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Quebec backs down and UFC shows big strength
By Zach Arnold | February 20, 2009
The near-debacle in Quebec demonstrates what kind of financial power and momentum is currently on the side of Zuffa. At a time when the economy has hit all sports hard, it is not affecting UFC. With three straight domestic PPVs drawing 800,000 or more buys, the company is on rock-solid footing at the moment. Every day, sports fans read about bad stories in basketball (15 teams reportedly had to take out $12M USD loans from the NBA) or football (teams such as the Carolina Panthers laying off 20 employees). However, there’s no bad news in the land of Dana White.
Topics: Canada, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 4 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
The economy won’t hit the UFC as hard as it’s hitting the other sports because of the model.
If the UFC has 20 cards a year, they don’t expect (or force) anyone to buy tickets/go to all of the events. If no one went to more than one event a year, they UFC could still come close to a sell out at every event.
The other sports are going to get killed in the season ticket and luxury box areas. People aren’t going to have the money to plunk down for 81 baseball tickets, or 40 basketball tickets at one time. The UFC doesn’t have season tickets, so they don’t have to worry about this.
If they keep cranking out events like UFC 94, you can bet your ass the PPV buys are going to drop off.
Maybe the lousy economy was affecting Quebec to the point they couldn’t afford to lose the income the UFC event would provide. Money talks.
UFC 94 on paper was a stacked card. It wasn’t their fault most of the fights went to a decision. That sort of thing happens sometimes.