Report: UFC 236 may have come in under 100k buys as first ESPN+ PPV

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Chromium

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Oct 10, 2016
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What if you threw a party and nobody came? Things may not be quite that desperate, but the UFC did throw one hell of a party back in Atlanta on April 13th. And while they may have puts butts in seats at the arena, it appears that they failed to attract viewers to their TV screens—at least by their own standards.

Dave Meltzer reports in the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, that “there is talk that [UFC 236] did well under half of the 200,000 number that would be what one would have predicted the show to do had it been a television PPV.” Not a major surprise considering widespread reports of difficulty ordering the event—largely based around ESPN+ pushing fans to go through the desktop website for purchasing, in order to watch the PPV through the their TV app or other platforms. But still, that’d put it in line alongside UFC 224 as the lowest selling PPVs in the last 15 years for the world’s largest MMA promotion.

Following the PPV, Dana White even went so far as to acknowledge that the system is undergoing some serious growing pains, and needs to improve. “The next one will be much better,” he told reporters during the post-fight presser. “The next one, you’ll be able to purchase right through the app. It’s gonna get easier, it’s gonna get better.”

To that end, ESPN’s Andrew Feldman recently announced that fans can now purchase their UFC PPVs through the ESPN App. Hopefully for the UFC that alone will help bring in more viewers for this week’s UFC 237 fight card, headlined by a women’s strawweight title fight between Rose Namajunas and Jessica Andrade.

However, the fact still remains that under the new ESPN+ partnership, fans can’t even order a UFC PPV without first paying for the monthly subscription service.

Rest of article here: Report: UFC 236 may have come in under 100k buys as first ESPN+ PPV event
 
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MMAPlaywright

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Came here to post this, so I will:

Dave Meltzer reports in the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, that “there is talk that [UFC 236] did well under half of the 200,000 number that would be what one would have predicted the show to do had it been a television PPV.” Not a major surprise considering widespread reports of difficulty ordering the event—largely based around ESPN+ pushing fans to go through the desktop website for purchasing, in order to watch the PPV through the their TV app or other platforms. But still, that’d put it in line alongside UFC 224 as the two lowest selling PPVs in the last 15 years for the world’s largest MMA promotion.

Following the PPV, Dana White even went so far as to acknowledge that the system is undergoing some serious growing pains, and needs to improve. “The next one will be much better,” he told reporters during the post-fight presser. “The next one, you’ll be able to purchase right through the app. It’s gonna get easier, it’s gonna get better
 

Chromium

Posting Machine
Oct 10, 2016
825
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Came here to post this, so I will:

Dave Meltzer reports in the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, that “there is talk that [UFC 236] did well under half of the 200,000 number that would be what one would have predicted the show to do had it been a television PPV.” Not a major surprise considering widespread reports of difficulty ordering the event—largely based around ESPN+ pushing fans to go through the desktop website for purchasing, in order to watch the PPV through the their TV app or other platforms. But still, that’d put it in line alongside UFC 224 as the two lowest selling PPVs in the last 15 years for the world’s largest MMA promotion.

Following the PPV, Dana White even went so far as to acknowledge that the system is undergoing some serious growing pains, and needs to improve. “The next one will be much better,” he told reporters during the post-fight presser. “The next one, you’ll be able to purchase right through the app. It’s gonna get easier, it’s gonna get better

Um, not to be a stickler, but that excerpt is already contained within the larger article excerpt at the start of the thread.
 

psychicdeath

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Jan 21, 2015
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I'll just say that I am not especially motivated to pay $5 a month for the privilege of paying $60 to buy a pay per view.
 

MMAPlaywright

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Um, not to be a stickler, but that excerpt is already contained within the larger article excerpt at the start of the thread.
You’re not being a stickler. It’s just that I came here to post it, saw that you had already created a thread on it, so I by God posted it in your thread.
 

Rambo John J

Eats things that would make a Billy Goat Puke
First 100
Jan 17, 2015
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I'll just say that I am not especially motivated to pay $5 a month for the privilege of paying $60 to buy a pay per view.
on principle alone I am not purchasing high dollar UFC events
ESPN+ won't work on my devices and if they didn't want to make an app that could easily work on older devices then they can kick rocks

I would have to purchase new devices for events that worked fine a few months ago...Fuck you and your ESPN, Egg
 

Sheepdog

Protecting America from excessive stool loitering
Dec 1, 2015
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The deal is really an incredible miscalculation by ESPN. Ari Emmanuel must have been using ounce of strength in his body not to laugh in their faces when they agreed to pay the equivalent of 500k buys for every PPV.
 

Chromium

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Oct 10, 2016
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The deal is really an incredible miscalculation by ESPN. Ari Emmanuel must have been using ounce of strength in his body not to laugh in their faces when they agreed to pay the equivalent of 500k buys for every PPV.
And $10 million for each Fight Night. Dear god.
 

aghof

an person
Apr 15, 2015
2,037
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The deal is really an incredible miscalculation by ESPN. Ari Emmanuel must have been using ounce of strength in his body not to laugh in their faces when they agreed to pay the equivalent of 500k buys for every PPV.
look for another couple of rounds of layoffs at ESPN, leaving their non-UFC video product to consist entirely of Stephen A. Smith yelling at a ham sandwich
 

ECC170

Monster's 11,ATM 2,Parlay Challenge,Hero GP Champ
Pro Fighter
Jan 23, 2015
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lol this shit ppv coming up. will do 4k...Fk espn+... i'm over paying for cable then expected to dish out more for espn+ then fight pass.. same with bellator..fk the dazn and their bs app...mma is going to shit because of this bs.
 

jason73

Yuri Bezmenov was right
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Jan 15, 2015
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lol this shit ppv coming up. will do 4k...Fk espn+... i'm over paying for cable then expected to dish out more for espn+ then fight pass.. same with bellator..fk the dazn and their bs app...mma is going to shit because of this bs.
It really is pushing people to stream illegally.if it wasnt for a period of time when the ufc was next to impossible to follow in canada i wouldnt even know about streaming.this espn+ deal shows how little the ufc/wme gives a shit about the fighters,the fans , or if espn even makes any money off this.it is pure greed
 

ECC170

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Jan 23, 2015
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It really is pushing people to stream illegally.if it wasnt for a period of time when the ufc was next to impossible to follow in canada i wouldnt even know about streaming.this espn+ deal shows how little the ufc/wme gives a shit about the fighters,the fans , or if espn even makes any money off this.it is pure greed
exactly... this isn't a if you can't beat them join them scenario the ufc needs to be following...Put the shit on espn and forget it!
 

Dick Niaz

Yearning for TMMAC days gone by
Jan 14, 2018
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I love that Egg blamed it on the challenges with the app. What’s his excuse going to be when only eleven people order Rose-Andrade this weekend?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go limber up because I’m going to be paddling down a river this Saturday night.
 
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