Issue 059
February 2010
Midnight breaks in Columbus Ohio, but this is a very different night from any the natives have ever experienced.
Icy temperatures mark a typical March evening, oxygen fills the midnight air just as it always has, but instead of carbon dioxide it is sheer disbelief coming out of the mouths of the 19,079 spectators trickling out of the Nationwide Arena.
The UFC’s largest US crowd has just witnessed their formerly retired superhero, 43-year-old ‘Captain America’ Randy Couture, lay down his microphone and hand out the beating of his legendary lifetime to 6ft 8’ giant heavyweight champion, Tim Sylvia.
A 225lb battle-scarred shell of granite, he stood victorious inside the Octagon, savoring the final drops of blood and sweat that marked his latest act of immortality. Columbus has just played host to its very own real-life version of Rocky Balboa vs Ivan Drago, and nobody can quite believe it.
Fast-forward a month to April 2007, and those who were lucky enough to be present in Columbus are now experiencing déjàvu in Houston, Texas. That same sense of disbelief is back, but this time it’s accompanied by shock and utter bewilderment. The seemingly unbeatable welterweight champion Georges St Pierre, conqueror of Sean Sherk, BJ Penn and Matt Hughes, has just been stopped by the unlikely 5’6” frame of 16/1 underdog Matt Serra.
Strange things are happening in this sport.
Now for the final fast forward, to the day UFC President Dana White proclaimed: “mixed martial arts and the UFC is going to be the biggest sport in the world. Bigger than soccer, bigger than football, bigger than anything.”
Which improbable phenomenon seems most unlikely? A 43-year-old retired part-time commentator slaying a giant all-conquering champion; a plucky, undersized wise guy shattering the chin of one of the best pound-for-pounders of all time; or a former boxer in a suit promising to overhaul every sport on the planet?
Unless you’ve been hitting the supplements too hard, the irrefutable answer is probably Mr. White’s pledge to rule the globe. But most ironic of all, the other two acts of Herculean defiance are the precise reason why it is impossible to write him off.
The balls to pull it off
The UFC is coming. Not because Dana White says so, not because anybody else says so, but because of the hard stats based on financial and popular prowess that are impossible to ignore. What was once thought to be headline-grabbing hyperbole from the UFC president is now becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. The UFC is taking over the globe.
“Look at our pay-per-view numbers, we’re the largest pay-per-view provider in the world. Look at our ratings, we out-rate pretty much any sport other than the NFL, and on some nights we beat them in the demographic. Look at our ticket prices, we have the highest ticket price in all of sport. I could crack out a million stats on revenues, how many countries we’re in, how fast we’re growing, the list is endless,” insists White in an exclusive chat with Fighters Only.
“It’s one thing to talk a lot of shit, it’s another thing to prove it. We’ll prove it, you just wait and see.”
To disregard White and his vision would also mean dismissing two men who took on the Las Vegas strip and won, two men who, in Dana’s own words, “have the biggest balls of anyone I’ve ever met”: Zuffa co-founders Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta.
Considering the fact White counts Randy Couture as one of his closest friends, his “biggest balls” comment is one colossal statement to make.
Quite simply, without the Fertittas, the UFC would have ceased to exist.
Between 2001 and 2004 the two brothers racked up a $34 million debt in order to turn the sport of MMA around. That debt grew to $44 million as they pulled out all the stops to get the breakthrough series of The Ultimate Fighter aired on network television. Frank and Lorenzo were giving Spike TV a complete series... for free.
The Fertittas had grown up in the spiritual home of gambling, and now they were taking the ultimate gamble themselves. Having watched the UFC face years of public cynicism, political barricades and financial dissipation, Lorenzo and Frank effectively walked up to a roulette table and bet on green. Destiny awaited.
Fortunately, the custodians of this particular casino were two men by the names of Forrest Griffin and Stephen Bonnar, who proceeded to tear into each other like two famished lions in what still remains one of the greatest fights in UFC history, simultaneously landing White the spellbound multimillion audience upon which he could build his plan for world domination.
