UFC Oversaturation?

[SDM]

He got his ass kicked by Mike Pyle in a very terrible fight.

[REDDzone]

He got his ass kicked by Mike Pyle in a very terrible fight.

[REDDzone]

Zuffa has money from their TV deals as well. They could probably find ways to offer enough content for a subscription service without stretching these cards so thin: Offer the back catalogue for all the prior UFC/Pride events. Produce in-house documentaries and special features. Hire some media personalities for weekly round-table discussion programming, something like what Helwani does with the MMA Hour or MMA Beat. Show the international TUFs, etc, etc.

I'd be interested in hearing how the ufc feels about their fox deal. It seems like awesome exposure, and I'm sure they have done good on fox, but I wonder how they feel about fs1/fs2. Its just too much to keep track of, but I remember reading the fox sports network has terrible ratings IN GENERAL and that includes the ufc cards. I wonder if zuffa expected to get more exposure on fx, a channel that generally gets good ratings and that used to get good fights. E.g, the inaugural flyweight tournament was on fx.

[SDM]

He got his ass kicked by Mike Pyle in a very terrible fight.

I missed the Diego fight, so I didn't know he was DIEGO when he came out and lost, so I assumed something better from Hathaway. He's a boring guy... a less skilled, less athletic Rory who has been "training all facets of the game for his entire life". Except he hasn't been doing that in Las Vegas or Montreal. How can he get pushed when the best guys at his gym are Mustafa Al Turk and James Thompson?

[Bernman]

I still look forward to cards (non-subscription at least) based on a standard of entertainment that's been established, even though my knowledge of the fighters on the card recently tells me it's not going to be as good as it used to be, but then have been left feeling inevitably disappointed and hollow a lot during and after events lately.

The over-simplified explanation as to the waning interest in MMA by many I is:

Dana's/Fertitta's ego ---> greed + attempt at world domination ----> over-saturation of the market + neglecting the interests of fighters and fans ----> lower fight quality ----> reduced fan interest.

I think the fight quality that has stemmed from over-saturation has more to do with the loss in interest as I explained before, than over-saturation by itself. People can still pick and choose what events they want to watch to make it special as there are limited rooting interests, and plenty of sports have one match per week that are highly popular with fans. One of them is American football. The other is international football/soccer. And they even have two matches per week usually, but fans can do like I said can be done in MMA and tune out the less important ones, which in the case of football/soccer is cup games.

Although there is something to be said about spacing events out for the sake of focus and anticipation. It can't be helping the UFC on a per card ratings' basis to have so many now. I think the massive amounts of matches in basketball, and the lack of break between them (like one day), is a reason for the disinterest there relative to American football. But the amount of matches have led to worse athlete performance as well. The recent Celtic teams, current Heat team, etc. can only be arsed to play to their potential in spots. Many games in a long season with matches in close proximity, players mail it in, or don't play altogether. And the product suffers as a result. Most fans would still focus on the product if it was good, but it's not as much the case for NBA/Basketball and UFC/MMA anymore.

UFC/MMA might be able to get away with one card per week without the quality of product suffering much, like American Football/NFL, if there was an almost complete talent monopoly like there. But there is not. And UFC's focus is somewhat on international expansion over talent lately anyway. So we get a lot of crap cards in relation to what we used to or could reasonably expect, with a gem snuck in here and there.

[REDDzone]

I just feel like the big ufc cards used to be deep, and now more than ever they are built around one fight. UFC 151 being the obvious example there. There aren't a ton of fighters that can really anchor a whole event. GSP. Silva. Brock back then. All three are gone as of now. Maybe Jones and Rousey. I honestly feel like I enjoy the ppvs more when they are more formulaic such that:

Main Event - Title Fight
Co-Main - Lower title fight, #1 contender bout, or ideally the #1 contender bout for the division whose title is at stake that night (e.g., Hendricks/Condit on the GSP/Diaz undercard)
Third down - Divisionally relevant fight or ideally #1 contender's bout, but also could be used for a big name fight like Barnett/Mir or a Diego Sanchez fight, etc.
Second fight in - Any divisionally relevant fight
Lead in to PPV - Varner/Trujillo was ALWAYS a perfect example of this, a fight with potential fireworks

The above is a lot easier said than done. Fine, don't have 12-14 PPVs a year. Cut it down to 4-6 and its easy and every ppv would be an event and worth the money.

