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Thursday talking points: Dana White says UFC fans are rich
By Zach Arnold | April 4, 2007
A very interesting report from KamiproHand (Kami no Puroresu), which claims that PRIDE producer Daisuke Sato (who worked closely with Nobuyuki Sakakibara & DSE for PRIDE event production) will stay on with Zuffa under the ‘new’ PRIDE. Sato was the man behind PRIDE Bushido events and part of the core matchmaking group of DSE. Will Sato remain close to Sakakibara?
Humorous moment of the day: I tried to post a comment on my own site and it got flagged for spam. Well, I guess the filters do work after all.
The K-1 4/4 Yokohama Arena show drew a 14.0% rating on Tokyo Broadcasting System, with the peak rating being a 17.9% for Masato vs. Ole Laursen.
A CD giveaway by PRIDE for fans who attend the 4/8 Saitama Super Arena event. Volk Ataev has been pulled off of the Saitama card due to an illness.
The world is safe: ESPN’s Page 2 is squashing the LA Daily News report that American football player Reggie Bush was banned from the Playboy Mansion due to a ‘conduct violation.’ In other news, Josh Barnett still thinks American football players act arrogant at Playboy parties.
Our predictions for the matches on both the UFC Fight Night and UFC 69 events were made on this week’s edition of FO Radio.
- Sherdog: Rich Franklin vs. Martin Kampmann booked for UFC’s first Ireland show
- The Houston Chronicle: Ultimate Fighting battles for a mainstream role (Dana White claims the average UFC fan makes $72,000 USD/year)
- MMA Weekly: Dean Lister suffers torn biceps
- Daily Sports (Japanese): Tatsuya Kawajiri aiming his sights at Sean Sherk
- Mad Squabbles: Kimo takes a dive
- The Canadian Press (via CBC Sports): GSP: An MMA champion with manners to match
- The Honolulu Advertiser: Robbie Lawler No. 8 in the world
- UFC HP: UFC Fight Night weigh-in results
- UFC Mania: Jon Fitch – ‘UFC doesn’t expect very much from me’
- The Quad-Cities Online: Former Moliner Wayne Weems debuts on Ultimate Fighter tonight
- The St. Petersburg Times: Monstah Fightah (article about Allen Berube)
- The Tampa Tribune: Allen Berube grapples with new challenge
- Boxing Scene: Arum gets the nod over De La Hoya in court
- The Boston Herald: Fight club will quell carnage (this is written by the same guy who wrote various stories about MMA fights when Boston and Taunton placed bans on the sport)
- The Boston Herald: Boxer rebellion – TUF throws a bunch of heavy-duty lightweights into the ring
- The Union of Grass Valley: Ultimate athlete – Gabe Ruediger takes fight to TV
- The Daily Iowan: Ex-Hawkeye wrestler Ryan McGivern still fighting
- The San Mateo Daily Journal: Martial arts champion Joao Pierini jailed for molestation
- The Colorado Springs Gazette: See Corey Hill and Noah Thomas go from Springs to the ring in TUF
- The Daily Breeze: Andy Wang’s secret life doesn’t have a fighting chance
- Komikazee: UFC 69 makes front page of Houston Chronicle
- Daily Motion: Josh Koscheck fights a crazed fan
- ESPN Page 2: I want my UFC
- The Mule News: Ultimate style fighting – all’s fair in love and war
- The Honolulu Advertiser: Spike TV’s TUF featuring BJ Penn debuts tonight
- Mad Squabbles: The Lauzon home tapes
- MMA HQ: UFC 69 – Shootout preview
- UFC Junkie: Search for Keith Jardine’s UFC 71 opponent coming up empty
- The Orange County Register: TUF 5 preview (with audio)
Topics: All Topics, Boxing, IFL, Japan, K-1, Media, MMA, PRIDE, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 25 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Can you give us some context on the Japanese TV ratings? Those numbers sound pretty high to me but I have nothing to compare against. Thanks.
14.0% is OK on free-to-air TV. Not super, but about what K-1 does these days.
Bulgarian midget Jordan Radev may debut on the UFC Ireland card, as well.
It’s good that they’re keeping Daisuke around, he is/was an important part of the company.
Another interesting quote from the Chronicle article, “UFC is seen by White as a home for World Wrestling Entertainment fans when they grow up.”
I wouldn’t of thought you’d hear that from Dana.
Max gets better ratings then Heros.I think Max is the futrue.
What has Josh Barnett and reggie bush got in common.?
It’s a crack about yesterday’s news update.
It’s hard to tell for sure which Pride lightweights will end up at 170 and which will end up at 155, but based on the fighters that they say they want to fight, it looks like Gomi is more likely to be 170 and Kawajiri is more likely to be 155. If Gomi wants to fight St. Pierre and Hughes, he’d have to do it at 170, and if Kawajiri wants to fight Sherk, he’d have to do it at 155. Now the question is which weight class the “Lightweight Grand Prix” will actually be… it can’t be 160 pounds if Pride doesn’t have a 160-pound weight class anymore, so it would have to be either 170 or 155.
Anything juicy from the Kawajiri article you could translate for us?