A new dawn
Nowadays expectation levels have reached such a frenzied high that a Griffin-Bonnar fight would barely make the main card of one the UFC’s multimillion-dollar events. Hell, even a Rich Franklin-Dan Henderson sequel was deemed unworthy of one of White’s super cards, events that regularly pull in crowds of close to 20,000 people, pay-per-view figures of around 1 million buys, and viewing figures that would make a lottery jackpot look like loose change.
But the significance of that Griffin-Bonnar fight in the UFC’s rise to the top can never be understated. Only 5,517 people paid to attend the first duel of iconic warriors, Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell, raising a gate of just $645,140. Two years later, thanks to national exposure via The Ultimate Fighter, the sequel of Couture-Liddell raked in nearly three times as many fans (14,274) and over four times as much money ($2,575,450).
White was being proved right, just as he would nearly half a decade later with the controversial employment of WWE superstar Brock Lesnar. The president knows what works, and the figures are proving it.
The UFC figurehead promised to eclipse the likes of baseball, tennis, golf, boxing, soccer, and football, and one by one he has begun knocking them off.
Suddenly UFC viewing figures are beating up their rivals quicker than Lesnar himself; The Ultimate Fighter 5 Finale featuring BJ Penn and Jens Pulver drew more viewers than a Yankees-Giants MLB baseball match. UFC Fight Night: Florian vs Lauzon attracted more viewers (1.3 million) than ESPN’s featured NBA telecast of the Celtics v the Pacers (1 million viewers).
More importantly, the UFC is capturing the imaginations of the new generation of sports fan, overhauling the established order in the same way Georges St Pierre beat Matt Hughes to usher in a new era in the welterweight division.
The Ultimate Fighter 9 Finale was a magnet for males aged 18–34 (attracting 663,000), dwarfing rival figures for US Open Golf (384,000). Similarly, episodes of The Ultimate Fighter 10 usurped the premieres of major network shows ‘Modern Family’ and ‘Dancing with the Stars’, confirming beyond all doubt that the UFC has banished its underground past.
That Ultimate Fighter 10 series, spearheaded by former champions Rampage Jackson and Rashad Evans along with opinion-splitter Kimbo Slice, currently beats all competition on broadcast and cable TV attracting up to 7.2 million viewers, easily becoming the most popular show on Spike TV among men up to the age of 50.
Not that you’ll find anybody at the UFC who is surprised. “This was a special thing for us,” admits the president in a sincere tone. “At the time and place that this all happened, me and the Fertitta brothers fell in love with this thing and we fucking went after it. I’m not sure we could have done it with any other sport.”
A one-sided fight
White’s been in the business of promoting MMA for nearly a decade, yet his passion still boils over the precipice. The infamous explosive tongue carries such conviction it is hard to disagree with what he says, especially when so much of what he predicts turns out to be true.
The UFC president can fight his corner, no doubt, yet when it comes to boxing White’s plan for global domination already has the noble art on the ropes. For a true assessment of the UFC’s power, it makes sense to draw direct comparisons with its nearest neighbor (boxing) in the same way you would determine the best pound-for-pounder by comparing Anderson Silva to Georges St Pierre, only this fight is a complete mismatch.
Boxing has been looking over its shoulder ever since 2005, when The Ultimate Fighter 2 Finale featuring Matt Hughes and Rich Franklin drew more viewers than any HBO boxing match in 2006 – including fights such as Erik Morales vs Manny Pacquiao, Antonio Tarver vs Bernard Hopkins, and Jermaine Taylor vs Winky Wright.
In fairness, pay-per-view prices for boxing are generally higher than for UFC events, but that was still hardly something it could hide behind when, in 2007, the combined total of UFC events in the calendar year pulled in 4,885,000 pay-per-view purchases compared with boxing’s 4,795,000.
Suddenly the UFC is raking in money quicker than Brock Lesnar’s butcher, and indeed it was the mountainous NCAA All-American’s arrival in 2008 that inspired box office success previously unprecedented in the sporting arena.
