I was watching UFC at the local BW3 tonight, and I was asking if they're going to show any future fights. The manager said "I hope not, we lost money".
Now the place was packed, but most of the people who stayed mainly just ordered drinks, and maybe a dinner or appetizer, but the turnover rate was next-to-nothing during the fights.
So the restuarant/bar had to accomidate the people for the fights because corporate made them buy the PPV, which cost the place $400 by the way, and that comes out of the restuarant's profits, not corporates.
It is called the market. If places lose money they stop buying. "Corporate" is just as interested in profits as anyone. I bet most places make money off of it. Otherwise why would so many Hooters keep it up?
It's the same thing with WWE PPVS. I worked at a sports bar that showed the PPVs on sunday, and basically the place would fill up with teenagers and rednecks who would maybe order an appetizer and take full advantage of our 'bottomless cup' policy on soda.
People who sit in a bar/restaurant take up space, stay for a long time, and don't typically spend a lot of money.
Yep, $10 cover at the bar I went to as well. My roommates and I split 2 pitchers of beer as well. Lots of people were in there. I guarantee they covered the $400 and then some, easily.
There was no cover at the bar I went to, and they told me it was the first time they ordered a fight. I think they could charge $10 (with a drink included) and probobly not lose money on an event.
I just moved to this new city, and MMA probobly isn't as popular here as it is in some areas of the country, obviously.
I'd estimate there were about twice as many people at the bar tonight than there were for Barrera/Juarez 2 last week. UFC PPVs are a money maker, I think.
The fans were also surprisingly pretty knowledgeable.
Even if you get the less expensive items on the menu, you're still paying 6-7 bucks a pop. I'm sure none of these bars/restaurants have trouble covering.
The manager said that most of the people that were there watching the fights would have been there regardless of if the fights were shown or not. There's no way to tell for sure if they were there specifically for the fights unless you took some type of survey, which she obviously didn't. She's probobly going off of typical sales for a Sat.
Then again, they didn't really bother to advertise the fights like some bars at my hometown did, so this could be a case of the induvidual bar not taking the time to advertise the fights in order to make some money back on the PPV price.
Most bars who show the UFC also shows boxing PPV's so that would be the case for boxing too. Does that mean they will stop showing them. No! Probably made more on the hanger arounds then they would have if they didn't show it.
ufc is growing which means that the places that show ufcs are goin to
gain "usuals" who will come back for every ufc which = $$$ because the
new fans and the usuals!
byt the way...i was an hour and a half away from the nearest bar showing
ufc 63!!!!!!! very not cool!!!!