Feb 04 2010
Jose Aldo Vs. Urijah Faber To Headline The First Ever WEC PPV
It has been reported everywhere that the very first WEC PPV will be from Sacramento and if they run Sacramento, you know Urijah Faber is going to be there. He faces Jose Aldo in the main event and so far, there are two pretty compelling fights on the undercard.
The announcement was pretty big, but the reaction to many who watch WEC on Versus, the price point was a huge deal. The PPV is scheduled to be priced at $44.95, which is what the UFC is priced at. It’s going to be tough to turn WEC viewers who are used to free shows to pay for something at any price, let alone $44.95. However, the people who would buy the show at say $34.95 and wouldn’t at $44.95 is probably low enough to where they’ll recoup the money with the higher price.
Also scheduled for the show is a title fight between Ben Henderson and Donald Cerrone and a fight between Mike Brown and Manny Gamburyan. The tickets go on sale this weekend.
More than likely, Sacramento gets even louder than they were when Faber fought Assunciao at the last WEC show.
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Aldo will smash Faber.
I think Faber fights a very smart and strategic fight and makes it competitive. But I still think Aldo wins.
I got a question for you GG. Would it not be economically viable to charge say 20 or 25 bucks. They do special prices on some of the smaller boxing shows, and it’s the same with the indy wrestling groups who run PPV. It would distance it from the UFC shows as it would be targeting the cheaper end of the ppv market. I think the cheaper price tag would tempt people into giving it a chance.
Also do you think UFC run the risk of cannibalizing their ppv business with this venture. I know you might think that anyone who buys this will buy just about every UFC, but I don’t know about that. Hardcore fans might choose a full WEC card over a mediocre UFC, if they are only going to buy 1 MMA ppv.
Am I right to assume that UFC have a PPV scheduled that month to?
I think you’re right in general, but I think that they think if you offer something for $25, you sabotage the ability to sell it higher after the fact.
I’m sure UFC has a PPV that month as well. But I just read that they are marketing this as UFC Presents WEC, so there’s your answer as to why the price is what it is.
I think it’s possible that some fans would choose WEC over UFC, but only the hardcore ones who are only going to buy one show a month. The hardcores who buy everything (such as when there are two UFC PPVs a month) will buy the WEC as well. I think you’re just losing a lot of the casuals unless there’s some superb hype special going on.
The UFC card that shares a month with this WEC event is UFC 113, which is the Anderson Silva vs. Vitor Belfort and B.J. Penn vs. Frankie Edgar card.
They are also separated by two weeks.
Two really good cards.
That’s a better two cards than what February offers with this weekend’s card and the Nog/Velasquez card.
Yeah the next card I’m getting hyped for is 111. Its in Newark, NJ (my NJ buddy is going to try and win tickets from Dana’s twitter).
That card has two belts up for grabs. A bit strange since their headliners have been hurting lately but I think they want to put on a show for the NYC crowd.
I think that’s their strategy. Based off how well UFC 100 did, they’re building some huge cards for that huge buyrate and just being ok with so-so shows doing 400,000 buys.
The NJ card is also interesting because it’s the day before WrestleMania and will more than likely cut into WWE’s business the next day.