As a privately-owned company the UFC do not disclose revenue, but estimated pay-per-view orders for 2008 hit 6.8 million, totaling around $280 million in hard cash – breaking the all-time record set by any organization in a calendar year. One-off boxing events such as Oscar De La Hoya vs Floyd Mayweather Jr still draw 2.4 million buys – the all-time record – but neither boxing ($255 million) nor WWE ($260 million) have matched the UFC’s 12-month record.
Indeed, seven of the top ten pay-per-view sporting events in 2008 were provided by the UFC, according to top MMA writer Dave Meltzer, an amazing turnaround when you consider the Fertitta brothers’ first event pulled just 25,000 buyers.
The big guns enter the firing line
Ask White to sum up his role in the UFC’s future and he’ll pitch himself as an established heavyweight force (metaphorically, not physically), taking on all comers on his way towards global domination. He is the presidential version of Cain Velasquez or Shane Carwin, tossing rivals like Affliction and EliteXC to the canvas, taking on all-comers on his way to the top.
Both the World Twenty20 cricket final and the Wimbledon Men’s tennis final made the world’s Top 10 Most Viewed Sporting Events list in 2008, attracting 20 and 21 million viewers respectively, numbers that were smashed by UFC 100 in Mexico alone.
The landmark event featuring Georges St Pierre, Thiago Alves, Brock Lesnar, Frank Mir, Dan Henderson and Michael Bisping reached more than 400 million homes in over 70 countries and in 17 languages, attracting a peak audience of around half a billion people.
Now the big guns, football and soccer, are in White’s line of vision. Metaphorically speaking, White knows it’s time to up his work rate, sharpen up his techniques and travel the globe to get the best coaching.
Battle plans are drawn
In White’s corner stands the business equivalent of Greg Jackson, namely Lorenzo Fertitta, a man who possesses the ultimate game plan – proven by his declaration of war on any sporting rival upon the purchase of the now-defunct Pride in 2007.
“This is really going to change the face of MMA,” predicted Fertitta back then. “Literally creating a sport that could be as big around the world as soccer. I liken it somewhat to when the NFC and AFC came together to create the NFL.”
Since then Fertitta has landed television deals in China, Mexico, France, and Germany. A groundbreaking deal in the Middle East is next on the agenda (when that happens, watch this thing fly). These deals complement the UFC’s invasion into all corners of the globe. Germany, England, Northern Ireland, Canada, Republic of Ireland, and Japan have all felt its force; Australia is next.
White’s Clay Guida-like work rate has delivered record gates at the Allstate Arena Chicago, Prudential Center Newark, US Bank Arena Cincinnati, Odyssey Arena Belfast, Toyota Center Houston, Nationwide Arena Columbus, the list goes on. UFC 105 in Manchester, England, broke the UFC’s European attendance record.
Soccer, although the most popular sport in the world, does not translate across all borders. It does not capture the imagination of the biggest market of all: the US. Similarly, ‘American’ football is exactly that: American. There are few "Tom Brady" Patriots shirts walking around Asia or Africa.
White knows fighting transcends all boundaries, he knows martial arts are taught across the globe. Even the Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Tahnoun Bin Zayed Al Nahyan is a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. As the old cliché states: If a soccer match was taking place on one corner, a basketball game on another, crowds would be flocking to the third corner where swarms of people are yelling ‘fight, fight, fight’. Rules or no rules, nothing else gets the adrenaline pumping like one-on-one combat.
“The thing about the sport is that it crosses borders exceptionally well,” explains Dana. “If you look at the NFL, nothing is more popular inside the United States than NFL. But they’ve been spending billions of dollars for years trying to break into Europe and all these different countries, and nobody gives a shit because they didn’t grow up playing it, they don’t understand the rules.
“I don’t care what language you speak or what country you come from, human beings get fighting – it’s in our DNA. When two guys step in the cage and are told they can use any martial art they want, it transcends all barriers and that’s what will make the UFC the biggest sport in the world, period.”
Most crucial of all, the UFC evades the shackles of national or local association. A soccer fan who supports England cares little for a match between Canada and Armenia. Yet in the fight game, put Canadian-born Georges St-Pierre in against Armenian-born Karo Parisyan and every MMA fan in England will tune in to watch.