[Cammo101]

I just feel like the big ufc cards used to be deep, and now more than ever they are built around one fight. UFC 151 being the obvious example there. There aren't a ton of fighters that can really anchor a whole event. GSP. Silva. Brock back then. All three are gone as of now. Maybe Jones and Rousey. I honestly feel like I enjoy the ppvs more when they are more formulaic such that:

Main Event - Title Fight
Co-Main - Lower title fight, #1 contender bout, or ideally the #1 contender bout for the division whose title is at stake that night (e.g., Hendricks/Condit on the GSP/Diaz undercard)
Third down - Divisionally relevant fight or ideally #1 contender's bout, but also could be used for a big name fight like Barnett/Mir or a Diego Sanchez fight, etc.
Second fight in - Any divisionally relevant fight
Lead in to PPV - Varner/Trujillo was ALWAYS a perfect example of this, a fight with potential fireworks

The above is a lot easier said than done. Fine, don't have 12-14 PPVs a year. Cut it down to 4-6 and its easy and every ppv would be an event and worth the money.

4 PPVs, 6 Fox Cards, 12 FS1 card, 12 Fight Pass card. But, have a clear difference between each level that is noticeable. The 4 PPVs should be stacked. I mean like...

Jones vs. Gus for the LHW title
Hendricks vs. Rory for the WW title
Anderson Silva vs. Bisping
Glover vs. Phil Davis
Stun Gun vs. Lawler

That kind of monster, I can't miss this card stacked. You simply can not sell PPVs if they are only slighty better than the stuff on free TV last week and next week.

[Headliner]

When I was in highschool ppvs cost like 40 bucks.
I'd get 6 guys and we'd pay about 7 dollars and watch it at my place. We'd do this for about 6-7 ppvs a year. The wwe would profit 280 from us.

If this subscription service was around at the very least 4-5 of us would have had it for sure. They would have made 480-600 from us.

I think it's a brilliant method to be honest.

[REDDzone]

When I was in highschool ppvs cost like 40 bucks.
I'd get 6 guys and we'd pay about 7 dollars and watch it at my place. We'd do this for about 6-7 ppvs a year. The wwe would profit 280 from us.

If this subscription service was around at the very least 4-5 of us would have had it for sure. They would have made 480-600 from us.

I think it's a brilliant method to be honest.

I was wondering about that. I never got into pro wrestling, so I didn't know if people usually watched alone or got together a la ufc ppvs (they are on Sundays, right?).

The other kicker here is that it seems like wwe has sweetened the pot with enough original programming + actually putting their library on fightpass. So all of your friends in your example would have it and still get together to watch ppvs, as opposed to just the host subcribing and everyone else just coming over the one night a month...

[blkout]

When I was in highschool ppvs cost like 40 bucks.
I'd get 6 guys and we'd pay about 7 dollars and watch it at my place. We'd do this for about 6-7 ppvs a year. The wwe would profit 280 from us.

If this subscription service was around at the very least 4-5 of us would have had it for sure. They would have made 480-600 from us.

I think it's a brilliant method to be honest.

Yeah I agree. I mean I watch most of the events with my brother and one of my friends, they're the only people I know interested in MMA at all. If it's a big card I'll buy it, if it's an average card we'll go to a bar and if it's a **** card we'll just pirate it. A lot of them are being pirated these days. If the UFC had a WWE-esque model, even if it cost more, we'd all be subscribed to it. They'd make so much more money from us at least. Two different animals as organizations though.

[REDDzone]

They would certainly get more money from me.

[CPT]

Some great points raised here guys.

Totally agree about fight quality being on the decline. I don't know if it's a combination of the low stakes, or just a lower threshold to get into the UFC, but I find myself half-watching or skimming through fights until the main one or two on every card. I'll defend decisions as a legit win, sometimes more legit than a finish, but the ones where nothing happens are getting really tough to watch. They may need to change scoring or open up the rules a bit to make fights more exciting, but at the same time, I don't know that we'll be seeing any rule changes that result in guys taking more hits to the head (ie/knees and/or kicks to a down opponent); it may actually go in the opposite direction.

A move to the new WWE model would be great. I don't pay a cent for UFC programming (mostly because of where I live), but if you got all events + the library for $10 a month, I'd probably do it. An important thing to point out is that doing this would eliminate the cable companies' PPV cut, so in an example like Headliner's, the difference in revenue would be even more extreme. However, if everything else stayed the same in terms of number and quality of events, maybe I wouldn't subscribe, since I'm already unsatisfied with the product when I'm not even paying for it.

