Jon's MMA Juggernaut 09.09.08: PPV Business of Couture vs. Lesnar

Posted by Jonathan Solomon on 09.09.2008

The Juggernaut looks at the business side of the UFC in trying to predict the PPV success of the biggest match-up of the year. Can Randy Couture fighting Brock Lesnar reach the one million PPV buys mark? We attempt to put the figures into some sort of context in making a prediction.

PRE SHOW
Before we get underway, just a quick look back at the BIG knockout victory for Rashad Evans this past weekend. Big props go out to Csonka for being the sole ballsy guy in the roundtable to pick Rashad. In last week's column, I warned "You should not be surprised if we see Rashad Evans turn into the happiest fighter in Georgia on Saturday." I made the mistake of focusing in large part on Rashad's wrestling background. Turns out, even Rashad knew the best way to beat Chuck Liddell was to try and knock him out, beat him at his own game. Rashad did just that. On ESPNews, following the fight, Mike Goldberg made note that Rashad literally beat Chuck to the punch as The Iceman was in the process of delivering a big uppercut. However, Rashad fired quicker and knocked him out first.

In the other fights looked at last week, Matt Hammil did not have the same luck against Rich Franklin and Karo Parisyan pulled out of his fight with Yoshiyuki Yoshida days before. So the "Devil's Advocate" is 1-1 with 1 No Contest. Not bad.

For that, we get HAPPY Rashad...and that other guy, too.





Welcome back and a rather lackluster fall schedule certainly looks much brighter these days. Last week, the UFC announced to the world that their court struggles with reigning heavyweight champion Randy Couture were over and the veteran shall return. In fact, Randy Couture will fight Brock Lesnar at UFC 91 on November 15th in Las Vegas. I know I'm not the only one who is excited for this legit superfight. Now, forget about all of that and try to look at the business side of things. This week, I try and take a look at just how UFC 91 may do on PPV considering the big draws in the main event. By the end of this column, you will find a prediction and it may or may not exceed the early prediction by UFC President Dana White.

UFC's Dana White predicted during the press conference that UFC 91, with a main event of UFC Heavyweight Champion Randy Couture defending against Brock Lesnar, would do about 1,000,000 pay-per-view buy's. That my friends is one person who sets his sights quite high. Gotta love Mr. White, whether the comment was just tossed out there or he really meant it, the guy has balls (big shock).


He's baaaack!

The one million buyrate figure is pretty damn high. Not many PPV's can reach it and when they do, you better believe it's due to a big fight or show. Hell, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Ricky Hatton's fight last year did not reach that mark (domestically) after expectations were in the stratosphere. Of course, Oscar De La Hoya-Mayweather Jr. from 2007 lit the PPV world on fire with a reported two million-plus buys (thank you HBO 24/7). It takes a very special match-up (or event) to make the leap into seven figure territory. UFC has had one PPV draw over a million buys and that was for the big fight in December 2006 between Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz. That fight was held during both fighters' huge drawing power days and the period where the UFC took the world by storm. The closest the UFC ever came since then was UFC 71 in May 2007 due in large part to all of the mainstream media coverage.

In 2007, WWE's highest domestic buyrate was for Wrestlemania 23 with a 760,000 figure. I do not have this confirmed but as I understand it, no WWE, boxing or UFC pay-per-view has exceeded the one million buys (domestic) mark in 2008. However, the December boxing PPV featuring Oscar De La Hoya fighting Manny Pacquiao is expected to do well over a million buy's (and a lot more if you listen to any boxing people).




Pretty Boy & De La Hoya made history with their first fight. Will we ever see an MMA show do two million PPV buys?



Here are estimated buyrates for UFC PPV's since 2007 leading up to August 2008.