That is the reason UFC fans are living for the next event, the reason why there were two sold-out fight cards per month in 2009, and the reason why Dana White promises to make that three per month in 2010.
Like NASCAR is to motor racing, the UFC is becoming a sport in its own right and now White plans to give it the same weekly appeal as the NFL – with one significant difference. Every Saturday is the equivalent of Super Bowl Sunday when it comes to the UFC.
The biggest war of all
When it comes to settling arguments, make no mistake, the Octagon is the ultimate testing ground. Unlike most other sports, the old adage of “you have to beat the best to be the best” reigns true in the UFC. If you try to debate which quarterback is better out of Peyton Manning and Brett Favre you can look at all the statistics in the world, but the grey area remains that one man may have a better defensive line or superior running backs. Similarly in soccer, a match involving the world’s greatest players, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi can never categorically prove who is better, because one may be facing a weaker defense or playing with better players. In the UFC if there’s a score to settle, Dana White’s motto will always be: “You better believe that fucking fight will happen.”
Which explains why the many boxing promoters of this world, men who protect the precious ‘0’ in the defeats column like their lives depend on it, are queuing up to knock MMA down. British boxing promoter Warren once proclaimed: “Extreme fighters wouldn’t last five minutes with a proper, schooled boxer. Boxing is an art, a way of life. That Ultimate Fighting stuff is for guys who chuck steroids down their neck, pump weights in the gym and get out of breath after a couple of minutes. I hope it doesn’t catch on.”
Guess what, Frank? That ‘Ultimate Fighting’ stuff did catch on but, far from the fighters getting out of breath, it is the watching public whose breath is being taken away. Nowadays UFC fight cards are selling out before a single fighter has even been confirmed; the main event most definitely does not make-or-break the show.
Picking a sleeping giant off the canvas
The UFC’s history in fighting battles outside the cage is so journeyed that it would be the envy of the great street-brawler Kimbo Slice himself. Ever since a fresh-faced Brazilian named Royce Gracie stepped inside the Octagon wearing his jiu-jitsu gi to defeat Gerard Gordeau, the UFC has had to defend itself from more attackers than a Steven Seagal hit squad.
Fighting never stands far from controversy – despite the fact Pankration was the first Olympic sport, and those murky years at the start of the UFC saw the organization take more strikes to the groin than Keith Hackney delivered to Joe Son at UFC 4.
Senator John McCain’s “human cockfighting” slur of the mid-nineties has now become the universal term used to stain the UFC’s image but, rather than give up his proverbial back, White admits McCain’s judgment was pivotal to the sport’s renaissance. Since that political battering, weight divisions and mandatory gloves have appeared, head butting, fish hooking and stomps to a grounded opponent (among other illegal moves) were all banned, and New York is now the only state that continues to outlaw the sport, a fact that will change in 2010.
“Things are already changing across the globe. For kids starting out at kindergarten in the United Arab Emirates, jiu-jitsu is now a required course,” adds White. “As for the States, when we grew up and our parents put us through karate or taekwondo, well, MMA is the new martial art to learn now.”
Like Chuck Liddell’s trilogy with Randy Couture, the UFC lost the initial battle but returned to win the war. The legacy of the bad press from the McCain days remained despite the breakthrough of sanctioning in New Jersey at the start of the decade, but there remained a massive financial black hole looming over the UFC. Pay-per-view producers SEG faced bankruptcy like a fighter staring at retirement until the Fertitta brothers stepped in with their $44 million gamble.
Trash-talking will never stop
The detractors of one-on-one combat sports will forever need convincing, but the future holds new challenges for White and the UFC to answer. Doubters and naysayers persist, and there are still major points to prove.
Affliction tested the UFC’s chin in July 2008, putting on one of the most hard-hitting heavyweight cards of recent times, yet it came up against a UFC Fight Night that saw Anderson Silva make his 205lb debut. Fans voted with their TV remote controls; 3.8 million tuned in to watch Silva’s 61-second KO of James Irvin and a year later Affliction folded. The UFC certainly does not have a glass jaw.
