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UFC 105 does average in the cable ratings
By Zach Arnold | November 18, 2009
Remember those reported predictions last week by Spike TV management claiming that they thought they could draw 5 million viewers for Randy Couture vs. Brandon Vera? I thought it was non-sense, too, and I was wondering why the ratings information for this show weren’t released sooner. If the ratings had been hot, you would have heard about it by Monday night or Tuesday morning.
Instead, it’s Wednesday and you have to dig around to find them.
The UFC 105 show did a 1.9 rating, which is a disappointment. They are pushing they beat CBS in the younger demos but fell short overall.
At MMA Memories last week, one of the questions I asked is whether or not the public cares about Randy Couture as passionately as they once did. It’s hard to put all the blame on Couture here — Vera isn’t a compelling opponent and it was hard to take the idea of Mike Swick vs. Dan Hardy as a #1 contender’s match seriously. That said, when you beat your chests going into the show and say you’re going to do better than Strikeforce on CBS, well…
Compare how UFC 105 did versus the minute-by-minute ratings for the Strikeforce show. Even though UFC 104 (Cain Velasquez vs. Ben Rothwell, Machida vs. Shogun) did reportedly better than expected PPV buys, the company right now is in a cold pattern since UFC 100 last July in Vegas.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 28 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Since UFC 100….
1) UFC 101 did around 1 Million PPV Buys
2) UFC 102 did 535,000 buys. UFC 103 did 400,000 buys. UFC 104 did 475,000 buys.
3) Highest rated season of TUF ever. That includes two shows that had 4.1 Million and 5.3 Million viewers.
4) UFC 105 that did 3 million viewers over a 3 hour show. It also beat Strikeforce in the younger demographic, the same demographic that CBS is looking for with a MMA show.
Yeap…. Looks like they are doing bad. God, the doom and gloom is amazing lately. They are still doing absolutely great business… And somehow everything has been bad since UFC 100? I admit they have had tons of injuries and sicknesses, but that has only wrecked two shows… And I highly doubt Ortiz/Griffin will be what is considered a bad buy rate anyways.
Saturation. Oversaturation.
The UFC has done very well this past year. If Rampage stays, Lesnar was able to fight, then I could only imagine what the buyrates would have been.
I think this show had a couple things going against it. Number one it was delayed everywhere since it was a UK show. So I wasn’t live to any part of the US. Anyone who was on the fence about watching could have found out how awful of an event it was and skipped it. Second Couture is not as big of a draw as UFC and Spike were pretending. That’s why Dana dis pay Randy during his contract dispute. He isn’t wieht what he wants.
Anyone who is a fight fan and not just an MMA fan was watching boxing. I saw Coutre/Vera live on the web and then watched boxing live.
Dana is crazy with wanting to go head to head versus boxing. I’m not sure what he is trying to prove but a big boxing match draws significantly more than Brock does.
I think UFC needs to scale back, stop oversaturating the market and focus on doing special events. I personally don’t care about any upcoming UFC events. Maybe I’ll get psyched day of for some and watch them but probably I’ll just catch them on the web. Wheras Cotto/Paq I was counting down he days since it was announced.
“…and I was wondering why the ratings information for this show weren’t released sooner. If the ratings had been hot, you would have heard about it by Monday night or Tuesday morning.”
No you wouldn’t. Neilsen’s data center suffered some kind of power outage on Monday (the day Saturdays cable ratings are published) which is why ratings were delayed for a day or two.
And Spike TV did send out a press release today: http://www.sherdog.com/news/1/UFC-105-COUTURE-VS-VERA-ON-SPIKE-TV-DELIVERS-MORE-YOUNG-MEN-THAN-STRIKEFORCE-ON-CBS-21028
Love 45 pushing the big spin on the “demo” victory after all his spinning against every possible rating number for CBS. Such a dedicated little sycophant.
