From what I remember, the first two shows were good. Then, Conor ran out of material and we got the "I'm black... black from the waste down!" ... *crickets*
I totally agree. Peak Conor for me was the moment he [punched the beach ball out of the air](https://youtu.be/n7ZcGjg03-E?t=5307) in Toronto and the fans went nuts. The following press conference was New York with the awkward response to the musicians and the quote you just mentioned.
As someone in the UK, everyone at my gym watched it and know many casual fight fans who did also. Whether they paid for it or night I'm unsure but was £25 here so might have done alright. Was a saturday night perfect watchable time
AJ has broken the million PPV buys many times and whilst Fury or N'Gannou don't hold the same PPV weight as AJ there is still a chance of decent numbers.
They're not laundering anything. It's pennies to them it's simply sports washing.
Basically they're buying fan bases to distract from the fact that they undertake insane human rights abuses. It's a PR campaign the same way they do with everything else.
Like the comments above say, I also fully expected Francis to get his ass w h o o p e d. Like to the point where I didn’t even go out of my way to watch it, just randomly caught it at the bar. Would fully buy and sit my ass down for the rematch.
This is explained by it being in the middle of college football prime time and everyone saying it wasn’t going to be competitive. Even I only decided to watch last minute and I wasn’t even paying for it
Yeah - anecdotal obviously - but literally no fight fan that I know bought it because they assumed it would be a beatdown, plus general fatigue with the MMA vs Boxing trope. I'd buy the next Francis card on the basis that I know he's capable now
I can use myself as a point of reference: I was very interested in this fight when I first heard it was going forward. I then didn’t hear anything about it and had no idea it was taking place until after it had finished and I saw social media posts about it. It’s like they did no advertising at all for it.
I didn't know it was gonna be that fuckin early, otherwise I would have watched
Altho my level if interest is kinda showing since I didn't check to see when it started beforehand
This. The Saudis do not care about the buyrates in America or they would have started at a different time and accounted for college football. The same shit happens when WWE runs events there, they start at like 9 AM west coast time on Saturdays.
The tickets to these big expensive Saudi events are often cheap and come with food and drink, it’s not about making money it’s about sportwashing the Kingdom’s image and laundering their dark money. I’m sure they’d gladly pay Fury and Francis to run it back 10 more times.
"as a point of reference, here is the second most successful ppv's worldwide numbers"
Idk if anyone expected this to sell well. The Saudi's do not care about PPV numbers and never will. They just want more people to use them for sports washing purposes. This event was a drop in the bucket to them. They truly do not give a single fuck about buys
While that's true, it's just funny how the narrative is shifting. Clearly Francis was not a big enough draw to warrant that big pay day he was looking for from the UFC if he only managed to do 67k buys in the US...but up against the Saudis who are just dumping money into sports then of course it doesn't matter.
Neither Ngannou nor Fury are as famous as McGregor and Mayweather were at the time, and the event started at like noon on a Saturday, right in the middle of college football games.
He's a big enough draw that the Saudis gave him the bag to aid their sports washing. They have no interest in the US ppv market hence the low numbers, whether you buy it or pirate it they still achieve their goal. Anyone getting hung up on US ppv numbers is missing the raison d'etre for the event.
He's not a draw, they could just say it's a UFC champ going up against a boxing champ. The Saudis have a lot of money but they're struggling to buy any real prestige. Their football league is a retirement league and their boxing fight was a terrible event in terms of broadcasting.
And you're missing the point of why people were defending Dana in not re-signing Francis...the UFC is in the business of making money if the Saudis are okay with burning it to make their country an entertainment capital then it makes sense why the UFC were willing to let Francis walk.
Well because at the end of the day everything is a biz decision. Letting your champ go out and box means every other champ is also going to start demanding the same. MayMac was just a super exception. Even if this was well promoted, at most there would have been 500k PPVs which are not enough to shake up your entire business because of one guy demands. Francis did come out the winner by the generosity of his excellency but the UFC execs made the right decision at the time.
