...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!
By Alvin Benjamin Carter III, MMATorch Specialist
This has been an amazing year for the sport of MMA, and especially great for The Ultimate Fighting Championship. While Strikeforce has made massive moves to get their weight by acquiring Pride legends Fedor Emelianenko and Dan Henderson, they have still yet to move into the realm of pay-per-view. This makes sense because the only two Strikeforce fights that might have pushed a decent a buyrate were Gina Carano vs. Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos and Fedor vs. Brett Rogers.
The UFC has gone virtually unchallenged in the MMA PPV market this year (we will leave the ever-so-confused WWE out of this) with 13 major PPV events. Each event's fight card has a direct correlation to the events total gate and buyrate - often the sources of revenue and measures of an event's success.
Attendance is also important, but it does not necessarily indicate how successful the event is overall. For example, UFC 100 featured a UFC Heavyweight Championship bout between Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir and had an attendance of 10,871 fight fans of which only 9,550 actually paid to see the event. It had a total gate of $5,128,490 and a buyrate of 1,600,000. Compare that to UFC 103 that had an attendance of 17,411, less than half the total gate of UFC 100 ($2,400,000), and one-third of the buyrate (400,000).
The total attendance for all thirteen PPV events this year was 192,280. The combined gates for 2009 are approximately $36,363,384, and the combined PPV buys are about 7,865,000. The buyrates are what impress me the most. Just think of that number times $45. That is $353,925,000 in PPV buys. I see why Lorenzo Fertitta is upset about the illegal viewing of the UFC PPV events. That is where the money actually is. The second highest UFC buyrates of 2009 were UFC 101: B.J. Penn vs. Kenny Florian (which also featured the Anderson Silva vs. Forrest Griffin superfight) with 1,050,000 PPV buys and UFC 94: B.J. Penn vs. George St. Pierre with 800,000 PPV buys.
Dana White's comments about Dan Henderson make a little more sense now. Henderson is obviously a living legend, but White might not feel he can headline a PPV card and bring record-breaking numbers. Strikeforce currently does not have to worry about that, so either way Henderson is great grab for their organization. It seems as if they are collecting talent possibly in hopes to enter the PPV realm. (In a perfect world, we would see a catch weight bout between Fedor and Dan Henderson on CBS, Showtime, or PPV.)
Many of the UFC PPV cards have been plagued with injuries and last-minute changes. These changes have inadvertently setup stacked cards for 2010. The Zuffa-owned World Extreme Cage Fighting will also venture into the pay-per-view market in the coming year. This could be a big year if the injuries do not continue and the WEC continues to strengthen its brand recognition and promote their stars.
What fights do you want to see this year, and more importantly which fights are you wiling to pay for?
Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
STAFF COLUMNISTS: Shawn Ennis - Jason Amadi
Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
Interested in joining MMATorch's writing team? Send idea for a theme to your column (for Specialist section) or area of interest (i.e. TV Reporter) along with a sample of writing to mmatorch@gmail.com.
