Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

UFC 223: Khabib vs. Iaquinta (4/7/2018) - Brooklyn, NY (Barclays Center)


Elsalvajeloco

Recommended Posts

21 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

The thing is star power seems to be a concept that no one has a grasp of though of how it's created. The fights has been good to great depending on who we are discussing, but the thing should be as a casual fan, what more do you need to see? Mr. Drama Show Gennady Golovkin is a star when you talk about being able to draw in the Inglewood Forum which seats about 11 to 12 thousand people and at the MSG Theater or the Theater at Foxwoods. However, against David Lemieux or whatever random Mexican fighter they exhume from the grave to fight him on Cinco de Mayo, he can't draw a number independent of being anchored to a Canelo that says he is a superstar. And it's a ridiculous. Why is a guy at that level who is that exciting who has that much charisma drawing DJ or UFC basement level numbers on PPV? You can use the vice versa for Demetrious Johnson although sans the charisma. Floyd Mayweather, who ironically couldn't draw flies for several years, wouldn't fight Miguel Cotto because his numbers weren't good on HBO supposedly. However, tied with an Antonio Margarito grudge match, he is a draw. That's a guy who had an entire island backing him yet he needs a historic boxing rivalry between two countries to prove his legitimacy.

My whole point is there is no one to one comparison on how to create stars and what level they're at in terms of superstardom. The UFC has a litany of problems, but independent of that is it's difficult to understand what fans view as a worthy attraction since entertaining fights which is the whole reason why people should watching fights in the first place in not the answer. Traditional stick and ball sports don't have these issues. Sure, they might do something like the NFL did with the Color Rush jerseys and the NBA does with their jerseys but that's not solely why ratings go down (NFL) or why they go up (NBA). You shouldn't have to tell people they need to watch Khabib Nurmagomedov versus another top fighter or Rose Namajunas rematching Joanna. It's insane if the person you're explaining to understands MMA as a sport in context.

 

I agree with all of this, but it still doesn't help the fact that they are not drawing in casual fans like they used to.  I used to be able to tell my friends that there was a fight and they'd be all about hanging out and watching it, now they'd rather do anything else.  I went from having pretty large house parties on fight nights to hanging out in bars with a couple of people who are barely even looking at the fights.  It's to the point where there were 10-15 fighters that pretty much all of my friends recognized, now there are multiple champions who they never even heard of.  Those people went away and the UFC needs to figure out how to get them back.  Putting on exciting fights is not nearly enough, or else those people would still be there.  The fights have been good, but even I, someone who watches as much MMA as anyone, find myself not really being emotionally invested in any of these fights.  Exciting fights only matters to the people watching the fights, they don't matter at all to people they can't convince to care enough to sit down and watch in the first place.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, supremebve said:

I agree with all of this, but it still doesn't help the fact that they are not drawing in casual fans like they used to.  I used to be able to tell my friends that there was a fight and they'd be all about hanging out and watching it, now they'd rather do anything else.  I went from having pretty large house parties on fight nights to hanging out in bars with a couple of people who are barely even looking at the fights.  It's to the point where there were 10-15 fighters that pretty much all of my friends recognized, now there are multiple champions who they never even heard of.  Those people went away and the UFC needs to figure out how to get them back.  Putting on exciting fights is not nearly enough, or else those people would still be there.  The fights have been good, but even I, someone who watches as much MMA as anyone, find myself not really being emotionally invested in any of these fights.  Exciting fights only matters to the people watching the fights, they don't matter at all to people they can't convince to care enough to sit down and watch in the first place.

i have this same issue. actually, this entire response, but especially the bolded part.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, supremebve said:

I agree with all of this, but it still doesn't help the fact that they are not drawing in casual fans like they used to.  I used to be able to tell my friends that there was a fight and they'd be all about hanging out and watching it, now they'd rather do anything else.  I went from having pretty large house parties on fight nights to hanging out in bars with a couple of people who are barely even looking at the fights.  It's to the point where there were 10-15 fighters that pretty much all of my friends recognized, now there are multiple champions who they never even heard of.  Those people went away and the UFC needs to figure out how to get them back.  Putting on exciting fights is not nearly enough, or else those people would still be there.  The fights have been good, but even I, someone who watches as much MMA as anyone, find myself not really being emotionally invested in any of these fights.  Exciting fights only matters to the people watching the fights, they don't matter at all to people they can't convince to care enough to sit down and watch in the first place.

I don't know if the UFC needs to get them back because they have already made their decision on their viewing habits. They're just going to abandon the programming once they don't recognize this or that person. Hence, why they are casual fans.

