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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
WEC General Manager Reed Harris won't be promoting the organization's first card on pay-per-view later this month, WEC 48. No, that job will fall into the hands of UFC President Dana White, and he's got some lofty expectations for the card.
"You know, lots of people are low-balling this thing, thinking it's going to be 75,000 or 80,000 [pay-per-view buys]," White said to Ariel Helwani for Versus.com. "The pay-per-view business is tough. You see how long we've been in the business and we haven't put the WEC on pay-per-view yet -- this is our first time. We think that this is the perfect fight to do it with, and I don't know, I'm saying 150 (thousand) and I'm way higher than what anyone else thinks."
Just what changes, exactly, will be coming to this broadcast on April 24 compared to the cards that the WEC has aired on Versus are unknown; but Helwani did hint at a possible broadcaster change up in his report, saying White just smiled when asked if Todd Harris and Stephan Bonnar would be replaced by Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg.
There have been a lot of concerns about the price of the event on pay-per-view turning potential viewers away, as it's the same $44.95 price that the UFC charges for their events, but White didn't sound concerned about that factor, saying, "Don't buy it. If it's too expensive for you, don't buy it."
White also touched on the issue of oversaturation for the sport, saying "Everybody is always asking me if I think I'm oversaturing. You've got so many fights on TV, so many fights on pay-per-view, this and that. My answer to that is: is there too much baseball on TV? Is there too much football? Yes, people are going to have to pick and choose which ones they buy because everybody can't buy every pay-per-view. But, we're putting on great fights. As long as you're putting on great fights, people are going to watch them, it's still a cheap form of entertainment."
Penick's Analysis: If they can get this event to pull in over 100,000 buys, that would be an incredible success. The card is certainly worth the money, there's just other pay-per-views surrounding it with fighters more well known and accessible to the casual pay-per-view buying audience. That's why there's pessimism about the event's prospects. Still, it could very well be the largest drawing non-UFC pay-per-view card if they can hype the hell out of it over the next two weeks.
The other notable thing from this story is that Stephan Bonnar is now the new color commentator, officially replacing Frank Mir in that spot after he worked the WEC 47 event last month. That's a bit of a shame, as for all the things I don't like about Frank Mir I did enjoy his work for the WEC. Still, Bonnar did a good job last month and will be an alright replacement. We'll see if he actually ends up working this card at all, though.
RELATED STORY: Leet Column - LEET: WEC on pay-per-view worth the money but stuck in a rough month: [CLICK TO READ FULL ARTICLE]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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