Question of the day: Will UFC 119 break 440k PPV buys?
Posted by Joshua Wood (Editor in Chief)Sep 25
We are just hours away from UFC 119 going live on pay per view from Indianapolis, Indiana. The fight card is pretty solid with three former UFC champs, but it’s with a title fight. Historically cards without a title fight have a much lower PPV buy rate than those with a title on the line.
Since UFC 100 the PPV cards have averaged nearly 640,000 buys per event, ranging from 1.6 million to 240k over 18 events. The 10 events with a title up for grab averaged 789,000 buys, almost 350,000 more buys more than the 8 events without (440,000 buys).
The main event of UFC 119 features former UFC heavyweight champ, Frank Mir against pride star Mirko Crop Cop. The nights undercard will feature another pride star, Antônio Rogério Nogueira against the winner of the ultimate fighter season 8, Ryan Bader.
Mir has appeared on three cards since UFC 100 with either him or someone else fighting for a title on them. Those three cards have averaged just over one million buys at 1,023,333.
Cro Cop has also fought on three cards during that span, none of which had a title fight and only averaged 379,333 buys.
Bader has appeared on two PPV cards, one of which had a title fight for a combined averaged of only 370,000 buys.
Nogueira has appeared on two UFC PPV cards without a title fight, but his second fight was during the fan Expo, which inflated the average to 712,500 buys.
Combined the four have appeared on nine PPV cards during this span, four had title fight and 5 did not for an average of 681,111 buys.
Can the four headliners carry the buy rate above the non-title fight average of 440k or will it fall short?
