Elsalvajeloco Posted December 19, 2013 Author Share Posted December 19, 2013 I'd buy that had GSP vs. Jake "Personality" Shields not drawn 800,000 buys. That was built WAYYYYYYYY differently than this show though. If you put that in MGM WITHOUT Couture/Machida, that does no higher than 700k. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keith_h Posted December 19, 2013 Share Posted December 19, 2013 The PPV model is dying. It's to easy to stream these days and only getting easier. You can even find HD streams now. Look at WWE with their all time low buy-rates, look at Boxing (down to 2 PPV stars and even Pacquiao's last fight had a terrible buy-rate). Boxing had TONs of PPVs every year in the 90's and early 2000's, now HBO and SHO have maybe 2-3 a year each. The UFC will eventually either need to cut back their PPVs to just the biggest title fights (Jones, Cain, Anderson if he wins the title back) or hope that Fox will completely buy them out of the PPV business for good with a bigger TV deal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted December 19, 2013 Author Share Posted December 19, 2013 Look at WWE with their all time low buy-rates, look at Boxing (down to 2 PPV stars and even Pacquiao's last fight had a terrible buy-rate). Boxing had TONs of PPVs every year in the 90's and early 2000's, now HBO and SHO have maybe 2-3 a year each. If you look at boxing when PPV got big, they only had 4 or 5 PPV draws. They just had a lot of in between guys unlike UFC now where it didn't hurt as much financially to put them as a PPV headliner. But it still didn't mean those shows could avoid tanking. Several more of those shows tanked than were outwardly successful. Roy Jones was never a PPV draw. Barrera and Morales never really drew that high (probably did high for small guys but the point remains). Hopkins was always turning out low buyrates. Prince Naseem was mostly a television guy. Gatti was never a PPV draw. Diego Corrales was never a big draw. Winky Wright never was any sort of draw. All these guys were bigger stars (they had DaDa, FUBU, Enyce, and Phat Farm sponsorships~!) than a lot of the UFC champs, but that doesn't mean putting them in a PPV main event was guaranteed success. PPV is its own beast. Plus, they gave so many people giant fucking deals so they wouldn't jump ship. Roy Jones was making mad bank to fight mandatories like Glen Kelly. 2013 Roy Jones Jr could beat 2002 Glen Kelly NOW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig H Posted December 19, 2013 Share Posted December 19, 2013 I don't think it has anything to do with FS-1. I don't even think it has to do with Hendricks. I think it has to do with how piss poor UFC marketing is. With having such a saturated market with regards to how much UFC TV there is each month, so few fighters actually stand out and fewer customers are going to buy a $45+ PPV for one fighter. UFC needs to start doing a better job of marketing these guys so everyone doesn't just blend in and that means actually spending money beyond the preview shows and UFC magazine advertising. It is saying something when you are worse than MLB in actually marketing your talent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted December 19, 2013 Author Share Posted December 19, 2013 I definitely agree with you, but looking at how they did the Primetime with that fight....there was nothing there. Just nothing. That puts you in a shitty spot as a promotion. When you have a guy like Hendricks who doesn't have a star quality about him outside the cage,then GSP's schtick from the last few primetimes with him isn't going to turn them around. Hendricks is a hell of a fighter, but just a plain boring everyday guy like everyone else. They already have that with Cain. Definitely nothing against those guys, but it defeats the entire concept of those type shows. Doing one with Rousey-Tate, even with TUF overkill already, would have made more sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig H Posted December 19, 2013 Share Posted December 19, 2013 Regarding Hendricks, and I agree with you about his appearance on Primetime, is that he comes off really cool and likable on radio or podcast interviews. He's also very open to his fans. He had no reason to do this, but on an interview he threw his XBL gamertag to get people to play with him online. I figure I would try to add him and sure enough, he accepted my request. For a good long while I gamed with him and the dude was always open to chatting with me and others about fighting and other bullshit. Johny is really awesome and the way Primetime tried to sell him was not the right way at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted December 19, 2013 Author Share Posted December 19, 2013 They have to sell a fight though. That stuff is cool for their All Access/Outside the Octagon/ whatever they call their profile show now, but doesn't fit the mold of that show. You can't compare the Primetime for this show to stuff for GSP/Penn 2, Lesnar/Mir, Rashad/Rampage, Lesnar/Cain, or any Floyd fight from 07 to 11. All those fights had the glue to keep fans interested. When the top television people in the world cannot edit SOMETHING together in post-production, you're fucked something serious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig H Posted December 19, 2013 Share Posted December 19, 2013 Good point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hollywood Cibernetico Posted January 1, 2014 Share Posted January 1, 2014 The UFC can only do so much. The Fighters need to realize they are the brand and STEP UP. I always hear that pro wrestling can learn something from MMA, but there are elements of MMA that a pro wrestling influence can really improve. There are too many fighters running the same gimmick and not giving any shit about standing out. They think that if they are on TV and fight 2-3 times a year and work hard then one day they will be the big PPV draw that GSP, Silva, Lesnar, and some others were. Who in the UFC has the IT factor when it comes to charisma? Presence? Character? Chael Sonnen...and that's it. I'm not saying Jon Jones and Ronda Rousey 'need to go heel' or any of that bullshit. But some body has to step it up and realize that everyone can't come out and cut a Hard Times promo...or NO ONE gets over. You have to LOOK,SOUND, and FIGHT differently. Tate has shown TIME AND TIME again that she does not understand what business she's in. Jon Fitch didn't understand and when he finally did he STILL tried to fight against the system. Hendricks and Lamas are going to get a rude awaken when they realize that fans don't want cry babies at the top. All the primetime specials, press conference, etc. will do NOTHING for ANY of the fighters if they all want to employ the vanilla mma fighter gimmick. Who is going to be the next breakout star for the UFC? I don't know. No one saw Chael Sonnen becoming what he became. Everyone thought Overeem was going to be HUGE for the UFC...nope. It's also too early to call Rousey a draw (especially considering her StrikeForce numbers [ seriously Strikeforce: Rousey vs. Kaufman drew a little over 3K fans]. I believe it will take a number of factors: - a dominating performance against a P4P contender (Silva vs. Sonnen 1). - an extremely high finishing rate (Ronda Rousey). - ability to cut a promo (Sonnen, Lesnar, Ortiz). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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