*The UFC does not officially release their buyrate information so all numbers below are estimated figures.
*Most of these numbers are based on Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Some of the most recent buyrate estimates are based on trending data that have held close to the actual buyrates.
*The bolded events signify those PPV's that have reached the 500,000 buyrate mark.
*UFC 66 in December 2006, reportedly had 1,050,000 PPV buys thanks to Chuck Liddell vs. Tito Ortiz. 2006 remains the most successful year for the UFC and when the mainstream world began to take legitimate notice of the phenomenon.

UFC 67 - Anderson Silva vs. Travis Lutter - 400,000
UFC 68 - Randy Couture vs. Tim Sylvia - 540,000
UFC 69 - Georges St. Pierre vs. Matt Serra - 400,000
UFC 70 was televised on SpikeTV
UFC 71 - Chuck Liddell vs. Rampage Jackson - 675,000
UFC 72 - Rich Franklin vs. Yushin Okami - 200,000 (afternoon PPV)
UFC 73 - A. Silva vs. Nate Marquardt, Tito Ortiz vs. Rashad Evans - 425,000
UFC 74 - Couture vs. Gabriel Gonzaga - 500,000
UFC 75 was televised on SpikeTV
UFC 76 - Liddell vs. Keith Jardine, Shogun Rua vs. Forrest Griffin - 475,000
UFC 77 - Franklin vs. A. Silva II - 325,000
UFC 78 - Michael Bisping vs. Evans - 400,000
UFC 79 - GSP vs. Matt Hughes, Liddell vs. Wanderlei Silva - 600,000

UFC 80 - BJ Penn vs. Joe Stevenson - 225,000
UFC 81 - Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir, Sylvia vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira - 650,000
UFC 82 - A. Silva vs. Dan Henderson - 325,000
UFC 83 - GSP vs. Serra II - 525,000
UFC 84 - Penn vs. Sean Sherk, W. Silva vs. Jardine, Ortiz vs. Lyoto Machida - 475,000
UFC 85 - Hughes vs. Thiago Alves - 225,000
UFC 86 - Jackson vs. Griffin - 520,000
UFC 87 - GSP vs. Jon Fitch, Lesnar vs. Heath Herring - 500,000

Obviously the first number that shoots you a look meaner than Kimbo Slice is the 675,000 associated with UFC 71. It should be noted that this was the (in)famous UFC event which received a tremendous amount of coverage from ESPN. ESPNews covered the weigh-in's and gave TV time on ESPN to Joe Rogan, Dana White, Chuck Liddell and Quinton Jackson in the build to the show. This event happened during The Ultimate Fighter season five, although I am not pinning the sucess on that season alone. This gigantic a number has never happened since May 2007 so the gigantic buyrate seems a highpoint.




The second biggest figure is 650,000 from Superbowl weekend earlier this year (GO GIANTS, FTW!) that featured the highly anticipated octagon debut of Brock Lesnar. I'll go out on a (very short) limb and say that the main event, in terms of fight placement on the card, between Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Tim Sylvia fighting over the interim-heavyweight championship did not add ten viewers. Credit goes to the UFC for the terrific advertising campaign they put together in early 2008 leading up to this show. They went out of their way to cut deals with the top two professional wrestling promotions in the United States, WWE and TNA. I still vividly recall going to Madison Square Garden in January 2008 for a WWE show and witnessing that ad campaign first hand. The entire building was literally covered with UFC promotional material. A huge video wall played the UFC 81 commercial on a loop, the same video wall that overlooks 8th Avenue in a city of about 1.6 million people (8.2 million if you count the other four boroughs). Inside MSG, UFC 81 posters littered the building. Dana White somehow talked Vince McMahon to lend him WWE footage of Brock Lesnar which he used to hype him to the MMA audience. The UFC also reached a deal with TNA (SpikeTV no doubt had a large role here) to promote UFC 81 on their own programming. Who could forget TNA's Kurt Angle breaking down Lesnar vs. Frank Mir as if it were pro wrestling. People paid to see Brock fight and it paid off, big time.



One of the UFC 81 trailers. They certainly did their job.