I believe it was Meltzer who did a study around late 2015 or had enough data and found out so many people who ordered the McGregor PPVs and Ronda PPVs were completely different people. They drew entirely different and unique audiences to these PPVs. It was never the interest of the UFC to figure out how can we get the folks that ordered Rousey vs. Correia or the Holm fight to order Aldo vs. McGregor. Those fans had already made up their minds of what they wanted to see.

I think we're getting issues that hardcore fans or former hardcores have mixed up with folks who will always be casual fans and who will only order the big events. That has always been the case with casual fans except divided into who they specifically want to see.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

I don't know if the UFC needs to get them back because they have already made their decision on their viewing habits. They're just going to abandon the programming once they don't recognize this or that person. Hence, why they are casual fans.

I believe it was Meltzer who did a study around late 2015 or had enough data and found out so many people who ordered the McGregor PPVs and Ronda PPVs were completely different people. They drew entirely different and unique audiences to these PPVs. It was never the interest of the UFC to figure out how can we get the folks that ordered Rousey vs. Correia or the Holm fight to order Aldo vs. McGregor. Those fans had already made up their minds of what they wanted to see.

I think we're getting issues that hardcore fans or former hardcores have mixed up with folks who will always be casual fans and who will only order the big events. That has always been the case with casual fans except divided into who they specifically want to see.

I think we're talking about two different things.  I'm not talking about the Lesnar/McGregor/Rousey era, I'm talking about people recognizing names like Anderson Silva, Rampage Jackson, George St. Pierre, BJ Penn, etc. and being interested in seeing all of them fight.  Lesnar was someone my friends wanted to see, but I clearly remember more people paying attention to GSP vs. Thiago Alves when we had a UFC 100 party.  Those people, most of whom are casual fans, can't name a current UFC champion.  These are people who would text me on fight day to see if we were watching, because they wanted to see a specific fight.  If I text any of those people to see if they want to watch a fight, they ask the same question..."Who's fighting?"  They would care if they heard of the person who is fighting, but it's been a good long while since that was the case.  I think the last big gathering we had was Jones vs. Cormier 2, and before that it was Rousey vs. Nunes.  These are people who would watch a Cody Garbrandt fight after seeing him style on Dominick Cruz...but maybe not T.J. Dillashaw, because he didn't do anything special on that card.  The people you are talking about care far less about MMA as a sport than the people I'm talking about.  The people I'm talking about would be back if you gave them a reason to care. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sounds like McGregor stormed the press conference and is causing all sorts of trouble, including throwing a chair through a van window and cutting Chiesa’s face. Cops are on their way to the arena supposedly?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, supremebve said:

I think we're talking about two different things.  I'm not talking about the Lesnar/McGregor/Rousey era, I'm talking about people recognizing names like Anderson Silva, Rampage Jackson, George St. Pierre, BJ Penn, etc. and being interested in seeing all of them fight.  

Well, that's casual fandom in a vastly different era of MMA. Keep in mind, MMA hadn't crossed the threshold of mainstream yet and been there for a few years. How long did it take Anderson to become a name? Rampage was a name when he came to the UFC but only because he was able to pivot off the newly gained fame of Chuck Liddell. He had already been fighting for several years. GSP wasn't a really big draw until the year UFC took off. BJ Penn was a medium draw by himself and could draw big against a GSP. We're talking about a sport where it was the insider club for several year and then it became all about the big fights as it was pushed more into the mainstream. By 2012 and 2013, it became evident that the infrastructure of the sport (which will always be niche even if you have a string of PPVs to sell 1m+) couldn't support mainstream relevance year round because the Fox deal + an ever growing roster pushed a lot of what was the insider club of fans out (UFC from 96-97 to 2004-2005) after pulling new fans in. Most of the fans now are ex pro wrestling fans or non sports fans who either came twelve or thirteen years until 2011-2012 and people who only started watching because of Ronda and Conor. The people who only came because of the celebrity status of the sport (will also include the Kimbo and Carano folks) are mostly all gone now that model that pushed the insider folks out would subsequently push a lot of those folks out as well. They will only return if that celebrity status returns. The Mayweather/Pac and Mayweather/McGregor are proof positive that those fans will return only for that reason because superfights sell. If you happen to make them fans again (which explains an uptick in ratings here and there on HBO/ESPN in 2016), then that's awesome. However, that is the reason why the UFC have to return to the McGregor and Lesnar well this year and it ultimately affects the business strategy all around including why you have a bunch of interim titles. There is clear causality. The UFC wasn't able to sell 1m PPVs in 2005-2007 at the same potential when all those guys you mentioned competed but once the UFC realized that is an indeed a possibility to use that potential, they became willing to sacrifice the 300k-600k PPVs to get those PPVs with megafights. They can still make money off a DJ PPV because they're not spending a shitload of money. However, they can make a shitload of money by doing some PPVs that sell 650k and up because they're not spending a ton of money relative to what boxing does where you need someone to bankroll paying a Manny Pacquiao 15-25 million for a fight that won't do a whole lot of business (ex. this Lucas Matthysse fight that just got made for Malaysia). So what this basically says is for whatever the UFC gives away by not being in the year 2008 can be circumventing by them telling folks like your friends to eat a dick because data proves 9 out of 10 times they will buy they PPVs the UFC needs them to buy (including the Mayweather fight where they got 40 million or more for just doing Embedded and a little promoting).