The sad thing is he didn’t even come up with the spin himself…it was pre-packaged in a press release.
I sure would hope the leading mma organization could eke out a demo win on a channel that caters to that exact demo, has that orgs product as it’s flagship programming, had non-stop advertising and hype machine rolling going into the show and was utilizing one of it’s most recognizable, bankable fighters.
Funny how 45 gets accused of spin when everything he said was true, it’s really becoming sad how the far people have to reach to go at the UFC.
The fact is that UFC 105 did better in the young demo than SF did and if you remember CBS had to boast about those ratings because they finished near the bottome for networks on that same night.
Somehow when a competitor of the UFC boast about ratings or buyrates it’s ok, but when the UFC beats them in both somehow they are underperforming what kind of bullshit is this?.
Seriously if we’re going to have a real debate let’s first stop with the one sided bullshit it’s past embarrasing.
What good is winning the most important demo in terms of advertising revenue if you’re not going to bother publicising the fact to court potential advertisers? The message is loud and clear – advertisers can pay less on a cable network yet reach more eyeballs in the important demographics.
I was going to rebutal to The Gaijin & Zack…. But EJ said it best…. No need for me to add much beyond his post.
45 Huddle:
UFC 101 DID NOT do 1 million PPV buys. It did between 800K and 900K.
Not only that, their PPV buy rates and ratings on TV sans Kimbo have been slipping since UFC 100. That is the truth. No breath of air for the UFC (106, 107, 108) until sometime next year when they get their draws back.
UFC PPV Buy Rates:
100 1,720,000
101 900,000
102 435,000
103 375,000
104 400,000
Counter programming against Strikeforce CBS show was down 25% from previous counter-programming efforts.
UFC 105 did a disappointing 1.9 rating, didn’t even rank on highest watched SPIKE cards though the headliner was Randy. Tito Ortiz vs. Ken Shamrock III attracted two million more viewers… and that was over three years ago.
Like I keep saying it\’s hard to take people seriously when they have to work over time to bash the UFC. I wish people would actually sit back and look at what they are posting and saying then post because it would stop alot of nonsense said on here.
And apparently the UFC isn\’t competing against SF or anyone else they are competing against themselves. So even when they get great ratings in their demo like UFC 105 did and out do their comp or do a surprisingly high buyrate like UFC 103 and UFC 104 did that is also a failure again i\’ll say that is some bullshit.
45Huddle forgot to adjust the numbers for inflation against Shamrock-Ortiz III. Oh wait.
UFC 105 was a great rating for cable. It does, alternately, prove that the UFC can run a free Randy Couture fight and it still won’t do much better than a UFN, if at all. There’s an audience for MMA, but its not any bigger than the Kimbo Slice shows on CBS.
Off topic a little, I wonder how well Kimbo would do on pay per view. People like watching him on Youtube for free, and CBS and Spike for free. But would they pay for him? I got the impression they were interested in signing Kimbo to be their free TV ace, but with their issues now he’d undoubtedly going to co-main event a PPV, or main event if they’re really desperate. Since his fanbase is very young compared to the rest of the MMA audience (there’s not doubt his YouTube army is comprised of 12 year olds) could he rival Brock’s numbers?
“Off topic a little, I wonder how well Kimbo would do on pay per view.”
Honestly I’d really like to know this myself. I wish he’d string a couple wins together then have them do Kimbo vs Chuck to see what the buyrate is. Kimbo has proven to be the biggest MMA draw of all time on television, but who knows if it would translate to buys.
Well that would do a blockbuster number on the freakshow factor of the dancin’ machine coming back to fight beardo. Actually that fight would probably end in a double knockout somehow. That should actually happen on a Dynamite!! in between Giant Silva vs. Jose Canseco and Bob Sapp vs. a midget, not a UFC.
