Comments on: WEC’s poor ratings show that Strikeforce should not waste their time going after them

By: jr

jr — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 06:52:06 +0000

Even though I’m a fan of the smaller fighters, WEC might want to mix in some heavyweights. Comcast has spent the money for the NHL but do you see a lot of Versus commercials on other sports stations/ sports talk radio?

By: Alan Conceicao

Alan Conceicao — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:37:04 +0000

it always looks dark.

I thought I was the only one!

The whole concept seemed weird. Creating a bunch of new belts and intentionally confusing the market? Huh? Trying to give it an identity with lower weight fighters was an idea, but ideas don’t necessarily work. Keeping the 155lb fighters there just enforced that this was a minor league, and no one cares to watch minor leagues.

All the talk of merger only really does anything if they have a plan in place that will allow them to increase shows. Otherwise, it means they’ll have to shelve a lot of guys and release even more.

By: Lendo

Lendo — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:23:35 +0000

2 points:

1) they need to promote/advertise WEC better if they want viewers. WEC 47 had some very good fights, they just need to get the word out more.

2) 8000 is a great number for the WEC, but part of that is because of the Arnold Classic weekend crowd. If WEC 48 can do that number, considering the fights they have, that would be great…10,000 would be better.

By: Zack

Zack — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 18:46:51 +0000

You can’t just blame direct TV when this card drew far less viewers than their last one. The fact of the matter is that Uriah Faber is their only star.

This WEC PPV is a win/win for management. If it does well, they have dudes locked into tiny contracts and they will reap the lion share of the profit. They’ll throw out some behind the doors bonuses and everyone will be happy. If it fails, WEC fighters have NO leverage at negotiation time.

I’d really like to know how Spike feels about this UFC card on Versus, since it’s more appealing than many of the UFN cards. If they are okay with not being the exclusive place for UFC on cable, then re-branding the WEC as the UFC is easy.

By: Detective Roadblock

Detective Roadblock — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:29:36 +0000

WEC feels cheap and second rate to me. I really don’t care much for it. I don’t care about any of the fighters, I hate the stupid music and think it always looks dark. What I find is I slays end up looting against the guys WEC keeps telling me are so great like Faber, Torres and Bowles.

I think they made a mistake getting off Sunday nights. WEC isn’t special go out of your way programming. It’s something to watch when nothing better is on. My girlfriend and I went for a long hike last Saturday andwere at home wiped out when I rememebered WEC was on. So we watched it. She’s a big MMA fan. At the end she turned to me and said, why does WEC suck do bad and how does UFC let it go on tv like this?

By: edub

edub — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:14:26 +0000

Yea I agree.

There feeling the backlash of a division showing too much parity. Stars sell fights. If Cruz keeps winning he will build up a bigger fanbase, that in turn will create more viewers.

However, they really need to seal that deal with DirecTV soon.

By: Paradoxx

Paradoxx — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:23:32 +0000

“Second, WEC’s poor ratings not only indicate that the company is in a slide, but it also shows that Strikeforce has won a small battle amongst the hardcore fans”

So does Kimbo on a spike midcard fight pulling more viewers than a Fedor main event on network TV mean UFC won the war with every other fan in the US?

By: Alan Conceicao

Alan Conceicao — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:13:06 +0000

They alienate fans when they put on PPVs too by automatically limiting the audience. Either way is not preferred, but Versus is certainly better than PPV as far as gaining exposure goes.

By: kobashi

kobashi — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:38:54 +0000

So the Zuffa owned promotion is struggling to get viewers. They will realise that UFC fans only care about the UFC product!

By: EJ

EJ — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:31:25 +0000

Definately not great ratings but not the end of the world either, it did better than Cerrone vs. Ratcliff and considering that the Versus/Direct TV thing should be over soon it’s pretty much business as usual for the WEC.