Quote

The people you are talking about care far less about MMA as a sport than the people I'm talking about.  The people I'm talking about would be back if you gave them a reason to care. 

This anecdotal analysis doesn't work because what you're saying and the data  proves that these people are one in the same. If you only care about names (since that would be the reason to care), you are a casual fan and you only would watch a certain fighter or certain few fighters. Your buddies don't represent a large swathe of what people who currently watch MMA for. If you don't want to watch for the fights, then fuck 'em. That business model isn't coming back because first off, it was always unsustainable because you can only cross that bridge once before people on the other side blow it the fuck up (meaning the luster wears off and people move on). If anything, Bellator's ugly 2017 and rough 2018 start is even bigger proof of that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, Casey said:

Sounds like McGregor stormed the press conference and is causing all sorts of trouble, including throwing a chair through a van window and cutting Chiesa’s face. Cops are on their way to the arena supposedly?

Press conference was yesterday. Today is media day with the undercard fighters and the rest of the main card people which explains what happened to Chiesa and why Felice Herrig had the footage.

Crashing the wrong event is the most McGregor thing possible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

This anecdotal analysis doesn't work because what you're saying and the data  proves that these people are one in the same. If you only care about names (since that would be the reason to care), you are a casual fan and you only would watch a certain fighter or certain few fighters. Your buddies don't represent a large swathe of what people who currently watch MMA for. If you don't want to watch for the fights, then fuck 'em. That business model isn't coming back because first off, it was always unsustainable because you can only cross that bridge once before people on the other side blow it the fuck up. If anything, Bellator's ugly 2017 and rough 2018 start is even bigger proof of that.

That is kind of the problem.  These are potential customers who have an interest in fights.  They are also people who have disposable income who have the opportunity to do damn near anything with their Saturday nights.  The UFC is in the business of promoting fights, but they've essentially said fuck all the people who aren't going to buy our product any way.  That is just dumb as a business practice.  If you have a group of people who are willing to buy your product if engaged, you need to be trying to engage them.  The UFC seems to have stopped trying to engage anyone but the hardest of the hardcore fans unless Conor McGregor or maybe a returning Brock Lesnar fight.  What happens if Conor decides to take his money and run, or if Vince makes Brock Lesnar an offer he can't refuse?  They have a good product, they are refusing to push that product to people who may want it. 

I don't know how to make stars, nobody does, but they don't have to really create a star as much as they need to build names.  Stars bring in big numbers, which is great, but those people are hard to find.  Names are much easier to build.  You just have to put people in a position to be seen and perform.  For instance, other than lightweight, is there a deeper division than welterweight?  How often do top-10 welterweights fight?  Kamaru Usman is the only one who has fought this year.   How do you expect anyone to care about fighters who don't fight?  They regularly disparage the champion, they don't have a challenger anyone cares about, and there is no reason anyone outside of super hard core fans would spend a dime to watch anyone what is historically a money division.  That is a problem they could fix, they just don't seem to want to.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, this whole McGregor thing is so stupid.  I don't think he wants those Khabib problems...you can't convince me the UFC didn't call him first to replace Ferguson...and he's going to be arrested for this bullshit.  If he wanted to fight, he should have stepped up and taken the fight, but nope, he wants to throw shit at a bus.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, supremebve said:

That is kind of the problem.  These are potential customers who have an interest in fights.  They are also people who have disposable income who have the opportunity to do damn near anything with their Saturday nights.  The UFC is in the business of promoting fights, but they've essentially said fuck all the people who aren't going to buy our product any way.  That is just dumb as a business practice.  If you have a group of people who are willing to buy your product if engaged, you need to be trying to engage them.  The UFC seems to have stopped trying to engage anyone but the hardest of the hardcore fans unless Conor McGregor or maybe a returning Brock Lesnar fight.  What happens if Conor decides to take his money and run, or if Vince makes Brock Lesnar an offer he can't refuse?  They have a good product, they are refusing to push that product to people who may want it. 