But Kimbo against someone like Cain Velasquez or even Cro Cop or Kongo is more what I’m talking about. Could his tween fans convince mommy and daddy to pay $45 and let them stay up late to see Kimbo. I really think his fanbase is too young to translate to pay per view when he’s the main draw.
They’ve given him away for FREE on both network and cable television (both basic and premium) on numerous occasions, not to mention the number of youtube views – and the one next to impossible thing to do after that is convince people to PAY for it once the expectation of FREE has been created.
I think their youth has more to do with it. Like pro wrestling can get 4 million viewers but the biggest PPV buyrate they ever got was slightly over a million buys. And the amount of kids watching probably has a huge amount to do with that poor conversion rate. Like, if Chuck Liddell fought on TV a bunch then went on PPV, you’d pay to see him because you liked him. But if your allowance didn’t add up to $45 and mommy doesn’t like you up past 10, it’s another story.
And Kimbo’s fans (read any message board thread or YouTube comments section about him) are very, very young or very, very stupid, one of the two. They don’t seem all that interested in MMA, they’re interested in the Kimbo mythology. Like kids who only watched WWF for Hulk Hogan and didn’t really care about anybody else. And if they’re not young then that’s really sad. I remember back a few years ago new fans who got drawn in from Ultimate Fighter were reviled by older fans (you know, the ones who said stuff like “Ken Shamrock vs. Tito Ortiz at UFC 61 is going to be the best fight in history! I don’t know who’s going to win that one!”) but the Kimbo fans make the posts by Ultimate Fighter fans of 05/06 look like an MMA debate between Zach Arnold and Jordan Breen. They know next to nothing about the UFC beyond “Kimbo is gonna be heavyweight champ soon! He’ll kick every1’s a$$! Don’t tell my mom I swore ok :-)”
Dana said on Twitter
“Karo Parisyan has fucked over the UFC, the fans and his opponent again!!! He will not be fighting saturday or ever again in the UFC!!”
Did anyone actually expect better than these numbers?
It was Randy “I lost three straight fights” Couture vs. a nobody to most people and a really lackluster card lacking serious names on a tape delay (results were on ESPN in the early afternoon) head to head with the biggest Boxing PPV of the year which drew nearly 1.5 to 2 times what the biggest UFC PPV ever drew.
Dana White can bitch about Boxing not giving people match ups they want to see and dying or whatever but Boxing whipped his ass last weekend and did so against a card NOBODY was clamoring to see.
I am an MMA fan. That means I enjoy UFC. I enjoy SF. I like fights. But I am not going to nut hug UFC and pretend these are great numbers because of one demo and I am alternately not going to diss the fact that they got a lower number than they wanted. You’d have to be a moron to think that with a huge amount of fight fans buying the Boxing PPV that UFC was going to do better than it did on Spike with the aforementioned weak card.
Rp
Oops… “two” straight fights. I typed ahead of my thoughts there.
Rp
Dana adds: “Pulled out of the fight the day before weigh ins again with a laundry list of excuses!!! Let the press ask karo why! Let him explain.”
That’s too bad that Karo can’t get his shit together to fight. There’s a ton of headcases in MMA, but he’s the most upsetting since he’s so damn talented and never reaches his full potential.
It’s really starting to feel like the last days of WCW are coming. Over saturation due to too may events, the inability to create new stars, the dwindling crowds, and the rushing off of injuries of major stars only to be injured worse.
Yeah except for the fact that the UFC is more like the WWE, regardless of what the haters say the machine keeps on ticking and making money.
Who’d ever think that in a year in which the UFC did 1 million buys in back to back ppv’s a couple of months later it would be doom and gloom. The sillyness of all this only grows when you actually sit back and take it all in and realise just how successfull the UFC is at the momment then you get why talk like that is ridiculous.
Oversaturation?…Oh yes, thats why football and baseball never went mainstream. No one wants to see 4 to 6 games EVERY week.
You don’t win over 18-24 yr old boys with short attention spans by putting on 5 fights every 30 days.