However, the Affliction battle was the equivalent of facing a one-dimensional opponent with one-punch knockout power; the UFC know more rounded conflicts await, not least in the shape of Strikeforce but also a certain Mr Don King.
Strikeforce has its own major drinks sponsorship, its own video game and, due to the presence of Fedor Emelianenko, its largest-ever viewing figures in November 2009. The foundations are wholly unsteady though, if Emelianenko goes, Strikeforce will more than likely go back to being a regional-level promotion.
Don King’s potential involvement is less predictable, although he did recently state on record: “I’m the people’s promoter. Whatever the people want, I’m going to promote. Whatever the public wants, that’s what I want to give them. When I bring my guys in we’ll be getting prepared to take on Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta in their league vs our league. The same thing I want to do with the sport of boxing I want to do with MMA.”
White welcomes the challenge. If a global boxing promoter like King wants a piece of the MMA action, it shows how far the UFC has come since nobody would touch it at the start of the millennium. But he has a warning for anybody who thinks they can click their fingers and eclipse the UFC’s status. “The new UFC that’s been around for eight or nine years, we created this entire industry. We came in, we built it, and we lead the industry. It’s not the fact that rival companies can’t compete, it’s the fact that we took nine years to get to where we are now. The first fight we did sold 3,500 tickets, and we grew it over the years. For rival companies to think they can pop up overnight and create the same business is absolutely fucking retarded.”
The belligerent UFC president admits he steps out of bed each morning knowing he will encounter a whole catalog of problems; injured fighters to replace, fight cards to put on, contracts to negotiate, rival companies to fend off.
Despite never experiencing anything close to a death in the UFC (a broken arm or leg is as bad as it’s ever been), the threat of media overreaction to a serious injury always looms in the sport’s shadow. Plus there is the latest controversy being cooked up about how much the fighters get paid compared to their diva counterparts in boxing (Forest Griffin got $250,000 at UFC 106; Manny Pacquiao earned $22 million from the Miguel Cotto fight).
The alarm clock keeps going off, and White keeps getting up. Anything to put on a good fight.
Not just a job; it’s a way of life
White likes to dress smart, although he’s equally as happy in a T-shirt and jeans as he is in a $10,000 suit. By contrast, the fact that some of his fighters have bright red Mohawks or wear outlandish clothes shows the UFC has something many other sports seem devoid of, namely a personality.
Icons are being born in mixed martial arts, trends are being set, and whether it is the Dan Hardy Mohawk or the Tito Ortiz flamed shorts, the sport’s image is rapidly seeping into public consciousness. Rewind a decade and the most accurate film quote to sum up the UFC’s existence would have been: “The first rule of Fight Club is, you do not talk about Fight Club.”
Now fans walk around with ‘The Outlaw’ bandanas over their faces and Tapout T-shirts with logos emblazoned across their chests. Merchandise sales are through the roof; at UFC 105 in Manchester, sales hit the $200,000 mark, totally blitzing any figure likely to be raised at a boxing event.
Not only is the UFC creating its own thriving industry (employing over 100 staff), it is also helping to spawn other multi-million dollar businesses off the back of its success. The sales of companies such as Tapout, Tokyo Five, and Silver Star, nutritional companies like BSN, Nutrabolics and Muscle Pharm have never been so inundated with orders, while gaming company THQ had its destiny rewritten by the UFC.
Trading at the relatively unspectacular rate of $121 million net sales between April-June 2008, THQ’s 2009 release of the hit video game UFC 2009: Undisputed sold 2.9 million units in just two months (topping the US and UK charts).
Combined with sales of Red Faction: Guerrilla, it sent figures for the same period in 2009 up 93% to $234 million.
“We felt the rising popularity of the UFC brand made UFC 2009: Undisputed the perfect addition to our portfolio,” says Bob Aniello, senior vice president of worldwide marketing at THQ. “The widespread popularity of the UFC brand lent themselves perfectly to the interactive entertainment world,” adds Brian Coleman, vice president of global brand management at THQ. “With one of the largest playable rosters on the market today, a highly intuitive control system and a host of compelling gameplay options, gamers everywhere could take part in this growing global phenomenon.”
