Last Saturday's Mayweather-Marquez card drew an impressive 1 million PPV buys for a $52 million domestic haul. The UFC doesn't always release their numbers, but they're being given an estimated 400K buys for UFC 103. Not bad for either card, considering they were on the same night. Especially not bad for the UFC considering this was a relatively minor event with no 'big' fights or belts on the card. The Mayweather fight, as do all others shown by HBO, definitely benefited from the excellent 24/7 Countdown series that ran for a month leading up to it. If you haven't seen them, it is pretty much identical to the Hard Knocks series they did for the Cowboys and Bengals the last two years. No doubt Pacquiao-Cotto will crush UFC 105 on Nov. 14. It'll get the HBO 24/7 treatment. And this is another relatively minor card for the UFC, as they had to move the championship fight between B.J. Penn and Diego Sanchez to UFC 107. Not to mention UFC 105 takes place in England and will be tape delayed. On top of that, ESPN always spoils it further by scrolling the results across the Bottom Line. This is a continuation of the Boxing Is Dead (vs UFC) discussion. Last weekend's numbers would suggest boxing is alive and well. And the press and boxing fansites are celebrating how boxing crushed the UFC Saturday night. But again, that was a superfight vs. a small show. And boxing has broken 1 million buys something like 3-4 times this decade, I believe. For comparison sake, UFC 100 got 1.7 million PPV buys and UFC 101 got 1.1 million. Their big events can draw too. And they don't have the benefit of a 24/7 show on HBO. And for what it's worth, their card was infinitely better on Saturday.
Well, because UFC drops events every 3-4 weeks or so. This card was okay at best, while HBO promoted with 24/7 and the big names in boxing, sure, boxing isn't anywhere where it used to, but I don't think too many honestly could say that they expected the UFC card to beat out the boxing card.
boxing won't crush ufc, nor will ufc crush boxing. its kind of dumb for either to think they can IMO. I personally enjoy both, although boxing more then ufc, and would not like to see either go away or become smaller events. having said that given how stacked some of the divisions are in welterweight/middleweight/lightweight, I wouldn't expect to see ufc be able to overtake these fights. Come close with a good card maybe. UFC could probably overtake like lets say a heavyweight card. Just depends on who is on the undercard though. Boxing has done a better job with better fights on the undercards though.
Wow. I SERIOUSLY underestimated the amount of people still interested in watching Mayweather. I thought that Mayweather would sell like 400K-500K, and the UFC card, weak as it was, would sell like 500K-600K. Boy was I wrong! BTW, did you see the ratings the free undercard fights on Spike drew? Very good. We can only hope they'll do it again...
pretty close to what I thought it would be..... But I am interested in seeing what Mayweather can draw by himself in a super fight and then compare that to what a big UFC card draws....rinse ...repeat....then proclaim WHO is the real king of PPV. I hosted in my house that saturday night...for what it is worth...all my friends are huge UFC fans....I put it to a vote...it was unanimous for me to buy the mayweather fight. it was a very good card as well. To be honest...it bothers me that the UFC will put on a PPV without a championship fight and still ask for full price.... That last card was worth $29.99 tops.
well if ufc did a big ppv event every few months with its biggest name it'd do well also.......doesnt bother me
You're not alone. When I used to pay for PPV's , I absolutely HATED paying full price for a half-*** card, one without title fights. IMO, there's no excuse for them to NOT have at least one title fight on EVERY card. There's 5 weight classes, for christ sake. Champions should be defending their belts 3 times per year, barring injury.
Personally I go to Bay Street down here for PPV's. $5 for single events, $10 for doubles like Saturday night and spend the 'PPV' money on food and drinks. But if I were paying for it regular, yeah......I'd buy only the big events, nothing else. This is where the UFC-WEC merger will be great. The cards will be stacked. And the prelims on Spike will be even better. That was great and the numbers were good (depending on who you ask). I would be surprised if that doesn't become the norm. Just means one less showing of Star Wars that month.
