The average boxing fan typicaly has a higher level of discretionary income cpmapred to MMA fans. You can probably mainly attribute this to the deographics of each sport.
Also, I think the bigger boxing PPV's will continue to do better numbers than the bigger MMA PPV's because I would guess that more MMA fans all gather at one house and watch a PPV as opposed to boxing, where..and I offer zero data to support this just my experience and knowledge of the two sports...there are more buys becaus ethere are less "He'y everyone throw in a buck and all 50 of us can watch at Joey's house"..that sorta thing.
From a casino as the venue standpoint boxing is a much better revenue generator than MMA.
Both sports are not going anywhere and will coexsist.
I think MMA's futurre is in the generation of kids right now, like my kids..6, 7 year olds..those kids growing up wanting to be the next "Liddell, Tito or Fedor" will take MMA to the level of full fledges member of the sports society.
if they did a 24/7 for a major ufc match the numbers would double... and if the ufc ever got any time on espn, because espn rules almost all sports they would get 2 million buys also
This should shut up all the idiots that keep claiming boxing is dead or dieing. This ONE event did over half in PPV revenue as UFC did in all their shows last year and the live gate of $29 million I believe surpasses the overall total of all live gates UFC did last year. What is more amazing is that UFC had an incredible year last year, which it probably won't repeat this year.
"This should shut up all the idiots that keep claiming boxing is dead or dieing. This ONE event did over half in PPV revenue as UFC did in all their shows last year "
But its popularity is on the decline. This was only ONE big fight in how often? The fact that people are saying that this was boxing's last hurrah speaks volumes. They wouldn't be saying that if boxing was just as popular as it was 10 years ago.
"UFC took the world of pay-per-view by storm in 2006, topping boxing PPV events in buy rates almost without exception. Although UFC does not release PPV performance numbers, reports indicate that De La Hoya's May 6, 2006, fight against Ricardo Mayorga was the only boxing PPV of the year that did numbers competitive with UFC shows."
How can anybody call a single sporting event generating almost $140 million($120 million from ppv and $19 live gate) a sport that's dying? With their cuts from PPV, De La Hoya is getting $45 million while Mayweather will get $20 million. Meanwhile, Dana White's UFC champs can only dream of ever making that kind of money. The UFC, which bought Pride, now has a monopoly and will pay as little as it can get away with to its' fighters.
The question which is unknown at this point is if UFC / MMA can stand the test of time, or is it sort of a fad. That is one of things that has annoyed me with all the people on mma.tv and elsewhere who keep saying UFC is ahead of boxing and that boxing is dead. UFC has one major year and it has taken over. It just does not work like that. It takes time to see what the true drawing power is for UFC. It is cyclical in nature, referring to entertainment type events and their immediate drawing power.
The other thing that should be clear is that UFC is well behind boxing. The best drawing UFC was what 1 Million buys and that was at a lower PPV price. Also, the live gate was many times lower than this one. They are not even close to boxing as far as their universe at the top end.
Basically, boxing could have never drawn these kind of phenomenal numbers if it was anywhere close to dead, dieing or on the decline.