The third biggest buyrate for the UFC over this period is the big New Year's Eve show back in December. I have trouble believing the big number came from people wanting to see an older underdog version of Matt Hughes against a monster version of Georges St. Pierre. Nothing against either fighter, but the big hype for the show was the dream superfight between Chuck Liddell and Wanderlei Silva. Dana White himself waited five long years to see this fight. Waiting makes you stronger? Is that the old phrase? Well, the holiday version of UFC (held on December 29th, the same night that the New England Patriots barely defeated the New York football Giants to cap off their undefeated regular season. LAST LAUGH!) had a huge audience that also saw Lyoto Machida win another fight and St. Pierre appear unstoppable. The fact that the UFC had The Ultimate Fighter running at the time (until December 8th) also helped, even if it was a minor boost.




The fourth biggest buyrate takes us back to March of 2007 to see Randy "The Nautral" Couture challenge Tim Sylvia for the UFC Heavyweight Championship. Couture returned to the octagon for the first time in 13 months and moved up a weight class. Other big name fighters on the card included Matt Hughes (against Chris Lytle) and Rich Franklin (against Jason MacDonald) but neither was the draw of this event. With that said, the approximate buyrate of 540,000 is seen as one drawn on the shoulders of Randy Couture in the main event. People did not pay to see Tim Sylvia, in fact, this fight was seen as fan favorite Randy returning to "save us" from the big bore.





With all that said, obviously the burden is on the UFC to promote the hell out of Randy Couture fighting Brock Lesnar. Whether that means going back to WWE and/or TNA and reaching deals to advertise with them, or going on ESPN or coming up with new ways to reach the casual fans, they must treat this match up as if it is their legitimate super bowl. This is not Georges St. Pierre and B.J. Penn. While that fight is extremely anticipated among the "hardcore" fans or the "internet" fans, the casual fans have to be told and persuaded as to why they should want to see two of the best fight. This is not the case with Randy and Brock, all the UFC has to do is put the information out there. Tell the world that Randy Couture is returning to the UFC to fight the unstoppable bull who made Heath Herring look like a rookie and demolished Frank Mir until he got caught. Put billboards around the country, in Los Angeles, in New York, in Chicago, in Texas, in Minnesota, in Virginia, Toronto, etc., make both men available to talk to the media and watch the tension develop.

Brock Lesnar knows all about marketing a fight. From the pro wrestling world, he automatically is one of the best talkers in MMA. You won't find him spouting off an endless list of sponsors after a fight leaving no room to connect with the audience. Brock is a showmen, it just so happens that now he is also a legit fighter. Some call him a natural heel (bad guy) due to his comments and that he comes off like the big jock. Well, Randy is the perfect counterpart to that because he is as beloved a fighter as there is. Sure Brock Lesnar may speak about all the respect he has for Couture, but he can also talk about how it's his time to shine, how Randy is old and cannot handle his sheer strength and power. The casual fans would pay money to see Randy Couture fight Brock in hopes of humbling the young MMA newcomer. After all, Randy has been busting his ass in building the sport since the late 1990s when Brock was still in college.

Oops, I never knew Joe Rogan made mistakes. Watch Brock talk like a champ!


The next season of The Ultimate Fighter (the subject of next week's Juggernaut) will start in the middle of September and run throughout the fall, ending before December. This gives them the ability to run a countless number of ads on SpikeTV promoting the fight. Even if the audience for TUF hasn't shown growth in the past couple of years, they still have an audience of about just over one million people per week. Granted though, the folks who watch TUF about every week (you and I) are already likely to purchase the show in the first place.

Add in the possibility of a Quinton Jackson return to fight Wanderlei Silva and you have the biggest fight card of the year, bar none. With the UFC's marketing behind this show, this will obviously be the biggest MMA event of the year. The question then becomes how does it compete with the other sports on PPV.

My useless prediction in terms of PPV buy's is around............825,000, and that would make UFC 91 the biggest show in nearly two years.

I'm thinking big.