The UFC 173 PPV Buys Are Looking…..Not Great
The recent trend of news in MMA is tending to fall on the negative side, when you consider that Bjorn Rebney got fired from the Bellator MMA cannon and landed in the unemployment line, and all the controversy surrounding three of the UFC’s biggest stars. So it seems as though the promotion needs to build some new stars, as well as waiting for the current crop to return from injury/drug controversy.
With this in mind, it must come as a bit of a blow that the UFC 173 pay-per-view buys were mediocre at best. The event, headlined by TJ Dillashaw bossing Renan Barao out of his bantamweight belt, scored a sultry 200-215,000 buys. Check out what Dave Melzer of MMAFighting.com, who first broke the news, said in his report:
“With the plethora of free UFC televised events, the consistently large pay-per-view numbers from the mid-2006 to 2010 period are only going to be hit when the public sees an event as major. Now more than ever, the biggest shows have remained strong, but shows without a strong main event or deep card, are seeing people pick and choose. The 200,000 to 230,000 range is where the featherweight and bantamweight title matches, as well as some lightweight title matches, have been doing over the last two years when they are the singular headlining fight.”
The highest ever number of PPV buys for the promotion was UFC 100, selling a whopping 1.6 million to fans clamouring to see Frank Mir vs. Brock Lesnar, “Hendo” vs. Bisping and Georges St. Pierre vs. Thiago Alves. Obviously a bantamweight title headliner can’t be expected to match, or even come close to those numbers, but the card had a lot more to offer (on paper) than just the title fight.
When you consider that there were an average of 445,000 viewers for last week’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter, it becomes clear that it isn’t a shortage of fans that want to watch the UFC. Perhaps six months of oversaturating the market is finally biting the promotion in the behind.
The UFC actually topped one million buys with UFC 168, and will look to pick up the pace this summer as they look forward to the UFC 175 mega-card. Can Chris Weidman hit a million twice in just over six months? It’s likely he could come close, as the card will include Ronda Rousey vs. Alexis Davis for two title fights on one card. UFC 173 (and probably 174) are a sign that viewers are no longer interested in paying for PPV, at least not as much as before. Could Fight Pass be killing the promotion’s PPV buys?