Re: Franklin vs Kampmann
This will be the fight that makes Kampmann realize he’s too small for 185 in the big leagues. Unfortunately for him, 170 is stacked. I think he might be a good candidate to be switched to PRIDE to beef up the not quite as stacked 170/185 divs.
Re: Gomi
I wonder how many beatings by UFC fighters Gomi will have to sustain at 170 before he comes to his senses and drops back to 155? However, Gomi might do fine in PRIDE at 170 simply because there’s not much talent at that weight currently.
Re: LWGP
I would think this would be at 155. Or else they would just end up calling it a WWGP.
Re: Jon Fitch
To Mr. Fitch: you might want to work on your sh*t-talking game, or at least try to make your fighting style a little more flashy, because it’s pretty obvious the UFC doesn’t think you’re very marketable.
In what universe does $72,000 a year make someone rich?
If Dana White’s numbers were right, he should be getting calls from Crown Royal, Neimroff, and the rest for sponsorship instead of Mickey’s Malt Liqour.
The average is $72,000/yr. That’s very high for a TV show or sport.
http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_10573.asp
Here’s a quick article and chart that will give some perspective.
In what universe does $72,000 a year make someone rich?
Making $72,000 is a very high income. Its higher than the average yearly income of a person with a Masters Degree by almost $20,000.
I agree it’s high, but I think the post title, that “Dana White Says UFC Fans Are Rich” is misleading. He didn’t say they were rich — he cited a figure that puts them just above the high-end of free-tv viewership. Is it realistic? I doubt it — but he didn’t say “UFC fans — millionaires” and I doubt most people classify a household or even an individual making 72,000/yr as rich.
The Kimo “sports entertainment” mma league seems so old-school to me. It’s like the American MMA scene and the Japanese scene are moving in opposite directions.
Gomi better come to his senses now after the beating a former UFC 170 pounder gave him at PRIDE 33. I don’t think he has a chance against the top welterweights in the UFC. Lightweight is where he belongs and his lazy ass needs to cut the five pounds to get there.
“Bulgarian midget Jordan Radev may debut on the UFC Ireland card, as well.”
I don’t get the joke.
I wouldn’t count Gomi out at 170. Out of all the 170’s in the world, he probably has the most KO power out of them all and his grappling is good. The problem is that he’s really full of himself. He suffers from the “BJ Penn” syndrome of being too cocky and neglecting training.
A focused Gomi at 155 is a monster. Even at 170 his matches would be competitive and could go either way if he comes in training his ass off.
72.000/year is very high by at least Swedish standards (which is where I’m from and currently reside) – and then we’ve got way higher taxes than in the US too. And if you look at any standard-of-living chart, Sweden is usually ranked pretty high, so what would make 72.000/year into a non-high salary in the US? What percentage of Americans in total earn 72.000 or more? How much of that would be disposable income after bills, food, and other running costs like car, etc? This might be somewhat off topic, but I’m curious to fill this particular gap in my knowledge of the life in north america…
Grape Knee High: I agree on Kampmann. In some misdirected (and uncalled for) nordic patriotism I might be tempted to root for him, but until it hit the ground, he was losing his last fight, no doubt. His stand-up is horrible, and he would be better off spending another year in a farming league. I think he will be sent to WEC rather than to Pride, however.
Ukiro,
70,000 is a very nice salary. “Rich” often means more than just well off. It means having more money than you know what to do with. 70,000 a year is a nice start for a lawyer, depending on location. It’s all semantics.
I don’t think Kampmann needs to go to a minor league. He just needs to drop weight. His last opponent, Mc Fedires, hit harder than any middleweight in MMA, imo. He will be fine in the UFC.
$72,000 USD/yr. for the average income of an UFC fan is very high — especially when juxtaposed to what advertisers view the average income of a WWE fan is. (Hint: It’s low, which is why WWE doesn’t pull in as much ad revenue as other programming).
Thanks for the info on the salary bit, guys.
While Mcfedries does indeed hit hard and with impressive precision, Kampmann had very poor defense standing up – he kept walking straight into the punches. Hadn’t Mcfedries been so wary of the potential (and eventual) take-down attempt he would have ended the fight; I felt as though he was just one more decent hit away from doing so. This scenario was quite obvious even early on in the match; Kampmann was outstruck right from the start, and one would think he ought to be aware of it. Yet he opted to deal with this fact by trying to walk through the punches. This looks to me like the approach of a fighter not yet mature for the big league, someone who still has that lingering, subconscious, teenage sense of invincibility. To be ready for UFC or Pride, you need to be well aware not only of your strengths, but also of your weaknesses. I did not see this in Kampmann.
72,000 is the poverty line in San Francisco. Really.
Anyway, when White says UFC fan, who is he talking about? If he’s talking about the average ticket holder to a Vegas UFC show, then I believe him. If he’s saying that’s the average UFC PPV buyer, then I’m a bit surprised. If he’s talking about the average The Ultimate Fighter viewer, then I think he’s full of it.
“I don’t get the joke.”
Radev is from Bulgaria, and real short. Hence, Bulgarian midget.
Where did yo get the news about Jordan Radev? Since when is he with the UFC???