' mindsets.

Another potential setback is the mood of the population. Between the fires and the nationally-sensationalized shootings, Denver's mood can't be all that happy-go-lucky right now. Of course, when this is the case, you might think that people would seek some escapism. Well, it's one thing to want to take in a movie or go take in a baseball game when you want to forget about things. It's another to drop $50 a pop (for the cheap seats) and take in a night of fights. That may be what you and I do, but that's not a typical mindset.

You may be thinking that tickets went on sale early enough to mitigate the circumstances we talked about, and if an event or a market is hot, it'll sell out quickly. Well of course there were going to be some reasons outside of those listed that the event flopped from a paying customer perspective, but none of them had to do with oversaturation. Tickets went on sale for UFC 150 on June 15. By that time, Jose Aldo, Dominic Cruz, Brian Stann, Vitor Belfort, Michael Bisping, Jon Fitch, Thiago Alves and Thiago Silva had all pulled out of high-profile fights due to injury. In other words, the UFC's summer of injuries was well underway. I don't know about you, but if I know that’s the case, I'm waiting a little bit to pick up my tickets to a show two months away. Not to mention the fact that last year's main event of Jon Jones vs. Quinton Jackson is an obviously bigger draw than Edgar-Henderson II.

So does the UFC run too many pay-per-views? Absolutely. But do they run too many shows? I think that's another story. Maybe they do, and maybe they don't (that's a column for another day), but whether or not it's true isn't what caused the poor paid attendance in Denver.

Questions? Comments? Let me know via email (ennistorch(at)gmail(dot)com) or twitter (@shawnennis,) or just leave a note in the comments.