One thing that sucks, is as much as we talk about this oversaturation, there's pretty much 0% chance of the UFC scaling back their operation. Like contraction in the major stick and ball sports, it may come up for discussion every now and then, but it's not going to happen. The best we can probably hope for is a move to the mega PPV model Cammo suggests, with international events really turned into something we aren't asked to care about. When they go to Brazil for a minor show, don't do a Jungle Fights card with a mediocre main event on the top, just do the Jungle Fights card with the UFC brand on it and don't ask me to care about it.

[Jasen777]

Isn't it true that the overall trend of ufc ppv buys, etc. is trending downward? I definitely feel that there are repurcussions of this oversaturation that are worse than just me being more bored at work because nobody posts here anymore.

I'm not saying there's not a drop off (I don't know), I just said you can't make that projection from traffic on this forum.

TV ratings are tough to say because of all the channel switching. I do remember though that the UFC on Fox events were the worse ratings for anything getting network promotion during NFL games.

The PPV average for '13 just passed '12's with the Weidman/Silvia rematch. Though it's down from the Brock era, and even 2006. It's probably why they're going for World Domination, but I have to question how long overseas fans will put up with the level of cards they're getting.

Complied from mmapayout.com data -

UFC PPV Avg. Buys (number of events)

2013 - 467,308 (13)
2012 - 448,846 (13)
2011 - 405,313 (16)
2010 - 587,000 (15)
2009 - 616,923 (13)
2008 - 527,083 (12)
2007 - 448,636 (11)
2006 - 527,000 (10)

The projection for next year has to have the UFC worried. They badly did a star or 3 with GSP and Silvia out.

If you look at the last two years these have been the only ones above average -

145 - Jones/Evans - 700,000
146 - JDS/Mir - 560,000
148 - Silvia/Sonnen II - 925,000
154 - GSP/Condit - 700,000
155 - JDS/Cain II - 590,000
158 - GSP/Diaz - 950,000
159 - Jones/Sonnen - 530,000
162 - Silva/Weidman - 550,000
167 - GSP/Hendricks - 630,000
168 - Weidman/Silva II - 1,025,000

6 of 10 had GSP or Silva headlining. Jones had 2 but also missed with Belfort and Gus (though presumably a rematch would do well). The other 2 were HW title fights, and the last one didn't do well.

[Headliner]

A lot of the issue the ufc has makes me think of what Nate Q said in his UFC rant.
If the ufc started paying their fighters real wages, or at the very least paying some of the costs that are incurred by the fighter trying to fight on the card to make a living, like flights for corner men, having to go to events for free if they are fighting, and of course the whole sponsorship debacle, we might get a better product in return.

I think a huge improvement would be changing the structure of the contracts.
Make some sort of base contract structure.
If you sign for 3 fights you make 20k per fight.
2 fights 15k.
1 fight 10k and if you win 1 more fight at 15.
You are guaranteed to have all those fights in a one year span (barring injury)
You think of it that's still floating around poverty level and those are still better than what they are receiving now. Yikes.

These would just be entry fight pays for prospects. A different pay base would be for fighters that are 4 fights or more in.
Couple that with giving them an allowance for flying in two cornermen, and of course allowing sponsors to pay them which would add a lot of pay.

They'd be able to make a living doing this, focus on fighting and we'd get more interesting prospects coming up, which ultimately leads to fuller fight cards with better fighters.

In the end I think the ufc is being penny smart dollar dumb and it will bite them in the ass.

[NO-KG-AI]

I dunno how good it is for business, but any sport that I like, I want to see as much as possible. Even when some of it is bad, the more trash I have to dig through, the more treasure I can find

[REDDzone]

I dunno how good it is for business, but any sport that I like, I want to see as much as possible. Even when some of it is bad, the more trash I have to dig through, the more treasure I can find

I just think its hard when cards can't be promoted. Say a fox card ends after midnight on a Saturday night, the ppv on the next Saturday has less than a week to be promoted at that point. People don't get to know anything at all about the fighters.

This actually brings up another (what I consider) negative about the fox deal. A fight ends, interview sometimes happens sometimes not, commercial comes on, and all the sudden Buffer is introducing the next fighter's height and weight. Wait what? Who is fighting again? No intro? No walk out, walk out music. If you are just tuning in, you don't know anything at all about these people, why should anyone care?

[SDM]

Great point, RZ. I'm not a fan of Fox's inconsistencies, no interviews, commercials, etc.

All they have to do to clean up the cards and save great fights for PPVs is to offer a couple weekly fights, maybe from the TUF studio, featuring the prelim guys on Fight Pass. Have contests on social media for seats at ringside, roll the cost of that into their marketing budget, and promote the hell out of their (hopefully) stacked PPVs between fights. If cutting the fat isn't an option, this is one way to make sure guys fight 3 times a year.

