Penick's Take
PENICK: New England Patriots vs. Tim Tebow II likely to have major negative effect on UFC 142 buyrate
Jan 9, 2012 - 10:00:31 PM PENICK: New England Patriots vs. Tim Tebow II likely to have major negative effect on UFC 142 buyrate

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

The UFC ended 2011 with a pay-per-view event that may have drawn the most buys of the year for Brock Lesnar's return against Alistair Overeem, but they may kick off 2012 with the least amount of North American buys they've had for an event in years.

It's not that UFC 142 is a bad card; it's not. It's not as deep as a number of cards the UFC has produced recently, but the top two fights on the card are really good, interesting bouts with really high-level fighters. Jose Aldo takes on a very tough and deserving challenger in the undefeated Chad Mendes, while Vitor Belfort welcomes Anthony "Rumble" Johnson to the middleweight division.

But it's not the fight themselves, or the card in general, that will lead to lower viewership. No, there are a number of factors that will likely have a negative effect on Saturday's draw, not the least of which is...

Patriots vs. Tebow, Part Deux

Tebowmania made Sunday's Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Denver Broncos Wild Card game in the NFL Playoffs the most watched Wild Card round game in 24 years. Tim Tebow, the polarizing quarterback of the Broncos, continues to bring tons of interest to the high profile games he's in, and after an overtime win over the Steelers, the Broncos will now take on the New England Patriots on Saturday night, head to head with the UFC 142 card. The two teams face off for the second time this year, and it was the Patriots that halted Tebow's "miraculous" six-game run of late-game heroics for the Broncos. This game will be one of the most-watched programs on all of television this month, and it will absolutely take potential viewers away from this card. This is the biggest reason the card will suffer, but there are two things you can look at from 2011 as well to see why the card probably won't do well in the U.S. ...

UFC 134

UFC 134, the UFC's last trip to Rio de Janeiro, featured Anderson Silva fighting for the first time since front-face-kicking Vitor Belfort in February. Though he drew nearly over 700,000 buys for that fight with Belfort, his fight with Okami in Rio brought just 335,000 buys. That was a combination of a foreign card - thus a lack of press and awareness in North America overall - and a poor draw as a challenger in Okami. With that card having difficulties drawing in August with "The Spider," Mauricio "Shogun" Rua, Forrest Griffin, and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira all on the card, it doesn't bode well for an event with Aldo headlining for the first time ever against a challenger who hasn't even fought on a main card in Chad Mendes. That brings us to...

Jose Aldo's Draw

The UFC's Featherweight Champion is an incredible fighter and is immensely fun to watch, but heading up one of the lighter divisions means he's also not a draw yet. Aldo has taken part in three pay-per-view events thus far in his career with Zuffa. In his fight with Urijah Faber in April of 2010, the WEC's only foray into pay-per-view, they drew 175,000 buys. His co-main event slot in October at UFC 136 was featured on an event that drew just 225,000 viewers. He was a part of one of the most purchased events of the year with April's UFC 129 card, but that drew based off of headliner Georges St-Pierre, and clearly didn't translate to more buys with his next fight. His two challengers in those fights were also bigger names than Mendes, especially Florian, and the fact that he's headlining for the first time doesn't help matters.


The UFC hasn't had an event draw below 200,000 buys in years, but with these three components working against Saturday's card, it's highly likely that is just what they'll see this weekend. Of course, the business they'll do in Brazil may offset some of that, and the viewers they'll receive on Globo TV will mean the event still accomplishes what they'd like to accomplish in the country. But the domestic side of it will almost certainly take a major hit.