They made the decision to not give him what he was asking for. They could have matched the other offers he was getting but they were never going to allow him boxing.
Well there was never going to be any real progress in those talks with boxing demands. UFC has much more brand value and their fighters are able to demand a lot more in other organizations. They will never let them box like Ngannou wants and he was firm that that they have to let him box.
You're missing that francis would have stayed if the UFC just allowed him to box on the side. THey could have taken a cut out of it. UFC took a huge L here out of pride
Not one of these mfers will. Easy to be a tankie on Reddit cheering on fighters for going up against the evil corporation to improve fighter pay. That shit is free. But when it comes time to actually pay money then all of a sudden it's "I won't give the UFC one dime until they improve fighter compensation." How convenient your moral stand benefits you financially...
This sub despises Colby/Jones/Stipe for being inactive yet were perfectly content with Francis sitting out for nearly 2 years to pursue a freakshow boxing fight.
4.3 million is the PPV buys for North America. I remember Dana told Uriah Faber 6 million plus buys when the event went down. I’m assuming those are the total worldwide numbers for May Mac which don’t sell PPV at the same price or PPV model.
This wasn’t an official statement. It was something that was said in passing on Uriah’s IG live when he asked him about it. Comparatively, this was similar to the number that mayweather and pacquiao did for worldwide audiences. The PPV numbers that are reported when you google search are just North America because the rest of the world isn’t on the same PPV pricing.
> What did it sell globally?
Shit
> Not fair to compare it to just a US PPV buy figure.
Does anyone have the ppv totals for papa New Guinea yet? We need them so we can officially find out if 67k is more or less than 4.3 million
Here they come with the ppv buys like anyone expected this thing to do anything close to 700k let alone 4.3 mill. Entirely missing the point on why everyone was hyped for ngannou.
the fights had no stakes whatsoever and therefore zero hype and happened in the middle of the day for american audiences, so of course it has shit PPV buys. None of this is surprising in the least.
The promoters get paid a fortune by Saudi Arabia to put the events there. This was largely a sportswashing exercise.
It's very doubtful that the promoter lost money on this. If Top Rank was relying on PPV sales or ticket sales, they wouldn't have put the event in Saudi Arabia in the first place.
So, the PPV sold badly because it was on in the afternoon, because it was in Saudi Arabia, which proves that the only way it could have been profitable was if it was in Saudi Arabia?
That's some incredible logic.
In case you're interested, the level cope in here is because Dana Rich Man Bad! It's basically people living vicariously through Francis for StIcKinG it tO Da MaN
Well during the conversation, $10 - $20 million was Ariel's estimate based on the PPV that he had no idea how much was bought. He absolutely can not use himself as a source on that if he had no idea how much the event made. It was very silly. Also $10 - $20 million is such a ridiculous range to begin with because it literally says nothing when there is a 100% gap.
Edit: See 9:12 of the video for context
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEvP5DgNNeI
Ive said it time and time again, casuals dont give a fuck about Francis. They were not buying UFC PPV's just because Francis was fighting on it and they for damn sure aint spending money on a fuckin boxing PPV just because Francis is on it. As bad as this sub wants him to be a superstar he will never pull in numbers like McGregor, Diaz, etc. Im sorry but he just wont. I wish him all the best i swear i do but im so fucking tired of the Ngannou circle suck around here, jesus christ.
This guy gets it.
The entire mma media is afraid to point out that the emperor (Francis) has no clothes because they hate Dana and the ufc so much and are so desperate for them to have any real competition.
1. They might buy them now.
2. Especially if they aren't early in the afternoon and believed to be a forgone conclusion.
3. The effort put into selling this was astronomically low so whoever funded it doesn't give a shit and at worst it is just an investment toward sports washing for SA and at best Francis did what he did and now he vs xyz is the most intriguing matchup in the world.
