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By: Jason Bent, MMATorch Columnist UFC 102: Couture vs. Nogueira was the UFC's first ever event to take place inside of the famed Rose Garden in Portland, Oregon, and for the most part it was a success. Well, until you factor in the greed which drove the UFC's ticket pricing structure for this event to Los Angeles levels. White had admitted that if he could have sold 10,000 tickets for the 20,000 seat arena that he would be "pumped," and then followed this by saying that other professional sports aren't selling out all of their events.
Yes, they are. It's called the NFL and no matter how big White thinks the UFC has gotten, and it has, there is a major sport which sells out all of its events and has waiting lists for season tickets across the land. NFL football is the king of the sports landscape and will be until ticket prices rise at a meteroric rate or the NFL begins adding even more games to their schedule.
See, if you can sell out one event, you will then have a need for two events. Simple logic, and this is why the NFL regular season is 16 games with a 4 game pre-season. The pre-season is not 4 games long because Tom Brady really needs more chances to get knocked into the dirt by Albert Haynesworth, nor is it because coaches need looks at rookies; the pre-season is 4 games long because that means more revenue for everyone. If they could do so, the league would add an extra pre-season game, one more round of playoffs and then sell season tickets to practice sessions.
The UFC has grown exponentially in a very short tim,e and right now is one of the very few sports or entertainment options which is drawing tons of money along with capturing all attention. The promotion used to not have monthly events, but now there is a definite need due to the fact that the talent roster is so deep and the fans are so hungry to see as much action as possible. The UFC airs cards on Spike, is in control of a still relevant franchise in 'The Ultimate Fighter' and now is airing as many PPV events as possible.
Since May 23, the UFC has aired five PPV events. In a three month time-frame, the company has pushed five PPV events on the public. When you add in 'The Ultimate Fighter 9 Finale' from June, that means in three months there have been six events. Two per month. The UFC gives us 'The Ultimate Fighter 9 Finale' for free and then acts as if they have just done something altruistic.
Truth is that while we would have paid to see Sanchez-Guida after the fact, none of us would have bought a PPV event with that as the main event and Damarques Johnson vs. James Wilks as the co-main event. Because you can guarantee that they would be holding the 'TUF' finales as PPV events if they felt enough folks at home would buy it. Giving these away for free has everything to do with their TV deal with Spike TV and nothing to do with them "giving" us anything.
As fans of MMA, we often will say that we would watch fights every day if we could. Which is fine, but would you pay for them every day? Could you pay for them every day? Obviously a large contingent of hardcore fans find other means with which to watch the events by way of websites which illegally stream the them, but this is not beneficial to our sport whatsoever and is not the answer to the problem of so many PPV events. What it comes down to is that fans are soon going to be forced to choose between the "A" events and the "B" events and make a choice as to which they will order.
This past weekend, the UFC held UFC 102, and it was most definitely a "B" show. Of course, the UFC knew this and placed Couture vs. Nogueira as the main event, which made this a "B" show with an "A" main event. This was a wonderful way to make a show a must-see when it was for the most part a skippable show overall. Yes, Maia vs. Marquardt mattered, but without there being a guarantee that Marquardt gets the next title shot, it became a great fight for the hardcore fans and a skippable one for the masses. The UFC found out firsthand that this was not considered one of the best shows in terms of ticket sales.
Certainly, pricing the tickets as if this one took place at the Staples Center was wrong, and certainly the 12% unemployment rate took a toll on things, but the fact is that this show just was not as essential or as sexy for once as seemingly every card has been in recent memory. Couture vs. Nogueira was still a big name fight and it ended up being a great one, but in the world of Brock Lesnar it became more like an "Old Timers Day" main event than it was a fight to truly determine a legitimate challenger for Lesnar's belt. Don't get me wrong, Nogueira came out looking tremendous, but he beat Couture by decision. He couldn't finish him off. So, while we can cheer Nogueira's performance at 102, it isn't quite time to declare he could beat Lesnar. Those in attendance cheered, but due to those ticket prices, it was only a little over half of the building making noise.
