UFC on ESPN UK in doubt

This is a ****ing joke! How long before them Primetime clowns pick it up and start charging £20 per event?

As soon as it goes to PPV I'll be watching it the next day on the net!!!!

Lynchburg

 

They are going to lose money by switching to PPV imo. Other than a Superfight here and there, I dont think it has the fanbase in the UK to support it

 

You are right... Plus non of us should have to suffer PPV's for 3am action!

At the same time I hope Sky Sports don't make a deal as when they had TUF they had adverts every five minutes and between each round!!!

Lynchburg

 

Let's be honest, none of us will pay to stay up until 3 will we. I would understand if they put something like an Anderson v GSP fight on PPV. But as you said, the adverts and regularity of the events will just lose them £ imo. Unless it's a HW or Ricky Hatton, Brits just dont buy too many PPV's regularly to make this work for them

 

I say ESPN pull their fingers out of Walt Disney's anus and sort their **** out! I missed a lot of fights the other night because I could only watch them live on UFC.com! When I have work the next day at 6am it just doesn't work.

Lynchburg

 

****s sake. looks like ppv could be in the works then. i cant see it working if it did go that way, there are too many events and its on at 2am. i bet buy rates would be very low unless there was a really big fight on the card.

 

i doubt it will go ppv over here, saying that if primetime are ****ish enuf to show badass barrett vs reidinator im sure they will try flog us UFC for 20 quid

 

Hardy v Lytle is live on Setanta for viewers in Ireland

 

I think people are missing the point here.

Of course the number of buys will be low - that's unarguable. The question is will they make more or less money off them. I don't know what the UFC gets from ESPN but say Primetime cuts them a 50/50 deal and they get a steady stream of 20,000 people ordering the shows then they earn over £2million a year. I struggle to see ESPN offering more than that.

Now could they get that 20,000? I don't see why not. Their live numbered shows usually fall between 20,000 to 40,000 on ESPN UK right now (they really dropped down when ESPN lost half their football matches) and I think a lot of those people subscribe to ESPN solely for the UFC. I'm a huge sports fan but there's nothing other than UFC I'd go out of my way to watch on that channel, and market research suggests that most UFC fans aren't sports fans.

So providing the pay per view option is a good one (i.e. decent picture quality, HD option, easy customer service and package deals) it won't make a huge amount of difference to many UFC fans. You'd probably get many fans picking and choosing but as long as it averages out at about 20,000 (which for example would be way below what WWE averages for its regular pay per views) then I think they'd be alright.

In terms of the negatives for the UFC, the one that is usually cited is the loss of exposure. That's why for example Khan or Froch going onto pay per view hasn't been a great move because not only do they get seen by very small audiences but there's no incentive for the media (i.e. news international titles) to cover them. However to be honest I don't think this is as big a deal for the UFC as it is in those examples - the UFC is already being seen by very small audiences on ESPN and it gets virtually no coverage in the press. Plus with TUF and the Spike shows they do have content that they can use as lead-ins to the pay per views.

In an ideal world they'd land on Sky - TUF on Sky One, USTV Specials and smaller pay per views on Sky Sports and the biggest shows on pay per view. Given the way TUF12 played out I imagine that's unlikely but even Primetime could be made to work with the right approach.

 

****....if ESPN arent showing ardy v Lytle for UK fans and are reviewing the whole UFC on ESPN...Im cancelling its the only real reason Ive got ESPN....not to fussed about the footy and the baseball/basketball on in the US...

Its very unlikely i'd buy a PPV either due to the time....hmmmm could be end of an era that never really started....

 

I barely watch the UFC on ESPN. I wouldnt be buying it on that shitty primetime channel. No HD either!!

 

The deal is off! No UFC for UK fans this weekend on tv!!!

It will only be on UFC.com so unless you watch it live sadly it's a no go!

****ing ****s!!! We should all bombard ESPN with emails about how outraged we are!

Lynchburg

Edit: you can view it on UFC.com for a whole week after.