Meltzer: well over 16 million people saw UFC 100

UFC has done extensive studying regarding its PPV buyers and there were some interesting things that it showed.

The average number of viewers per household at a UFC PPV show is ten. Dana White has publicly given that number in the past and that on the surface sounded hard to believe. No doubt that a lot of homes watching have ten or more people, but there are single people who watch alone and buy PPV, and to get an average of ten, for every single person who buys on his own, you need a home with 19 people watching to balance out the average.

The research showed that it varies based on the event. The stronger the event, the higher the average, which only makes sense. The weaker events may average eight.

WWE did similar research indicating the average was four viewers per home watching a PPV, while WWE generally does about 1.5 or so per home for Raw.

For UFC, a live show on Spike, the number is closer to 1.5 per household. It’s very much a deal where if the show becomes something friends are interested in, it becomes the focal point of a party, but the MMA PPV audience consists largely of people who want to see the big events, but don’t care if they see run of the mill television events, even for free. This is why having two PPV shows on the same weekend is a killer, or even having two in the same month becomes challenging.

The feeling is there are about 200,000 UFC hardcore PPV fans who will watch the show. The rest are going to buy if friends want them to buy, which is why the numbers vary so much. Most of the audience variance are people who are not MMA fans, but fans looking to watch entertainment that people are talking about. It has more of an entertainment lure than a sports lure to the general public.

It confirms the perception of what Jim Ross wrote in that the announcers speak too technically about the sport, particularly on the big shows, but not necessarily on the shows like the 2/20 show. Another thing is that the idea that you have ten people all chipping in $5 to see the show so the price change means nothing, actually isn’t the case. Usually, the person whose residence the show is at is going to be the one who pays for the show rather than charging his friends, but the friends may bring the pizza or beer.

The feeling is well over 16 million people saw UFC 100 on television, which is as big as the biggest sporting events on network television except NFL playoffs, World Series and NCAA finals. And that number doesn’t include people who watched at sports bars, although that’s only a few hundred thousands.

The key is not providing fights for the hardcores, but match-ups that their friends, who aren’t big fans, but know some big names, would want to see, which means developing strong personalities. In contrast, a big Spike show may do 3 million viewers and the weekend show on Versus only did 1.24 million viewers.

There were also focus groups done regarding sport vs. entertainment when it comes to the UFC PPV audience, and what people want and they skewed more heavily toward entertainment. That’s why the new promotions that open up, whether it’s IFL or Bellator, with the idea of making it more sports-like, are missing the boat as to what the key to UFC success is.

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