UFC follows boxing to movie theatres

As we've discussed on this blog before, the boxing business still can learn a lot from the UFC about how to remain relevant in a rapidly fragmenting sports marketplace. Specifically, we've noted how boxing has followed the UFC's lead in making sure the best fighters face each other.

 

And if you're following Showtime's Super Six World Boxing Classic (and this blog will as the next round of bouts approaches), you've got to love the round-robin format, which ensures that a single loss doesn't ruin a fighter's chances of winning the tournament. The organizers of that tournament figured out what the folks at the UFC already knew -- that when the best fight the best, even the best have to lose, and that a blemish on a fighter's record doesn't render him worthless or dent his popularity.

In discussing the tournament with the Star in October, promoter Gary Shaw even cited the UFC when explaining why a single loss doesn't have to be a major setback for a world class fighter.

So instead of undergoing the usual post-loss rehab -- a string of meaningless tuneups to rebuild confidence and allay doubt -- a fighter like Andre Dirrell remains in the running for the tournament crown after his first career loss, climbing right back into the ring against Arthur Abraham March 27.

But this morning comes news that the UFC is set to follow boxing's lead in terms of distributing its product.

Starting with UFC 111, which also takes place March 27, the UFC will begin broadcasting pay per view events in movie theatres in the U.S. (Canada will still have to wait).

Interesting paragraph from the story about how boxing's struggles to retain a share of the combat sports market affected UFC president Dana White's decision to make pay per view events available in theatres as well.

White said he isn't worried about harming the UFC's pay-per-view revenue by making the fights available for the price of a theater ticket that will cost less than buying the fight at home. He believes boxing hurt itself in recent years by making its biggest fights only available on pay-per-view instead of creating alternative ways to watch, including the UFC's extensive business on the Internet.

True, but the story also points out that before UFC explored the movie theatre alternative, boxing had already proved it could work without sapping pay-per-view revenues. Floyd Mayweather's September dismantling of Juan Manuel Marquez was shown in movie theaters across the US, yet still sold more than 1 million pay-per-views.

As White says in the story, it's all about attracting as many eyeballs as possible while maximizing revenue sources. Sure a movie theatre ticket costs roughly a third of a pay-per-view buy, but if 20 people watch UFC 111 in my condo I'm still only paying one fee. However, if all 20 of us head to the theatre, all 20 of us pay to get in.

And you know what that means for the UFC.

  

Exactly.

Dana White is no fool. There's a reason he's worth an estimated $200 million. He'll take that trade and laugh all the way to the bank. Well, he'll probably curse all the way but you get my point -- either way the UFC wins.

-- Follow Morgan Campbell on Twitter: http://twitter.com/MorganPCampbell

Comments

[Gee Free]

You wouldn't remember Cleveland Denny. But I do. He was a Canadian Lightweight Boxing Champion who died in the summer of 1980 due to head trauma injuries he sustained in a bout. After he died there was talk of investigations into the circumstances leading up to his death. By that was meant that it had been discovered that Cleveland had suffered recent knockout losses in the States and that he had taken some really bad beatings down there. And there were questions over the way Hart's hands had been wrapped. But gym sparring can be brutal. These "gym wars" can make the actual match can seem like a cakewalk. By contrast, from what I have seen on TV mixed martial arts fighters do not have "gym wars" and in the main are not exposed to the head trauma that boxers are. Moreover, if you consider "punch stats", a boxer in a single bout could get hit more in one bout that an mma fighter gets hit all year. So one needs to be careful comparing the two sports.

[Morgan Campbell]

Thanks for your comments, Pops Freeman!

The intent here isn't to compare the two sports, because it's clear they're just as different as they are similar. And everyone that watches both sports closely will reach the same conclusion about the relative dangers of each. MMA features significant;y mroe broken bones, but boxing exposes participants to exponentially more head trauma both in training and in competition. So while MMA features some grotesque injuries, we still have yet to see the MMA equivalent of Cleveland Denny or Benny Paret or even Gerald McClellan simply because we don't see MMA fighters taking head shots for 36 minutes.

Instead, this post is trying to examine how the businesses of boxing and mixed martial arts relate to each other. Each claims the two sports' fan bases are mutually exclusive, and that might be true among the purists of either sport. But it's also clear that there are millions of general sports fans who don't align themselves with boxing or MMA, but who just want to see entertaining fights on a regular basis. Boxing ignored those fans for years and since 2005 the UFC has done a great job winning them over.

Bringing big bouts to movie theatres was a shrewd move on boxing's part, but now that the UFC has matched it how will boxing counter?

We'll see if HBO, Golden Boy et al have anything planned for Mayweather-Mosley in May.