Affliction’s PPV Buys May Surprise Some

Jul 23, 2008 2:23 AM John Chandler

Snapshot courtesy of AfflictionBanned.com

Those who claimed that this past weekend’s MMA brand war was completely won by the veteran Ultimate Fighting Championship may want to dive a little bit deeper into the big scheme of things. Unlike it’s unsuccessful predecessors that attempted to get “big” fast with star-filled events, (WFA, Hardcore Championship Fighting, IFO) it seems that Affliction might not be going back to strictly making clothing just yet.

David took a glance yesterday at the amount of success the event generated because of Saturday night. From the near sold-out arena to the fights themselves, the majority of critics have had very little to say in terms of negativity. However in the long run, it comes down to the almighty dollar. As long as Affliction makes enough money to stay afloat, they’ll continue to put on events. (Affliction VP Tom Atencio has already discussed a planned November show)

A gigantic payroll that saw former UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia walk away with nearly $1 million have caused many to doubt whether or not that would be possible. A $2 million live gate certainly helped things but production costs, advertising, and various other expenses still have to be taken care of. It looks like the promotion may be in luck. I myself predicted that they would come away with 80,000 PPV buys if they were lucky. Atencio believes it will be far more than that:

But he said the pay-per-view results, which most analysts were expecting to come in around 75,000, was well better than expected.

“I don’t have everything on that yet, but for the people who felt this was going to be a total flop in that regard, I have news for them,” Atencio said. “It’s already done a lot better than what I’ve heard people speculating. I’m not going to release the (official) number, but it’s already well beyond what people have been saying. Well beyond.”

Atencio would only say the final number “definitely” would be beyond 100,000.

Oh snap! While the final number should be nowhere near the 400,000 average buys the UFC draws every month, it’s still a victory for Affliction as no other major MMA promotion besides the UFC has ever cracked the 100k mark, or even came close for that matter. The bottom line from last weekend is simple: MMA > UFC.

General • Personalities • Tom Atencio • Affliction • UFC

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Comments:

1. D.Capitated
Jul 23, 2008 6:51 AM

I’m not particularly shocked. UFC had tone two 100,000+ buyrates in the Zuffa era prior to TUF. The number of MMA fans now is exponentially higher than it was then too.

2. Grant
from Phoenix
Jul 23, 2008 9:01 AM

I don’t think Affliction can keep paying out as much as they are in salaries. Granted, the entire event is a huge advertisement for their clothing, and maybe that by itself is enough to keep them moving, but I doubt it.

Based on the numbers I have been reading, they brought in 2M at the gate, another 4M in PPV, and then advertising $(which we won’t know), but paid out 3.3M. That means they had less than 3M for all their expenses and advertising.

I am pretty sure they lost money on this deal, though that could be chalked up to advertising dollars for their clothing line, but they won’t be able to keep this up. They will be paying UFC level wages or will be out of business in no time.

3. craig o
Jul 23, 2008 9:46 AM

the greatest event ever and still up in the air if they actually made a buck! fact is, the got 25% or so of the number buys ufc gets and they used basically ufc fighters to promote it… yet they still didn’t touch ufc numbers. now is it a success cuz they did better than all the other org’s that failed??

4. David M Singer
from NY
Jul 23, 2008 9:49 AM

If the plan is to make this a real organization, and not a one and done, branding is just as important as making a buck for the first few events. I think they’re doing a good job building their name so far, and that’ll bring in more eyes down the road.

5. craig o
Jul 23, 2008 9:53 AM

maybe, but also buying 500k worth of tickets and saying the gate is 2.1 million when it’s only 1.6million is a solid foundation of a good biz just ask enron.

6. Martin Alexander
from Vancouver, BC, Canada
Jul 23, 2008 9:53 AM

It doesn’t make sense to me to sign Sylvia at almost 1M per fight, they could have signed him for less, I don’t get the salaries at all

7. David M Singer
from NY
Jul 23, 2008 9:55 AM

The tickets and gate receipts reporting is no different than what they do in every sport, not just MMA, so it didn’t really make me flinch.

8. craig o
Jul 23, 2008 2:42 PM

i love how now tom is saying, fighters need to understand were not a cash cow… lol. hey, when smell like beef! saying what everybody else is saying, that u can’t pay those amounts and stay in the game….. so it will be interesting to see what they pay next time.

9. AdaMBomB
Jul 23, 2008 6:30 PM

As long as they get good fights ill be watching.. i dont care about all this other stuff. Shit i cant even stand the word affliction… And make fun of the shirts all the time.. I just want KO"S!!