There was once a thriving form of entertainment which captivated the entire world and caused many 18-34 year old men to change the channel from Monday Night Football. It was professional wrestling, which was spearheaded by Vince McMahon's WWE and Ted Turner's WCW. The "Monday Night Wars" as they were called was due to the fact that so many fans were watching professional wrestling. All of a sudden, it was no longer just children tuning in but rather college-aged men and even middle-aged men who simply could not get enough of this pseudo-sport. Professional wrestling had a license to print money and, after 2001, it was Vince McMahon who ruled over that world with an iron fist.
Professional wrestling used to have but a few PPV events per year and slowly but surely increased the amount in direct correlation to the sheer number of people who would buy all of them. In the times of WCW vs. WWE, there were a minimum of two PPV events per month, and this number stayed true once McMahon finally controlled the entire industry. It made sense, the business was hot, fans were buying t-shirts and video games and ponying up the dollars to watch each and every PPV event without fail.
Well, until the bubble burst and having multiple PPV events seemed like a bad idea. What made it seem like a bad idea was that fans were flocking to MMA in droves and away from professional wrestling. Not all fans left professional wrestling for MMA, but by and large, a bulk of the fans did switch their allegiances, going from wearing "Suck It" to "TapouT" overnight. Suddenly, there was no market for two professional wrestling PPV events per month and WWE is lucky to garner 250K buys for an event.
Over on the other side is Dana White and the UFC. There was once a WCW to Dana's UFC, when PRIDE was in business. Much like McMahon buying WCW, the Fertittas and White purchased PRIDE. Much like McMahon using the WCW video library to pad his wallet, the UFC now is preparing to sell PRIDE programming to Spike TV and the shows will start running in December. Also, much like Vince McMahon could do no wrong in 1998; Dana White can do no wrong in 2009.
Which is why we are hedging closer to two PPV events per month sooner rather than later. The market is fire hot. Fans are gobbling up EVERYTHING UFC, from magazines to video games to clothing and everything else in between. The only thing missing is an ice cream bar shaped like Brock Lesnar's chest tattoo. Trust me when I tell you that there is indeed a market for that one as well, so long as you slap UFC on the box. This sport is taking off and right now there is no such thing as oversaturation due to the fact that demand continues to increase.
For now.
All bubbles burst. If this were not true, then Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys would still be selling millions and millions of records and N'Sync would be the number one touring act. Tastes change collectively. By and large it is not the hardcore fans I am speaking of, but rather the casual fan who got turned onto something and couldn't get enough of it for a while.
Trust me that there are still some folks who would rush to the store for a Backstreet Boys album. Just the same as there are many who still watch wrestling on Monday nights as if this were 1998. The problem is that the largest part of any audience is the casual fan.
The NFL's biggest fans are not the crusty guys who can break down Buddy Ryan's "46" defense, but rather they are the guys who drink beer on Sunday and cheer their local team on to victory. It is the wives of those men who wear football sweatshirts and wave big foam fingers while being only able to name one or two players on each side of the ball.
The largest group of UFC fans are not those who read this website or any of the websites for that matter. The largest group of UFC fans are people who cannot begin to tell you anything about the rubber guard and believe everything Dana White says as gospel. If Dana tells you that Fedor isn't the best heavyweight in the world, then he isn't. Period. The largest group of UFC fans have no clue who fights in the prelims and never cares to check out all of the fights from an event. They watch the PPV and care about those 5 fights while taking a look at any extra ones that make air. They do not know who Vitor Belfort is but cannot wait for Tito Ortiz to come back.
Now, if this sport can truly take off and capture their hearts in the same way or at least similar to the NFL, perhaps this thing will continue to get so big that it belongs on the same platform as that league. The odds are that it will not, and this is because instead of copying the NFL in some way, Dana White and the UFC are following Vince McMahon's recipe for success.
When Randy Couture "retired" and wanted to take his ball and head over to 'Affliction' in order to fight Fedor, the UFC did not recognize him as champion any longer and held a bout for the "interim" title between Tim Sylvia and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. Not once did they ever mention why these two were fighting for an "interim" title, nor did they acknowledge Couture on the broadcasts.
