Should The UFC Hold A Pay-Per-View In Europe?

[King 277]

Unreal, can't wait for it, the press he's getting over here is insane.

[Guest bigmatt]

I heard that he even got a story on BBC Breakfast!

[Guest John Hancock]

Dana White is cumming his pants for it, he was tweeting all the pictures like the pull out special in the Irish Sun and that, I feel like Ireland's going to get a bum load of shows off this. I wouldn't be surprised if they make Dublin the primary "British" market over London for all the press they're getting. I guess it'll depend on how it holds up once it isn't a novelty thing. When the UFC's in England, it doesn't get anything in the papers on major T.V. that it wouldn't get if it was in America, but maybe that's because of how many show's we get.

 

If they go back to Ireland later this year or early next year, and they get this amount of attention again, they have to make it the primary western European market and expect British UFC fans to make the trip over for the weekend. Brazil, America, Ireland and Sweden seem to be the UFC's big four currently, Canada and Britain have really dropped off, and Japan never really got going. It'll be interesting to see what happens in Mexico and then places like Russia and/or India.

[King 277]

UFC Fight Night Mega-Thread

 

Do you think we will get a PPV over here John??

[Guest John Hancock]

Nah, just because of the time difference. I don't really think UFC will do any European PPVs in the near future, it's all going to be the America's and Asia. I think the only way Europe gets a pay-per-view is if a European wins the titles and just goes on a tare and they do it as a publicity stunt to just lock a country down, like McGregor in Ireland or Gustaffsson in Sweden. If McGregor wins the title, and kills like three dudes in America, you might get one in Ireland.

 

I actually don't think that would be impossible because of his weight class. Lighter guys never draw on PPV anyway, so they wouldn't be losing that much money. It would be a different story if, say, Alistair Overeem won the title, they couldn't put him in the Netherlands because the heavyweight title is too much of a draw and they'd lose like half a million buys, compared to like 100,000-200,000 for the light guys.

 

It would be tricky though, because it basically wouldn't be a pay-per-view. UFC shows are free in most European countries as part of cable/satellite packages anyway, and they'd be on too early in the day to do any PPV-party/bar business in the Americas, it would start at like 11am in California.

 

I think the most likely option would be a Fight Night, or even a UFC on FOX MAYBE with a title fight as a main event, rather than a full PPV.

[Guest The Beltster]

He do get PPV's Europe. I've been to some of them. They just show them on free TV in the US. But they are still numbered UFC shows and not fight nights so that counts as a PPV, right?

[The Fury 65]

Rumour is a fight night will happen in Scotland next year but reckon Ireland if they get continued coverage and success will be a matter of when

[GENE 86]

Were you at the event where Rampage unified the Pride and UFC titles? I'm sure that was in England.

[Guest John Hancock]

He do get PPV's Europe. I've been to some of them. They just show them on free TV in the US. But they are still numbered UFC shows and not fight nights so that counts as a PPV, right?

 

I guess so. It's a weird one that, the "pay-per-view" shows that aren't actually on pay-per-view. They used to do them all the time, but that was because they didn't have Fight Nights or UFC on FOX or UFC on Fuel or whatever, it was just numbered shows, so the pay-per-views and the free T.V. shows were all just the numbered shows.

 

The last "pay-per-view" in Europe, with quotation marks, was 2011 I think, Mark Munoz was somehow involved I seem to remember, but there have been proper European pay-per-views, UFC 99 in 2009 was the last one I think, which was in Germany and actually didn't do badly. Ireland's had a real pay-per-view before too, and England's had a couple, but none after 2009, and none after they introduced all the T.V. shows.