Will Friday timeslot hurt UFC 141?
If you are an MMA fan, Saturday night is UFC night. In an interview with the FightFans Radio, Dave Meltzer said he…
If you are an MMA fan, Saturday night is UFC night. In an interview with the FightFans Radio, Dave Meltzer said he thinks the move witl cost the UFC many millions.
“Of all the things, the Friday night concerns me the most. It’s a big enough fight to where I think it’ll do over half a million (buys) no matter what, but I just think there’s going to be a lot of people who on that Friday night are thinking “Yeah, tomorrow night is the Lesnar fight”, and then they’re going to wake up on Saturday and see the results and go “Oh my god, I missed the fight!”. Because we’re so intuned as creatures of habit, I mean I never think on Friday night of UFC, OK? Ever … but when I wake up Saturday morning it’s like “There’s probably a UFC fight”. So I think that Friday is going to hurt, especially with this fight.
“I know why they did it … it’d be hard to book hotels, and that’s true. In Vegas to get people in … they didn’t want to compete with New Year’s Eve entertainment. But I think with this fight, if it had been on New Year’s Eve it would have been just gigantic on Pay Per View, and I’m worried a little on the Friday aspect. It’ll still do well though, but I just think there’s going to be … a hundred, two-hundred thousand people that would have bought that show, on Saturday morning are going to go “Oh my god, the show was last night!?”. Even with the awareness of the show coming up, just because it’s Friday and … they just don’t think about it (being) on Friday.”
“… if this was like an Edgar / Maynard show on December 30th, I mean I think it would have done, like, horrible! Now because it’s Lesnar I think there’s going to be a lot of awareness the week (of), and a lot of people are going to figure it out. But … the one thing that always hits me is when WWF [sic] does their 3 hour RAWs, and like 20% of the audience still tunes in at 9 o’clock. And this is with them going on TV usually for 2 weeks, “We’ve got a 3 hour RAW in 2 weeks, we’ve got a 3 hour RAW next week …” over and over, “Don’t forget we’re on an hour early, don’t forget we’re on an hour early …”, and still 20% of the audience doesn’t get that message, and I’m afraid that like that’s what’s probably going to happen here, that 20% of the audience is going to go “Yeah I know, Lesnar’s fighting this week” and not think about it until Saturday morning; “Oh yeah, lets get together and watch the Lesnar fight”, you know, with their friends.
“Ijust feel like it’s going to be 20%… maybe it’ll be more, maybe it’ll be less, but I think a pretty darn significant percentage is going to miss that fight because of it being on Friday.”
Also note the UFC 141 start time for ‘Lesnar vs Overeem’ PPV event returns to 10 p.m. ET