Why a Subscription PPV Model Makes Sense for the UFC and Its Fans

Being an MMA fan is not cheap. It’s not like football or baseball, where the price of a basic cable package pretty much covers the season. And for the hardcore fans, there is always the deluxe package available for a couple of hundred bucks extra.  

Due to the amount of numbered UFC events put on in the last few years, MMA fans are asked to plunk down about $800 a year for pay per views (PPV), and an additional $100 or so for a Showtime subscription so we can watch Strikeforce.

True, for that $100 you can also watch Dexter, but how many seasons can we bear of everyone’s favorite serial killer narrowly evading detection?  

In an average household budget, $900 pays for a year’s worth of car insurance, or a year of cell phone service, or a year of Tiger Schulman’s for the kiddies.

Basically, it’s a household expense; not a major one, but enough of an expense that it needs to be factored into the monthly budget. And with the price tag of cable already quite high, most households simply cannot justify adding an additional $50 to that for a PPV event, at least not regularly.  

Many would-be UFC fans do not watch solely due to the price of the PPV. And because they’re out of the loop for the major events, they don’t follow up with the smaller ones.

It’s mind-boggling that so many casual fans have no clue that there’s a free event this weekend on Fox. There it is, a quality event, readily available at no additional cost, and these fight fans don’t even know it’s on.  

The reason is because there’s a lack of continuity when someone misses so many important fights. There’s no incentive for them to make the effort to follow the sport. Most casual fans are also fans of the stick and ball sports.  

Why should they scour the Internet to find out there’s a UFC card on Saturday night when they know there’s a baseball game on? They just want to get lost in the wonderment of passion that a few hours of sporting brings into our lives; could be baseball, football, fighting, whatever.  

The UFC has tapped out the pay-per-view market. A new model, a subscription-based pay-per-view model, would not only benefit the fans, but UFC as well.  

The UFC would benefit in that their fan base would grow. They’d pull in less revenue at first, but as time went on and the model caught on, their revenue would rise to comparable or even greater levels.  

Offer a product at a high price and some will always buy. Offer it at a low price and you entice more consumers into the market.  

The UFC is not subject to the same market forces as other products. There is a demand for fights, but they have a set price of $45-$50, regardless of the quality of event.

A Ford Focus costs less that a Ford Avalanche even though they’re both part of the Ford brand. A UFC PPV is always the same price regardless of whether it’s headlined by Georges St. Pierre or Frankie Edgar. Thus, consumers are forced to make decisions.  

Having all the events available to the subscription buying public would negate the decision making process for consumers.  

If every PPV event now carries a total cost of $800, they can offer a package subscription deal for $400. They would draw many new fans into the sport.

A UFC subscription would become a Christmas gift favorite wives buy for their husbands. Just as when the “NFL Package” came out, guys would brag about it to their friends.  

The goal should be to draw new fans into the sport, fans that after being able to follow the fights for a while will become loyal fans.

What end does it serve, other than a little entertainment, for a guy to happen upon this Saturday’s fights if he has absolutely no clue what’s going on in the sport other than that he gets to sit there for a couple of hours and watch guys punch each other in the face?

They’ll watch, and that’s great, but then they’ll go about their business and put it out of their minds because they know the next one costs $50.  

By fostering an environment where fans could easily and affordably follow the sport, the UFC would be creating new fans...fans who aren’t in it for just two hours, but who will develop an emotional stake in the sport and its fighters.  

Basically, they will be creating long-term, loyal fans who will not only know that there is simply a fight on this weekend, they’ll know who’s fighting, how they got there, if they’re sniffing a title shot, the injuries that they’re battling, and they’ll be hooked because they’ll then be armed with the knowledge required to develop a passion.  

And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Having that passion is what drives us fight freaks to buy every single PPV.  

The PPV model is stale. Even the UFC knows that. Dana White has even stated his intention of eventually getting away from PPV.  

PPV currently accounts for the great majority of the UFC’s revenue, however, so it’s not likely a vision that is anywhere near fruition.

They’d need to firmly establish themselves on network television, and with the FOX deal in its infancy, the prospect of moving away from the PPV model is a long way off.  

They need to draw new fans into the sport. The Fox deal was a huge step in that direction, but it’s going to take time.

For MMA to become a mainstream sporting commodity, they would need to be able to generate enough advertising revenue via television to split with the PPV base they’ve used since their creation almost two decades ago.  

It’s great that that’s their goal, but it’s a long-term goal. In the short term, loyal fans are struggling to keep up with the sport and its costly price tag.  

A subscription-based PPV model would serve all interested parties greatly.