Ben Fowlkes case for (and against) UFC Fight Pass
The UFC’s new digital network Fight Pass, which ZUFFA CEO Lorenzo Fertitta aptly describes as Netflix for the fight fan,” is free until…
The UFC’s new digital network Fight Pass, which ZUFFA CEO Lorenzo Fertitta aptly describes as Netflix for the fight fan,” is free until March. MMA Junkie’s Ben Fowlkes gave it a try and reports.
Once I created an account to check out the free trial (which still requires a credit card to sign up for, even if Zuffa won’t start billing it until March 1), I had to admit there was a lot to like. Want to watch Jon Jones vs. Alexander Gustafsson (still my pick for Fight of the Year) all over again? One click and you’re there. You can even watch the entire main card from that event, which allows you to choose your camera angle and audio feed, going into either fighter’s corner to hear what his coaches are shouting at any given moment.
If you’re not sure what you want to watch, there are some helpful lists to browse through. You can follow the UFC heavyweight title as it changes hands through the years (something that happened a lot with that particular belt). You can also see favorites compiled by individual fighters like Matt Hughes (shocker: he favors old-timers over the new breed) or Chael Sonnen. (Why is the Nate Diaz vs. Manny Gamburyan fight that ends in TKO due to injury on his list of favorites? You’ll have to ask him.) That’s good stuff for both longtime fight fans who want to relive old memories or newcomers who want to get caught up to speed. You could get sucked in and spend your whole morning this way. I did.
The bad news is, at least in its current form, it’s nowhere near as complete or extensive as the product advertised by UFC executives on Saturday night
According to UFC officials, some of that has to do with the sheer volume of content we’re dealing with here. There are a ton of fights that Zuffa owns the rights to after its years of operations and many acquisitions, and those could take months to upload. There’s also no guarantee that the UFC will make all its fights available at any one time, possibly because the UFC is concerned that complete, unfettered access to the full fight library would result in a bunch of early subscriptions, only to have people cancel once they’ve seen their favorites.
The fact that that’s even a concern should tell us something about the true appeal of Fight Pass, at least for right now. For most users, it’s about access and control. The chance to watch some live fights, that’s just an added bonus – until, that is, the live fights see a jump in quality, which should happen with Alexander Gustafsson vs. Jimi Manuwa on March 8, right after the free trial has ended. Then the appeal starts to shift. Those fights that are scheduled to air live on Fight Pass? They won’t be rebroadcast, ever, on FOX Sports 1 or FOX Sports 2 or anywhere else, according to the UFC.
With UFC pay-per-view buys trending downward and broader trends suggesting a mass shift away from traditional TV viewing habits and toward streaming services, maybe the UFC is thinking ahead to the post-cable world of the not-so distant future. Face it, people don’t watch TV the same way they did a decade ago. And now that viewers know what it’s like to have unfettered access to the stuff they choose, it can’t be long before paying for cable bundles full of channels they never watch is a thing of the past.