When Sean Sherk was stripped of his belt for a positive steroid test, they did not mention this on the broadcast as well. The hardcore fans knew but they kept the casual fans in a bubble and only told them what they wanted them to hear. The same held true Saturday night when they only mentioned Chris Leben's suspension once and quickly went right back to declaring him a role model for children and stating that he has matured since 'The Ultimate Fighter'. Again, the UFC is very protective of any information about themselves or their fighters which may cast the company in a poor light to the casual fans.
It's exactly what Vince McMahon does to this day. McMahon keeps everything off of his television broadcasts and keeps stories such as failed drug tests and firings away from the casual fans. The hardcore fans who read the websites such as PWTorch.com are going to know these details and McMahon accepts this. He just knows that the largest portion of their audience are the ones buying John Cena t-shirts, and the last thing he needs is to do something that could cause those fans to get upset with his company or the product.
The NFL tries to police itself the best it can but for the most part is willing to show everything, warts and all. You think they want the Michael Vick, Plaxico Burress, Donte Stallworth stories to have happened? Not a chance. They also can do nothing about it, but at the same time are not trying to pretend it never happened.
The UFC, on the other hand, never once addressed Quinton "Rampage" Jackson's "rampage," and pushed it under the covers until the story was sufficiently smothered. Dana White, the President of the UFC, didn't make a statement about Jackson but rather offered excuses about him. Do you see Roger Goodell offering excuses as to why Michael Vick bankrolled a dogfighting ring? You would see Vince McMahon make excuses though.
Right now, MMA is to 2009 what professional wrestling was to 1998. It is hot. Instead of "The Rock" and "Stone Cold", we have Liddell, Lesnar, Griffin and St. Pierre. The two themselves are apples and oranges, and this is because one is obviously pre-determined and the other 100% not. Or so we hope it shall always remain. However, the two captivated the same target audience and once the money started rolling in began to do the same things.
Going the way of WWE and having UFC magazine made great sense. Going the toy route a la WWE did as well. T-shirts, key chains, lighters, hats, etc. all made great sense. I mean the only thing this company hasn't started to peddle are lingerie and intimate massagers for the ladies, which like those aforementioned ice cream bars, would look like Brock Lesnar's chest tattoo. The one thing that ties UFC to WWE is the fact that they try to keep everything under wraps, go off on the media when reporters uncover the dirt (ask Loretta Hunt or Bob Costas) and start trying to shoehorn as many PPV events into a quarter as possible.
Five PPV events in three months.
It wasn't just the exorbitant ticket prices which kept half of the Rose Garden empty for UFC 102 but rather an oversaturation of a product. If the UFC were to continue to stack the PPV cards and have the lesser talent compete on Spike TV, it would be more than satisfactory, but UFC 102 was for the most part a one-fight PPV. I think the key to making more money is to make more shows as unforgettable and unskippable as UFC 100. The key certainly is not to take a card such as UFC 100 and split it up so that you can get three shows from it.
In my opinion, Dana White and the UFC have done nearly everything right and are sitting on top of the world.
But then again, so was Vince McMahon just a few years ago.
WWE once set out to take over the world and sell two PPV events per month. Now they have one every month that few actually purchase. The UFC is fast heading down that path with their "A" shows and "B" shows.
Think about it.
Randy Couture couldn't sell out the Rose Garden. MMA has never been hotter and one of the all-time greats couldn't sell out his hometown arena? This was about more than just ticket prices, in my eyes. You can trust that Brett Favre won't have any trouble selling out the 16 games he will play this season.
The UFC at this point has more in common with WWE than they do the NFL or any other major sport. If they want for this to change, they need to stop following the template and Dana White really needs to stop trying to be the next Vince McMahon.
Right now the UFC can do no wrong, but they definitely have some problems and these need to be addressed before we look back on the days of super hot MMA television programming like everyone else remembers those days when people actually watched Monday Night Raw.
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