Silver Star has also benefited from the UFC effect, getting superstars like Rich Franklin, Forrest Griffin, Anderson Silva, and Lyoto Machida to head up their clothing range, while Tapout co-founder Dan ‘Punkass’ Caldwell sums up the importance of having global stars Chuck Liddell, Thiago Alves and Dan Henderson wearing their brand. “You can’t help but look up to these guys. Men in general want to be tough, they want to look after their women. If you see guys like Chuck, Dan or Thiago – guys who can beat up 99% of the people they come across – intrigue the average guy. These guys are probably the most in-shape sportsmen in the world, taking part in the fastest-growing sport in the world.
“It’s not only big guys though. A guy who is 135-pound probably won’t be the best baseball player in the world, but that guy can compete in MMA.
“Since the very beginning, we’ve always concentrated on the UFC, that’s what the company was structured around. We probably got into the sport at its lowest ebb in 1997. Now the UFC is running a tidal wave of advertising and marketing, influencing the world about mixed martial arts, and we run parallel to them.
“As the sport has grown, our company has pretty much grown 300% every year until today, and the growth of the UFC has helped spawn that growth immensely. Nowadays we’re at the stage where we’re starting a new nutritional line with Champion Nutrition, which focuses on fight performance rather than muscle building, so you’re gonna see athletes getting better and better in this sport in years to come.”
There was a time when nobody would touch the UFC with a 10-foot pole. Now Tapout, utilizing their own visionary brilliance alongside that of the UFC’s, are the envy of thousands. The UFC has businesses queuing up to join the gravy train and it has the pick of the biggest sponsors in the world, currently teaming up with major sponsors Bud Light and Harley Davidson.
To coin one of White’s favorite phrases, this is just scratching the surface. Progressively more major television deals and sponsorship agreements will come hand-in-hand with the sport’s growing fame and popularity, access to foreign markets will create business opportunities not only for the UFC, but also those who follow along for the ride. The names of Georges St Pierre and Wanderlei Silva will soon be as big in Australasia and the Middle East as they are in Canada and Brazil.
Living the dream
The UFC is spreading the MMA gospel worldwide, ever-increasing masses are becoming dedicated followers, and now even celebrity status is being thrust upon the sport’s often-unassuming stars. Exit paths become more gridlocked than a shopping plaza on Christmas Eve whenever Chuck Liddell appears in a public place close to fight night. For guys like Chuck or Rampage Jackson the spotlight is their second home but, for many others, this is a whole new world the UFC is creating.
Even Dana himself is learning about the public’s insatiable 24-7 craving for MMA. Toss every statistic in this entire article to one side; the popularity of the UFC can be judged purely by White’s own video blog, a regular 10-minute piece of film that attracts hundreds of thousands of viewers within days of going online just to see him joke around and pulling pranks on his fighters.
The Internet is the self-perpetuating advertising engine of the UFC juggernaut; individual websites dedicated solely to MMA ensure levels of interest from one event to the next are kept at a high. Type ‘Bruce Buffer 360’ into YouTube and it’s even possible to see the iconic UFC ring announcer perform his own crowning glory, a spectacular vision-blurring leap as he marks the arrival of heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar.
Far from adapting to new rules, the UFC is writing its own for the first time. Sitting Octagon-side in Las Vegas on Saturday night is the new place to be. Donald Trump does it, Cindy Crawford and Paris Hilton do it, Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler and Bruce Willis love the sport, as do many stars from other sports. “I think it [the UFC] has replaced boxing,” admits ‘Rocky’ actor Sylvester Stallone. “There’s a certain kind of vitality and competitiveness and a willingness to gamble that a lot of boxers, when they reach a certain echelon, won’t. So, yes, I’m a big fan.”
