UFC 170 estimated at 340K buys
Ronda Rousey vs. Sara McMann was as successful as any UFC PPV that didn’t have either St-Pierre or Silva headlining, since Jon Jones vs. Chael Sonnen.
The UFC recently lost its top two draws – GSP to a break of unknown duration, and Anderson Silva to one of the worst breaks in the sports’ history. The early numbers for 2014 show that the pattern the past few years remains. PPV is not dead or dying. Huge PPVs can be record breaking in boxing and in MMA, but for lesser PPVs, fans can wait, with the least popular shows getting around 150k buys.
UFC 169 is currently estimated at doing 230,000 buys based on various sources. The show, held in Newark, N.J., on the eve of the Super Bowl, featured two lighter weight title matches held by two of the best fighters in the sport, Renan Barao and Jose Aldo. But neither has broken through as any kind of a significant draw.
The number was almost identical to what a Barao vs. Faber headlined show, UFC 149, did, and above Aldo’s previous title defense against Chan Sung Jung at UFC 163.
UFC 170, headlined by Ronda Rousey vs. Sara McMann, is estimated at doing 340,000 buys. That’s down from Rousey’s first main event, one year earlier, with Liz Carmouche. But the drop is hardly unexpected. The promotion of the Carmouche fight, the first women’s fight ever in the UFC, was among the best in company history. There was both among the most media coverage leading to a UFC fight in history, combined with a stirring Prime Time shows focusing on the two women leading to the fight.
Prior to Rousey vs. Carmouche, no pay-per-view event in any form of combat sports or entertainment, headlined by women, had ever topped 125,000 buys.
Still, it was as successful as any UFC pay-per-view that didn’t have either St-Pierre or Silva headlining, since the Jon Jones vs. Chael Sonnen fight. And McMann is not even in the same universe as Sonnen when it comes to talking people into buying fights.
It appears, at least for now, that there are a few categories of UFC on pay-per-view.
There is the somewhat rare sub-200,000 buy show, which are fights that, for whatever reason, a lot of the regular buyers are willing to skip. The 200,000 to 275,000 range are usually title fights with champions who have yet to establish themselves as major draws, fights significant to fans of the sport but the general public doesn’t really care about. The 275,000 to 375,000 range looks to be the major champions, Jones, Rousey and Cain Velasquez, when put in with opponents without major name value, although Velasquez vs. Junior Dos Santos was in that range.
