L.Fertitta confirms UFC no longer being shown on ESPN UK and IRE

As long as someone picks it up it will be fine

ESPN is ****, was one of only a handful of things anyway that was worth watching on there.

 

Sky, then PPV for the big cards down the road. Not enough of an audience in the UK for that imo

 

Dont worry you Je... Conservative *****, regardless of where you screen you wont be getting any of my money

 

Yeah can see that happening and failing badly. A good few people I know like UFC but they have no clue when its on despite the ads during the football on a Saturday a few hours before the UFC starts. I just don't think there is that much of an interest at the minute.

Add to that Sky's recent track record of PPV which have all been **** for around 3 years.

Basically spells the end of ESPN for me I'm usually sobered up for their late match now so no need for it add to that they rarely show the boxing live and I can live without German and Italian football.

 

Unless there's a prime time slot of around 8-10 on a Friday or Saturday, despite being on the biggest sports Channel here, it just isnt gonna raise awareness needed for a PPV audience to tune in

There's only 2 PPV's that ANY of my friends have bought, and they were Tyson v Lennox, and Ricky v Manny. The only reason they watch it now is because it's ''free'', or they download torrents the day after. With a PPV potentially every month at the most, it quite simply just wont take off with that business model

 

There's absolutely no chance a pay per view a month will take off over here. They might do one towards the end of the year to see if they have a market for more but I really doubt they will get a response. Only two fighters in boxing can pull of a PPV here at the minute in Khan and Haye and both have burnt their bridges after the last few PPV. Froch doesn't even get one. I can't see the general public shelling out £15 to watch a Canadian or a Brazillian or an american who they have no connection with.

I'm definitely not paying it to see Bisping either

 

Please be FX or someone that's not going to charge.

Also, I'll miss ESP-zen.

 

Agree'd. I dont think they are idiotic enough to put every event on PPV, but who knows Regardless what you say about corruption, multiple belts ect in boxing, it's the move to PPV that's hurt the sport the most. The US has the market to support PPV event, but the UK wont get out of bed for it unless it's a UK fighter, normally going for the belt. I aint even paying extra to see Chael v Anderson

They will have some UFC shows on FX Im sure. But the big shows will be on Sky, I see no valid reason why they wont be


And where's Will Cooling when you need him. He's in the know about this stuff

 

Howdy

My gut is that it will be a news corp channel. I spoke to Marshal Zelaznik about this in November and they didn't hide their desire to use the FOX deal to leverage a deal with News Corp affiliates overseas. Even mentioned a meeting between the UFC and News Corp to try to achieve that. And that is the way these things tend to work. After all the original deal with ESPN was at a time when the widespread expectation was that ESPN would sign a deal for four UFC events a year (using the same clause that allowed the UFC to hold event on Versus).

Is it Sky? Well, that's an interesting one. Sky are a pretty conservative channel and the type of people there that you would expect to support UFC tend to have long standing allegiances with WWE and Boxing. Plus Sky is used to sports promoters begging to get onto their channel and the UFC has always been steadfast in not underselling themselves to get on there. I mean FFS Zuffa priced themselves/Sky lowballed them (delete as you think appropriate) when they were bleeding money in 2002.

So while they want it to be Sky Sports and that's the best destination, it absolutely wouldn't surprise me if they wind up on FX. Which as has been mentioned from a fan perspective would be ideal. I do wonder about FX's ability to soak up that much content although I suppose there's only so many hours of American Dad and Family Guy coming.

In terms of pay per view and being successful. You can't do monthly pay per views in this country. That's death and the fact that the WWE was forced to reduce the number of its shows on pay per view illustrates that. But (say) six big shows a year? Sure you can run that many pay per views. WWE gets between 25,000 to 40,000 pay per view buys and their product does a far less effective job in promoting the headline matches. Plus the fact that their pay per views are on a Sunday is a huge disadvantage (several times I haven't ordered pay per views because I had work the next day). Given all that and how even without much support TUF12 on Sky did comparable ratings to WWE/Boxing (before they screwed up the scheduling) as did TUF15 on FX then they should be able to be as successful as the WWE in terms of pay per views.

Some might say that hurts the growth of the fanbase, but I'm skeptical that missing one show does that much damage. To me a bigger issue is where TUF winds up. That really should be used to raise the profile of the sport and for that it should be on a general entertainment channel like Sky One or FX.

 

Yeah I think 6 PPV shows a year is doable, with the roster now including 8 Champions to headline. They wont do great numbers I guess, but it's an increased revenue stream none the less, as opposed to no PPV's

I think TUF should be put out of it's misery personally, but there's nothing there to fill the void in terms of an MMA based entertainment show to draw people in and new viewers wont be as jaded with the format as me

 

I thought the last series of TUF was mediocre as ****. Its just so manufactured. Think the production values will give it a boost, its too reality TV and forced.

 

The whole Mayhem & Bisping pranks thing was a bit boring after a while. To be fair though they seem to have hit a rough diamond in the winners, Dodson and the Brazilian look very good already. I think TUF if done well will always make the sport better than worse. Sure the concept is boring but it fast tracks two or three fighters on to a prelim or main card quicker than the UFC can hope for.

 

**** away off! I don't want to have to pay for another channel to watch UFC, guess I'll have to find an illegal stream.

 

What makes you think Sky would want it? Does it get good numbers on ESPN? I think it'll be more likely to end up on Primetime or Premier Sports.