[REDDzone]

Its impossible for this to be a thing anymore. I was reading the book 'fightnomics' a few weeks back, its pretty good stuff for hardcore fans btw, but one of the trends in the ufc lately is the ground game is going by the wayside. Submissions are declining, time spent on the ground is declining rapidly every year, and there are a lot of factors as to why. The broes at the bar boo if guys go to the ground, Dana criticizes fighters and will even cut you in some cases if you don't stand and bang, and on the flip side you could lose 10 straight and still have a job a la Leonard Garcia if you just bang. Even refs who grapple themselves will stand you up in 4 seconds if the idiots in the crowd boo loud enough, and its not always from guard either. Just last event we had a ref standup from a guy in the middle of a pass, literally. We've seen ref standups from side control, mount. The recent elimination of "submission of the night" bonus will end up feeding into this trend.

MMA will end up being third rate boxing when its all said and done, which is probably why I've been more into Glory than anything lately. If I'm going to be watching standup fights, I may as well be watching guys who know what the hell they are doing instead of just the "boxer wrestlers" that BJ so aptly described which is the style of every other fighter now. The days of "grappler vs striker" are numbered.

Ariel kind of addressed this, saying that his colleague Guilherme Cruz was covering this issue and the feeling was that guys are hesitant to take the fight to the ground anymore because they don't want to get booed, etc.

Disturbing trend imo. Decision rate is way, way up. Another negative trend.

[Shaazzam]

Agree with a number of the points made.

I just don't respect the brass at Zuffa. The lack of integrity they have has rubbed off on a number of fighters and the business as a whole, particularly in the last couple years. Any industry with f'n Zuffa at the top of it, the industry leader, the one that's supposed to test the market for reform, deserves better. These guys are self-promoters who got in at the right time. The more time passes, the more it looks like sheer luck that the company hasn't imploded yet. Dana's only opportunity to be a spokesperson for *anything* is naturally "human cockfighting". Just a bad pair that will always limit the company's growth. Zuffa needs someone credible. But they think they're the credible ones, so, LOL.

It IS too expensive to watch legally from your home, while bars with giant screens are douchebro'd up... I can't think of an arrangement that would turn off more casual watchers than being forced to go to a crappy chain sports bar to buy $7 beers while being surrounded by yo bro you look at my girl bro. The other alternative... giving hundreds to UFC per month with no guarantee of worthwhile entertainment/finishes/title advancement/career progression/anything, since it's reality programming essentially and a sport in name only... isn't going to convert the uninitiated or keep people like me interested. I hate alcohol culture/the brutish attitudes many MMA fans project and rampant corporate greed equally. I'd rather do nothing than support either.

Not to do this again, but look at what WWE did with the network. UFC is at the same crossroads, but it's going against the Internet, which is, for lack of a better term, "not cool", and sets you up for backlash by communities of people who are sick and tired of corporations tinkering with it. And they move faster than web legislation done by pen and paper and committee meeting... so why would you want to piss these people off? Work with them, like WWE did, you pompous sacks. Zuffa refuses to look at how things are done internally, and I don't blame them because their bodily waste doesn't stink, but the cultured, pragmatic, intelligent business minds at WWE realized they had to, and they did. WWE revamped their PPV system to take buys out of the equation and re-attract old fans with access to their back catalog. I haven't spent a penny on WWE products for almost 20 years, but I am now. How many of us would buy Fight Pass at $10 a month with PPVs included, as well as most, if not all, prior Pride, UFC, WEC, Strikeforce cards? Every one of us, I would imagine, would just light up and this thread articulating our concerns would hit the second page and disappear forever. Gold Chain would come back to talk about Fight Pass.

And simply, too many fights, not enough high stakes for 95% of them since they've abandoned the rating system as it pertains to contenders, careers don't progress linearly and fighters often aren't put in that spot with weight class hopping usually positioned by Dana and/or Joe, and too many freaking avenues to watch the programming, with no set schedule in place. It requires upkeep to be a fan and it should be natural. And the only reason for the upkeep is because MMA in North America is run by a team that has no f'n clue how to think beyond the next event.

that's a great post cheers

[Jasen777]

Ariel kind of addressed this, saying that his colleague Guilherme Cruz was covering this issue and the feeling was that guys are hesitant to take the fight to the ground anymore because they don't want to get booed, etc.

Askren vs. a Diaz brother in Stockton. Make it happen.