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Anecdotal talk that UFC 115 bombed at the bars and movie theaters

By Zach Arnold | June 14, 2010

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From Observer radio show on Sunday night:

DAVE MELTZER: “Oh, by the way, from everything that I can gather, the UFC closed circuit bombed [Saturday] night.”

BRYAN ALVAREZ: “Ooh, that’s not good.”

DAVE MELTZER: “I mean just a lot of reports of 20 people, 16 people, 35 people in theaters.”

BRYAN ALVAREZ: “Well, it’s just not a marquee show really.”

DAVE MELTZER: “It wasn’t the show for it.”

BRYAN ALVAREZ: “No.”

DAVE MELTZER: “You know, I mean the bar stuff I’ve heard you know people say that there was 1/5th as many people as [UFC 114] and… again, I mean, you know you can’t come, it’s two weeks, it’s real quick to come back and I mean for any show and this was I mean you know they ended up having a good show but it was just too quick and you know in between two monster main events you got a match that really, you know, they booked a match that people really didn’t want to see. I mean, it’s not you had a better suggestion because you know I mean I think it would have done better if it was Tito (Ortiz). You know what if it had actually been Tito it probably would have done reasonably well even though people really don’t want Tito I think they’d would want to see Tito knock Chuck (Liddell) out [does he mean the opposite?] With Liddell and Rich Franklin, you really don’t have that dynamic because you know most people really don’t want to see Rich Franklin get knocked out, he’s actually a really you know he’s kind of a nice guy, you know, and Chuck everyone loves Chuck you know they don’t want to see Chuck get knocked out so you know that was actually sad when he got knocked out.”

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 10 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

10 Responses to “Anecdotal talk that UFC 115 bombed at the bars and movie theaters”

  1. 45 Huddle says:

    Good!! Teach the UFC to run fewer PPV’s but of higher quality.

    I think failings like this are a good thing in the long run. Hopefully.

  2. Nepal says:

    But is it really a failure? If it does even 350,000 buys, then it must drive a lot of revenue for the UFC. So even if they ramp up the number of PPV/year to say 18, you know 13 or so would be of the level of UFC 115 or thereabouts. If UFC continued to draw 350 to 600,000 for these shows and 1Mil average for the top 4 or 5 PPV’s then they are incredibly cash positive.

    Revenue to UFC on 400,000buys x $50 /2 (PPV provider share) =$10M. Cost of fighters salary and bonus, maybe $2M. Concessions, Spike TV prelims generate money. Obviously UFC pays a lot for providing the entire show but there must still be millions of dollars profit for Zuffa even on a lowly purchased PPV.

    People complain about crappy cards but really they are pretty good. Just because there isn’t a real impact fight on the card, there are still a bunch of quality fights, which is what I want to see.

    What am I missing here???

  3. zak says:

    Insurance money for the city was high. Rumored to be $12 million. Then there was taxes, renting the facility. There was/is a lot of chatter that Zuffa might lose money on the show.

  4. jj says:

    it’s too bad the fans that go to the bars and theaters missed out on a pretty damn good show.

  5. Fightlinker says:

    Yeah, my favorite event since 110.

  6. Zack says:

    Yes…I enjoyed this show a lot. It was totally worth downloading on Sunday.

  7. Tradition Rules says:

    BRYAN ALVAREZ: “Well, it’s just not a marquee show really.”

    DAVE MELTZER: “It wasn’t the show for it.”

    Well, this is part of the problem with hype:

    The Evans/Jackson show was given much more hype then this card, but I personally found this show to be much more entertaining & competitive.

    Granted, the show prior had a “marquee match-up” for the main event, but this isn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last, where a big, hyped up match is a disappointment from a fan perspective.

    And this is why it can also be damaging for gaining new fans who are more then just casual fans.

    This is why I try my best to save my personal criticisms of a fight card until after I see it.

    Sure this last show from a booking stand point look “good” and not “great”,…or even “very good” to most. But being a true MMA fan, I long ago came to realize that there are very often fights that will surprise you, be it an upset or just a hell of a lot more entertaining or competitive.

    But without the”marquee match-up” many perceive every show should have,many fans, casual or otherwise, passed on this one.

    A shame, as they missed a very good PPV/fight card.

  8. EJ says:

    “What am I missing here???.”

    Nothing, you pretty much said everything that needed to be said about the topic. People get so caught up in gloom and doom with everything that happens now adays. That when you take a step back and break things down like you did it shows that it’s all for nothing because the UFC continues to chug along making bank.

    • The Gaijin says:

      Maybe if he’s like you and doesn’t take the 30 seconds to do a little research, but instead blindly jumps to the “oh this is a bunch of delusional PRIDE fanboys in denial, nothing could ever go wrong”…he missed the part where there’s stories surfacing that insurance and taxes to run the show cost them upwards of $12m…you’d see why this might be a problem.

      Sorry I know that doesn’t fit your narrative, so I’m sure you’ll ignore it or blame it on the “butthurt PRIDE fanboys”…

  9. […] game sales weren’t the only bust for the UFC in the past week. Word from Dave Meltzer (via FO) is UFC 115 bombed in movie theaters. “Oh, by the way, from everything that I can gather, the […]

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