Fertitta: This should be best year in UFC history
2015 is on pace to be the UFC best year ever, with Aldo vs. McGregor and Weidman vs. Rockhold still to come at UFC 194, which could surpass 1,000,000 buys.
The hardcore fanbase did not believe that former UFC women’s bantamweight could carry a large PPV, and did believe that PPV revenue was dwindling. However, according to chief executive officer Lorenzo Fertitta, UFC 193 is currently the third largest event in the entire 20+ year history of the sport, and is on track to be the second largest when all the numbers come in.
•UFC 193 sold over 1,000,000 PPVs.
•UFC record for single-night attendance with 56,214.
•$6.79 million live gate is fourth in UFC history.
•6,000 commercial venues was company record.
•Rousey has two of the three largest PPVs in combat sports, with Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao at #1.?
•UFC 193 was #1 sports event on the Nielsen Twitter TV rating, with 85.9 million+ live impressions?.
?•Ronda Rousey is the most followed female athlete on social networks, with a combined Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram of 18,000,000. Maria Sharapova is #2.?
•2015 is on pace to be the UFC best year ever, with Aldo vs. McGregor and Weidman vs. Rockhold still to come at UFC 194, which could surpass 1,000,000 buys.
Kevin Iole has the story for Yahoo Sports.
It was a record-breaking night, said Fertitta. In the history of combat sports, four females have never been able to drive the performance we were able to drive on Saturday. … It’s our third-largest event of all-time and it’s trending to be our second-largest. It’s not an exact science, dealing with pay-per-view, and the numbers come in very slowly.”
The proof is in the pudding, even though we’ve been criticized over the last two, three years as we’ve embarked upon this expansion. [This year] is going to be pretty much the best year in the history of the company. We’ve solidified our business in Europe. Europe’s never been stronger relative to our popularity and everything going on in that market.
Obviously, it’s no secret Brazil has become a stronghold and it’s been great business for us. Mexico and South America are continuing to grow and we have a great future ahead of us there, I believe. And we’re starting to gain traction in Asia. It’s taken longer, frankly, than we expected but it’s going in the right direction now.
The key to build a sustainable business in any of these markets is you have to have live events in their prime time. You can’t build, and I’ve said this many times, a real business in Europe and Asia by importing product from the United States that airs at 3 or 4 in the morning in Europe or in the case of Asia, at 7 in the morning. It just doesn’t work.
My opinion is that just knowing Ronda for however many years I have, she is an incredibly competitive person and that yes, I believe she will want to come back in a very significant way, said Fertitta, who emphasized that he hasn’t spoken to Rousey or her manager about it. I think for this next fight when she comes back, she’d be a bigger draw. For all the people who tuned in, there probably were some who didn’t because they assumed it would be quick and they could catch it on Instagram or something.
But one of the great things about this sport is that the impossible can happen. And what we’ve found when that has happened, the rematches historically have been bigger. Whether it was Matt Serra and [Georges St-Pierre] or Chris Weidman and Anderson Silva, when we look historically, the rematches have tended to be significantly bigger. … We’re expecting that to be the case with the rematch for Ronda and Holly and that, hands down, it should be the biggest fight in UFC history, surpassing UFC 100.
