Rumor: UFC 174 did 100k buys

Dave Meltzer painted a dismal picture of UFC 174 PPV buys in his latest Wrestlng Observer Newsletter.

UFC 174 was the night that tested what the least amount of interest UFC could garner from a PPV perspective was.

The show had everything going against it. The lineup was weak across the board. There were few name fighters on the undercard. The main event pitted Demetrious Johnson, the flyweight champion, who is not a draw, against Ali Bagautinov, very close to the least known main event title challenger for any UFC belt to date. Plus, it was three weeks after a show, and three weeks before the biggest show of the year.

It’s too early to get accurate numbers, but every indication we’ve gotten was very bad, and that it showed a steep decline from UFC 173, which was among the lower numbers of the last eight years. UFC PPV shows usually range from 200,000 to 500,000 Google searches after the event, and are usually in the top few searched for items in the country. A bad show may only do 100,000. Bellator’s show last month hit 100,000. A big show can top 500,000, with the shows that hover around 1 million buys usually doing anywhere from 1 million to 5 million searches. This show did less than 20,000, unheard of for a PPV.

Unlike UFC 173, which looked weak on paper and everyone knew wasn’t going to draw much, it still had Dan Henderson and Daniel Cormier in the No. 2 spot. They brought some star power in what was really the main event. It also had a lot to talk about after, due to T.J. Dillashaw’s upset win over Renan Barao.

This show didn’t have much interest going in. But most of the time, those type of shows deliver good action. This had none of that. It wasn’t terrible, but there was no fight you needed to see. As a likely sign of how the show went, Dana White didn’t even attend the post-fight press conference.

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Then popular long-time UGer Galani posted that he heard the show did only 100,000 PPV buys.

From: Galanis

Member Since: 6/21/09

Posts: 4238

I’ve heard from a couple of people who would know, that early estimates of 174 buys have it just a bit under 100k. The sole reason I am posting about this (I normally try not to be one of those ratings/buys posters who everyone hates) is because if the show truly did this bad, it will be a good thing for us fans who complain about watered down cards. The UFC’s core audience was really being tested with this card, to see how much they could get away with buys wise, for a card with absolutely no drawing power to the casual viewer.

If this is the case, it sends a strong message to the UFC that the watered down cards are no longer going over with fans. For me, considering the cards are $60 and there is 14 a year.. this is great news.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the number that comes out in the press is just above that, like 125.. If you see the number come out around that area, then trust me, it did under 100k. This has to piss Dana off to no end considering the Bellator show did do a legit 100k

Meltzer is the go to guy when it comes to PPV info for sure.. but he even stated in the Observer today that Google traffic for 174 was under 20k searches… which is absolutely unheard of.

This is really interesting stuff to me, because like I said.. if true, the UFC is going to realize they can’t keep putting on shows like this as a numbered PPV, and expect its fans to continuously just blindly shell out the cash.

That’s a step in the right direction.. they know they are losing PPV buys, and hopefully they step their game up to fix it, by putting on more big fights per card. We can hope anyway

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