PPV Favs? UFC Is Golden…
…But Boxing Still Rules
With no clear idea of how popular the UFC 98 card will be with PPV buyers, the UFC is likely hoping that the star-packed UFC 100 card will deliver on the long-standing promise ultimate fighting has made to usurp boxing as the king of pay-per-view sales.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship – once Dana White came up with TUF and lucked into Griffin vs. Bonnar – is a relative newcomer on the pay-per-view radar screen. That said, the promotion managed to match World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. in pay-per-view revenues during 2006 blew the sales doors off boxing titan HBO. Granted, 2006 was a down year for boxing stars, but the three companies make up the bulk of the pay-per-view business.
De La Hoya and Pacquiao, perhaps the biggest names in boxing, generated some major purchases, but no other boxers come close to cranking up that kind of PPV heat.
Deana Myers, a senior analyst at Kagan Research LLC, the “UFC has reinvigorated the pay-per-view category.”
Here then, a list of the top PPV buys from 2008:
1. Boxing: Oscar De La Hoya vs. Manny Pacquiao, Dec. 6, 1,250,000
2. UFC: Brock Lesnar vs. Randy Couture, Nov. 15, 1,010,000
3. Wrestling: WrestleMania, Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Paul “Big Show” Wight, March 30, 670,000
4. UFC: Georges St. Pierre vs. Jon Fitch/Lesnar vs. Heath Herring, Aug. 9, 625,000
5. UFC: Lesnar vs. Frank Mir, Feb. 2, 600,000
6. UFC: Quinton Jackson vs. Forrest Griffin, July 5, 540,000
7. UFC: St. Pierre vs. Matt Serra, April 19, 530,000
8. Boxing: Felix Trinidad vs. Roy Jones Jr., Jan. 19, 500,000
9. UFC: Chuck Liddell vs. Rashad Evans, Sept. 6, 480,000
10. UFC: B.J. Penn vs. Sean Sherk/Tito Ortiz vs. Lyoto Machida, May 24, 475,000
Note that although Machida was the headliner on the card which came in at number 10, it’s not likely UFC 98 will generate that kind of interest. The fact that Evans and Machida were on the ninth and tenth ranked cards for last year might portend good things, but I don’t see it. Both of them fought huge names in Ortiz and Liddell, and though Tito and Chuck can carry a card, Lyoto and Rashad probably won’t…
That’s a shame, because Rashad Evans should get more love from fight fans than he does, and if he confounds the pundits and beats Machida, maybe his day will come up fast on the horizon.
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