UFC has been making millions of dollars in the past few years with their bloody fighting matches. The mixed martial arts sport sells out to arenas like the Bell Center in Montreal and Mandalay Bay to name a few.
In Morgan Campell’s blog posted on the Star.com, he explores new information and upcoming fights. His most recent http://thestar.blogs.com/fightingwords/ found here, explains Dana White- president of the UFC’s decision to bring pay-per-view fights to movie theaters.
UFC has taken over the sports world. Leading the way in gruesome fighting, it has left boxing to take the back seat. Starting March 27th at UFC 111 they will take a lesson from boxing by having their shows in the theaters. Despite boxing taking a blow when they implemented this, UFC has better hopes. An average fight costs over 50 dollars to order on your home television. At one fight a month that can set the average fan back. But when UFC hits theatres, tickets will be costing the same price as regular movies.
Despite initial thought that this could take away from pay-per-view revenue for UFC, one has to think of it like this: The majority of fans don’t order fights and sit at home alone watching them. They have friends over and have fight nights. So what does this mean for the UFC? It’s still going to be a lot cheaper for people to split the cost of watching a fight at home rather than going to the theatre to all pay admission.
Hand-in-hand with fighting, goes drinking. Bars and Pubs make huge revenue of holding a fight night. Bars that would normally be dead on a Saturday night, have waiting lines to get in to watch the fight once a month.
Dana White is being smart with his empire, constantly coming out with new ideas to build a fan base and new programming ideas. Recently UFC started airing undercard fights for pay-per-view free on Spike, which leads to an incentive for people to order the fight to see how it ends. Also, UFC recently hosted a fight in Australia. Building fan base around the world has taken off. Already two fights have been shown in Montreal, Canada.
For fans out there waiting for UFC to expand into Ontario, they will be waiting a long time. Premier Dalton McGuinty recently told reporters that UFC is not a priority right now. Stating that jobs and strengthening the economy are main priorities right now. UFC officials are stating that Ontarians are their biggest fan base. They are predicting a crowd of over 35,000 spectators if it was held in Ontario.
Despite protestors on UFC it clearly proves that it is one of the biggest televised sports right now, and isn’t going away any time soon.
Other Sources:
http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2010/02/17/12920551.html
