Meltzer: Losing GSP cost UFC 8.5 million
MMA Nation’s Luke Thomas recently sat down with Dave Meltzer to talk about the economics of MMA. Luke Thomas: Let’s say…
MMA Nation’s Luke Thomas recently sat down with Dave Meltzer to talk about the economics of MMA.
Luke Thomas: Let’s say on UFC 137. Losing Georges St. Pierre who has the highest buyrate this year and it might be debatable but at UFC 135 Dana White said he’s the company’s biggest pay-per-view star. Either way, it’s a big devastating loss in terms of promotional value to lose George St. Pierre. I’m curious about your pay-per-view expectations. Some people are saying, “Well B.J. Penn has some of the best buyrates in UFC history as a lightweight which is true but it hasn’t happened in a long time. After the fight in Australia, the two losses to Edgar, he’s not putting up what he once was and it’s almost like between he and Diaz, a compliment contest. There’s absolutely no buzz between their fight except for this sort of merry-go-round story between GSP, Diaz and Condit. Your expectations, how high can UFC 137 go in terms of pay-per-view buys.
Dave Meltzer: I think it’s gonna be in the ballpark of a lot of the Tito Ortiz-Rashad Evans type of number or the Faber-Cruz type of number. If we’re talking, I think 275-325 type of range, kinda like where a lot of the fights were. I just don’t, because again, it’s B.J. Penn who can be a draw with the right opponent and I think Diaz can as well but I just haven’t seen the great hype and maybe it will come in the last week but I think losing Georges off the card, I’m gonna throw out a number because I figured this. I think losing GSP cost UFC eight and a half million on the show in one night. That’s how bad it is.
Luke Thomas: You mean pay-per-view and ticket sales? What do you mean?
Dave Meltzer: Ticket sales, I don’t know because they’re already sold out. There are some refunds so I don’t know but again, how extensive those refunds, I don’t know until Dana gives the number at the end so I was just talking pay-per-view buys. I think it’s gonna cost them eight and a half million in pay-per-view buys from a 650 to a 300 [thousand] type of drop in that range.