This Saturday, Conor McGregor will take on Chad Mendes in the main event of UFC 189 for the interim UFC featherweight championship. In what was originally a bout between McGregor and pound for pound great and undisputed champion Jose Aldo, the UFC has been forced to settle with plan B due to a rib injury to the title holder. However, plan A was the rare instance in which the challenger was the real draw as opposed to the long time champion. I’ve talked about how big of a fight this would have been for Aldo before as the Brazilian seemed to need an Anderson Silva v. Chael Sonnen type rivalry to get fans to finally give him the attention he deserves. With Aldo out and Mendes in, the fact remains that this main event is crucial to the future success of the UFC, as it seems that McGregor’s hype train has managed to transcend the MMA community, a rare feat that has only been accomplished by some of the biggest stars in the sports history.
Why UFC 189 Needs to Be Successful
A History of PPV Success Rates
Whether you place the blame on an over-saturation of fights or the sudden disappearance of stars over the past few years, the numbers will tell you that the UFC’s ability to sell PPV’s has struggled recently. To find the UFC’s PPV peak of success, I decided to narrow it down to a three year period in order to compare that to the most recent three years of sales. From 2008-2010, the UFC put on 66 shows, 40 of which were PPVs. During that same time period, the UFC averaged a buy rate of around 585,125 buys per PPV. In the most recent three year span (2012-2014), the UFC held 113 events, while once again displaying exactly 40 PPVs within that number. However, this time, the UFC averaged only 377,750 buys a PPV, a 207,375 purchase per PPV drop off, despite having the same amount of paid events in the same amount of time. Whether fans want to admit it or not, the numbers tell us that the UFC has struggled to attract as many eyeballs recently as it did before.
Why The Struggle?
As was mentioned before, there can be numerous reasons for the UFC’s lack of success in recent PPV sales. The most heavily argued points are the over-saturation of fights and absence of big time draws over the last view years. What some people don’t realize is that these factors go hand in hand. The UFC nearly doubled its event total from 66 shows in the 2008-2010 span to a whopping 113 events in the 2012-2014 span. With Brock Lesnar leaving, Georges St. Pierre retiring, and Anderson Silva taking a year off before returning and being busted for steroids, the UFC was in desperate need to build some stars. However, with a fight night taking place an average of almost once a week (113 events in 156 weeks), and sometimes happening twice in the same day, it has become understandably more difficult for fighters and their performances to stick out. If young fighters are going unnoticed, it is hard to make stars out of prospects. In this way, the high amount of events per year that the UFC has displayed in recent years has not only led to less meaningful fights and made it hard for fans to keep up with the sport, but it has also stunted the company’s ability to build stars for themselves. This has, in turn, led to a lower success rate in PPV sales as there are not many stars left to sell fights.
Stars Sell Fights
In the end, stars sell fights. This is proven by the fact that the best selling PPV’s in UFC history are headlined by fighters who are classified as stars. In fact, every UFC PPV that has gone over a million buys in the history of the company (seven total) has involved either Tito Ortiz, Rashad Evans, Brock Lesnar, Georges St. Pierre, or Anderson Silva in the main event. That makes sense, since Ortiz is more or less the original big time draw in MMA history, and along with Chuck Liddel, was part of the first ever MMA event to crack a million buys. Lesnar is the biggest draw in UFC history, accounting for three of those seven million dollar PPVs including UFC 100, which is the best selling UFC PPV of all time. St. Pierre is the biggest homegrown draw in MMA history, although the only way you can credit him for cracking a million buys on a PPV is if you count UFC 100 as a double feature with him defending his belt in the co-main event. However, it should be mentioned that St. Pierre was in the main event of two PPVs that went over 900,000 buys, which puts him in an exclusive club with the previously mentioned fighters (excluding Ortiz) in having multiple PPVs go over that number. Silva is the second biggest homegrown draw in UFC history, and accounts for one of those seven PPVs to go over a million buys. This is because, despite his dominance, he did not posses the looks of St. Pierre or the charisma of Ortiz and Lesnar. His PPV numbers are actually quite low before the Chael Sonnen rivalry (their rematch did over 900,000 buys as well). Perhaps the most surprising entry is Evans, who main evented two of those seven PPVs, one of which is the only one to crack a million buys without a title being defended on the card. That came at UFC 114 when he defeated Rampage Jackson in the main event. This makes Evans the most underrated draw of all time in my opinion, though it makes sense due to his charisma, finishing ability, and early career dominance.
UFC 189 Is Make Or Break
When it comes down to it, Saturday’s PPV is all about one man: Conor McGregor. It can be argued that McGregor is already a star, due to the buzz that he has brought to this event. However, while buzz is good, numbers are what ultimately define a drawing athlete. We won’t truly know how much of a star McGregor is until we discover how many people he has convinced to drop 60 bucks to watch him fight. In this way, so much is riding on the success of his first ever PPV main event. Even if he loses, at least people will be watching enough to hopefully be made fans of other fighters on the card, maybe even enough to get people invested in Aldo v. Mendes III. However, you’re kidding yourself if you don’t think that the best case scenario for the UFC has McGregor coming out victorious and calling out Aldo immediately afterwords. If he is truly the star that the UFC has been telling us he is since he started fighting for them two years ago, this PPV should be the first since 2013 to crack a million buys. That means, in the UFC’s best case scenario, over a million people witnessing Conor McGregor claim a featherweight title, and challenge the other champion in the same weight class. You know, the one with the highlight reel from heaven (or hell, I guess) and the resume that has already cemented himself as one of the greatest ever, Jose Aldo. That would make their eventual confrontation the most anticipated fight of all time. But if no ones watching, the UFC does not only lose out on a bunch of eyeballs that could create stars out of anyone fighting this Saturday. If UFC 189 falls flat, with all the buzz around the event and its star, it might just be proof that the sports glory days are behind it, not in front of it.
