Jose Aldo-Urijah Faber: The WEC's Move To PPV Is Bold, but Not Fully Baked

I love risk-takers. In business today, there's not enough of them. It seems that most that claim to be on the edge are really just taking small little jumps—not crazy and bold Maverick-type moves—because they're intimidated at the prospect of failing.

The Zuffa-owned WEC announced they will take a long-rumored risk of their own Wednesday, booking a potential Fight of the Year candidate, Featherweight Champion Jose Aldo vs. Urijah Faber, to headline the promotion's first Pay-Per-View (PPV). The company had noted that PPV was always something they were looking at and they finally found the right fight card to experiment with.

The show is set for Saturday, April 24, and will be in Faber's hometown of Sacramento, CA—a ridiculously unfair advantage once again for Faber, but that's a story for another time.

But while the move was expected at some point, there still remains a bit of discussion on exactly what this means for the WEC moving forward—including timing, price and whether they can sustain a regular PPV model beyond one or two events per year.

Will the WEC's calculated risk pay off or just be a miscalculated blip on the radar at year's end?

Timing

With the current layout of MMA, there really isn't a good or bad time to run an event.

With the UFC, WEC, and Strikeforce running more shows than ever his year, the amount of free weekends is next to nil. There aren't a lot of opportunities to be the only show-grabbing attention over a two-to-three week span, like in the old days of 2008.

As Maggie Hendricks pointed out, the show will fall in the middle of a six-week stretch that includes three UFC shows: 111, 112, and 113.

Considering those events will feature the return of Georges St. Pierre, Machida vs. Rua II, Frank Mir vs. Shane Carwin for the interim heavyweight title, and the loaded Abu Dhabi card, even Faber and Aldo is going to have a tough time getting sunlight among the UFC's tall trees.

But you can't make both guys wait.

Faber is coming off an injury-free win in January, while Aldo barely broke a sweat in crushing Mike Brown for the belt back in November. There's no better time to have this match, but unfortunately other events are going to steal some heat away from it.

Sure, the MMA hardcores like myself can handle it, but I'm thinking of the mainstream/fence fans that will go into overload—especially with the winter sports entering playoff mode and baseball starting up.

And before you say a few choice words about catering to the mainstream fans, those are the people WEC needs to target to buy this event. The hardcores will already be there, but the real cash is getting your average guy or girl to press 'Buy' on their remote when they originally hadn't planned on doing so.

The Price

When I first saw "$44.95", I immediately thought that was too high.

I understand how the PPV business works, but I still think—for the organization's debut—this feels more like an attempt at an easy money grab than a starting point for adding regular PPV events to the company's business model.

I worked in the front office of a pro hockey team for six years and learned a great deal about pricing, especially tickets.

One core fundamental is that you never want to lessen the value of your product by offering a ridiculous discount ($1 deals, for example) on nights where it was tough to sell tickets. Why? Because if your point of entry is perceived as cheap, people subconsciously will think your product is also cheap as well. Perception is reality and, in those cases, you get what you pay for.

The price point for the Zuffa-owned UFC is $44.95 for standard definition and $54.95 for HD and, for the most part, it works (although you won't find many fans that would argue if the price dropped). There are obviously costs to putting on a live event and part of that charge helps cover that. However, with the UFC, you're buying a brand and generally know what you're going to get for your $45-$55.

The WEC doesn't have that same brand equity and can't justify charging the same price.

But you can't go the $10 route, as that would be the equivalent of the $1 ticket. What am I really going to get for $10? For the uncommitted, it becomes a reason to not buy the show because of perceived value. Yes, there is such a thing as having too low of a price.

Faber-Aldo is a great main event and the rest of the card, featuring Lightweight Champ Ben Henderson vs. Donald Cerrone II and Mike Brown vs. Manny Gamburyan, rounds out a nice top three.

Charging $19.95 would be great for fight fans, but would that make it seem cheap to the mainstream viewer? Would that entice them more than $44.95?

The more I think through the numbers, $19.95 feels right for several reasons:

• You've never asked WEC fans to pay before. That's a huge jump from free to $45.
• For the mainstream fans, $20 is a lot easier to justify on a lesser-known commodity than $45. What if you're not familiar with the WEC? If I'm on the fence, money is a huge driving factor and I'm not going to pay a large amount of cash for something I'm not quite sure about.

• It provides a starting point. If this is a smash success, you can build up to a $44.95 mark over time. By starting there there's a very small chance that number ever goes down. If it does, that signals that you misread the market to begin with.
• You acknowledge the hardcores. Hendricks smartly pointed out that at $44.95, it would cost a single viewer $180 to buy all four Zuffa cards in that six-week span. Ouch. Zuffa is extremely fan-friendly. So why not push this as an economic break for the loyal fan base and spin it into a positive?
• Bill this as the perfect opportunity for people to try out WEC with their biggest show ever for just $20. The hardcores knew this was coming at some point, so make the best out of it and potentially grab some new viewers along the way.
• Less money equals less illegal streamers. If given the opportunity to stream online as opposed to watching the show for $20 on my HD, I think I'd choose the latter 10 out of 10 times. Even the most ardent of online streamers couldn't balk at $20, could they?

Can This Even Work Long-Term?

The reason this specific situation works is that Aldo vs. Faber is a fight any MMA fan will be dying to see. Since they've wanted to test the waters with PPV, WEC/Zuffa has a perfect test case to see just how popular they really are.

But even if the show exceeds their financial expectations, there's no next obvious draw that someone will want to pay to see.

While Miguel Torres-Brian Bowles II might be a great Versus headliner, would you pay $45 to see it? Other than Aldo-Faber, the next fight that could generate money would be Aldo-Faber II if the original is a great battle.

The UFC is loaded with stars that they can use and promote for an event and draw buys with. The WEC is not.

They have made a great name for themselves on a growing sports network and have gained a slew of new fans because of their ability to put on great shows with lighter weight classes on an accessible televised vehicle.

I worry that if they save the big matches for PPV, they are going to lose out on viewers flipping through the channels and also irritate some people along the way that don't want to pay $45 for the WEC, thus hurting the whole nice lil' system they've had going for a few years.

WEC is an awesome cable TV product, but I don't feel like I'm ready for them to jump to PPV yet.

So Why Not Just Put This on a UFC Show?

I keep hearing people ask, "Why not just put this on a UFC show?" I don't understand why people don't get why this is a bad idea.

While the two are owned by the same company, they are separate brands. Cross-promoting events makes too much sense, but to go to the extent of putting on a WEC match inside the UFC Octagon reeks of desperation. They don't need charity. They just need TV, regular events, and fights that will create fans.

With this whole venture, Zuffa is playing the role of maverick once again, taking a risk by going from the comfortable bosom of being on Versus to the scary, cruel world of PPV. Many have tried and many have failed, but with the UFC, a revenue-generating powerhouse evolved, and in April the WEC will take their turn in the PPV batter's box with two of their biggest stars on top.

Time will tell whether the risk was a win or a massive blunder. In either case, you're going to have to pay to be part of the experiment.

Josh Nason has published MMA blog Ropes, Ring and Cage.com since 2007. He is a contributor to FIGHT! Magazine and appears regularly on The Fight Show and Fight Network Radio. Follow him on Twitter.