“I just think they’re the ultimate athletes, in every sense of the word,” adds ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ and ‘Snatch’ actor Jason Statham. “These guys are looking at a world of pain and they’ve got to try and have the confidence to overwhelm someone who’s out there to absolutely destroy them. I’ve only messed around and rolled around, but I’ve seen how exhausting it is to wrestle and I know how painful a punch and a kick can be when you’re on the receiving end of one. They’re the fittest of the fit and, to me, these fighters are the warriors of today, the real gladiators.” Real gladiators, bringing all the drama of ancient Roman coliseum battles right into your living room – who knows, soon the UFC may even have to erect such a theatre to meet the demand of their thirsty fan base.
Based on how far it has come in the past decade, it seems nothing can stop the UFC’s rise to the top, not even a fall-out between co-owners Frank and Lorenzo themselves, as Dana explains. “If they get into an argument, which they never do, they have a dispute clause in their UFC ownership contract that says they have to fight each other at sport jiu-jitsu and I’m the referee. Straight up, Lorenzo’s the better technician, but Frank will rip your fucking limbs off!” he laughs.
It seems the greatest fight of all has yet to be fought, but then that kind of sums up the UFC.
$2,575,450
Only 5,517 people paid to attend the first duel of iconic warriors Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell, raising a gate of just $645,140. Two years later, thanks to national exposure via The Ultimate Fighter, the sequel of Couture-Liddell raked in nearly three times as many fans (14,274) and over four times as much money ($2,575,450).
Growth in UFC pay-per-view revenues
UFC 1: THE BEGINNING
Draws 86,592 television subscribers on pay per view .
UFC 40: VENDETTA
Pay-per-view buys hit 150,000 for a card headlined by Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock, the first time the UFC hits such a mark since being forced ‘underground’.
UFC 52: COUTURE VS LIDDELL II
The first event after the first season of The Ultimate Fighter, draws a pay-per-view audience of 300,000.
UFC 57: LIDDELL VS COUTURE III
Draws an estimated 410,000 pay-per-view buys.
UFC 60: HUGHES VS GRACIE
Generates an estimated $30 million in pay per views.
UFC 66: LIDDELL VS ORTIZ
Sees The UFC reach a milestone by becoming the first event to top one million pay-per-view buys.
UFC 91: COUTURE VS LESNAR
Ignores a financial recession to become the second-most popular UFC event of all time (at the time of the event), once again topping the one million marker.
UFC 92: THE ULTIMATE 2008
“Crushes UFC 91 by around 175,000 buys” according to Dana White, making it the record UFC pay-per-view event (at the time of the event).
UFC 100
Draws in excess of 1.5 million pay-per-views, making it one of the most-watched pay-per-view events of all time.
Growth in popularity
- Nov ’93 – UFC 1 draws a crowd of 2,800
- Jun ’03 – UFC 43: MELTDOWN attracts a crowd of 5,517 for the first meeting of Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell, resulting in a $645,140 gate
- Apr ’05 – ULTIMATE FIGHTER 1 FINALE, which becomes the focal point of the UFC’s turnaround, brings in an impressive average of 1.9 million viewers
- Apr ’05 – UFC 52: COUTURE VS LIDDELL II attracts a crowd of 14,274 paid fans, generating $2,575,450 in gate receipts
- Nov ’05 – ULTIMATE FIGHTER II FINALE draws more pay-per-view viewers than any HBO boxing match in 2006
- May ’06 – UFC 60: HUGHES VS GRACIE pulls in a live gate of $3.1 million
- Mar ’07 – UFC 68: THE UPRISING draws the largest gate in Nationwide Arena history with a figure of $3 million
- Apr ’08 – UFC 83: SERRA vs ST PIERRE 2 watched by a sell-out crowd of over 21,000 people in Montreal Canada
- 2007 – UFC events for the calendar year pull in 4,885,000 pay-per-views, beatings boxing’s tally of 4,795,000 pay-per-views in the same period
- 2008 – UFC provide seven of the top ten pay-per-view events in the calendar year, with boxing providing two and WWE one
- Jun ‘09 – UFC 100 beamed into 400 million homes, in 17 languages, producing a gate of $5,128,490
$200,000
Merchandise sales are through the roof;.at UFC 105 in Manchester, sales hit the $200,000 mark, totally blitzing any figure likely to be raised at a boxing event.”
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