I don't know how to make stars, nobody does, but they don't have to really create a star as much as they need to build names.  Stars bring in big numbers, which is great, but those people are hard to find.  Names are much easier to build.  You just have to put people in a position to be seen and perform.  For instance, other than lightweight, is there a deeper division than welterweight?  How often do top-10 welterweights fight?  Kamaru Usman is the only one who has fought this year.   How do you expect anyone to care about fighters who don't fight?  They regularly disparage the champion, they don't have a challenger anyone cares about, and there is no reason anyone outside of super hard core fans would spend a dime to watch anyone what is historically a money division.  That is a problem they could fix, they just don't seem to want to.

 

Pretty much sports and the WWE in general.  There is a focus on milking the hardcore fans and ignoring the casual fans.

 

11 minutes ago, supremebve said:

Yeah, this whole McGregor thing is so stupid.  I don't think he wants those Khabib problems...you can't convince me the UFC didn't call him first to replace Ferguson...and he's going to be arrested for this bullshit.  If he wanted to fight, he should have stepped up and taken the fight, but nope, he wants to throw shit at a bus.

He just wants Floyd in the cage for a huge payday knowing that if he loses a regular fight his whole shtick goes away and he becomes Chael Sonnen 2.0.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, supremebve said:

 What happens if Conor decides to take his money and run, or if Vince makes Brock Lesnar an offer he can't refuse?  

The thing is you're always going to be at the point whether it's the biggest name on the roster or the smallest name. Cole Konrad likely wasn't going to be a big MMA star, but look at what happened to him. He was undefeated in MMA and just decided he wasn't interested in continuing fighting. Who knows if Cole Konrad was going to be the guy to get Bellator to place where they could actually compete with the UFC instead of being a significantly distant runner up. In this sport, you're always dealing with "what if"?

I think fan engagement could always be better because I think their formula needs to be revamped whenever this new TV deal comes about. At the same time, I realize they've figured out they can finagle a profit and sizable business by going as the wind blows. I remember having a discussion years back with glfpunk about titles fights in relation with their PPV business. Not to toot my own horn in retrospect, but they have one or two title fights every PPV and really hasn't improved business as that goes. Since that discussion, they changed that philosophy of worrying about fights falling through because of injury and whatnot and just seek to make the best fights possible and throwing them out there like McDonalds does w/ items on the dollar menu. My point being that it isn't much quality over quantity is they have a roster where they can mass produce the best fights possible in the sport and the fights that clearly aren't that and you just pick what you want. You want to see Sage Northcutt vs. Thibault Gouti? Sure, why not. You want to Paige Van Zant against someone who just joined the roster a month earlier? Go for it. Mackenzie Dern's UFC debut? Have at it. As problematic as that ideology is, it works in a way where they can see who or what draws independent of spending a million dollars to do one PPV ad. We use to spend whole pages here trying to figure out who was responsible for drawing a 450k PPV number. Was it this guy or that guy or the UFC hype machine? Now, I can honestly say these people (whether it's PVZ, Sage, Cyborg) are draws and these people are not. Best believe if they have someone who shows they can draw without some variable, they will push them to the moon. Francis Ngannou's Overeem KO going viral was proof of that.

38 minutes ago, supremebve said:

Kamaru Usman is the only one who has fought this year.   How do you expect anyone to care about fighters who don't fight? 

The thing is a lot of folks turned down fights, were injured and ill, and were earmarked for fights to happen later on. We saw once they were able to make those fights or convince people to take those fights or they got healed up, everything fell into place. Now it's on the fighters to stay in those fights. They can't force people to fight and moreover, fight when they don't want to or aren't eligible to.

15 minutes ago, evilwaldo said:

Pretty much sports and the WWE in general.  There is a focus on milking the hardcore fans and ignoring the casual fans.

I think the UFC problem is the opposite and everything in the last three years proves that except the hardcore fanbase shrank as time passed and the casual fandom grew out unrealistic to the point where there is now little differentiation between the two once you get a certain level.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: arrest warrant

No warrant yet, but the NYPD is investigating the incident right now.

Also, it appears that Conor's little attack almost took out Rose. However, she will stay on the card. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...