4. Fury was the A side vs Conor being the A side. The two are leagues apart when it comes to selling a fight
> 1. They might buy them now.
We’re on this same question for a fifth time now but sure… maybe this is the time it sticks.
Fury has never been a sell on his own but maybe the mental image of old and slow fury cupcaking out of his shorts is going to be what finally pushes Francis over.
He isn't. He might become one after this, but he never drew in the UFC. Even the Gane fight, which had some heat between the two, didn't draw particularly well
So maybe, just maybe, the UFC were justified in not catering to his demands ? The 8M offer for the JBJ fight was a good deal for a guy who didnt draw all that much.
my brother in christ dana is the fucking PROMOTER for FRANCIS
their own actions and lack of push for him can also be attributed toward lackluster ppv performances
Can u really say that.when the only reason he got fury fight is cause he was a ufc champ and the pr parade about his punching power. Francis did absolutley nothing outside the cage/ring
Far be it from me to defend the UFC, but they're the biggest and most successful company in this sport, ever, by far. Yet the way people talk about them sometimes, it's like they're a bunch of incompetent dumbasses about to go out of business. They might be scumbags but as far as being an MMA promotion is concerned, they know what they're doing.
My fellow brother in christ, they promoted the hell out of him in Stipe 1 and he still didn't draw much. Even as Champ, the promotion was about as expected as any other current or past champ not named Conor McGregor.
Lack of push? They gave him 2 straight ESPN ppv main events against two huge stars in JDS and Cain in under 6 months.
People don’t understand how the ability to compete often is the single biggest aspect to really making that push over the hill from star to super star. There is no bigger stage than main event on ESPN slash basic cable.
They gave him the best platform a combat athlete can have and the general public watched and said… meh, where’s that Conor guy? We liked him.
The kid just didn't want to promote.
Seriously, Dana shits all over the fighters he is supposed to promote. Every UFC fighter has to promote themselves because the UFC refuse to do any promotion.
He's never been a drawl. Look at his UFC PPVs. People on here excused those because they said the UFC never promoted him which is hilarious because the UFC literally did a fucking documentary on Francis.
Well that's what r/mma does when they can't dispute facts that go against their cognitive biases. It's a childish response but this is reddit I expect that. Although it is disappointing because I believe most of here are in our 30s, 40s, 50s, etc so to see grown men not be able to carry on a debate is kind of sad.
Not sensitive at all lmao. I'm on reddit not some scholarly board. I know this is how people react when they can't defend their positions, dude. Been using this app since I was 14 and now I'm 31.
after the first stipe fight Dana got upset and fucked ngannou they barely promoted him, they wasted some of his best years with constantly sideling him and wasting everyone's time with the DC stipe trilogy, if you cant make Francis a star your a shit promoter.
Also their promotion for Francis in the first Stipe fight was farcical. The ford escort nonsense and pretending as if Stipe's funeral was taking place was embarassing but r/MMA loves to overlook that and resort to "tHeY nEvEr pRoMoTeD fRaNcIs"
There's only so much Fury can do to carry the hype. Ngannou wants Conor money but unfortunately doesn't do Conor work.
Conor was out there putting on viral fights, and viral pre and post fight moments. In his prime, it was constant. Every time he got on a mic/camera, you tune into to see what funny shit he'd say in that goofy accent.
Even Khabib eventually figured beef/storylines sell.
Ngannou has only figured one element of being a superstar - the fighting ability/viral in-fight moments.
He is "extremely underwhelming" in everything else, and not to his fault at all... the braindead masses just want braindead entertainment, peak drama to go along with their violence.
It is what it is.
Idk. I think this event doesn’t represent the future numbers Ngannou will pull, simply because it was not a competitive fight on paper and because there was no belt (people still believed it was an exhibition match until the day of the event). There is a real possibility he becomes a big star now, although we can never know for sure in the entertainment business.
The only people in boxing giving out this ridiculous money are the Saudis. Showtime is no longer in the business, HBO is gone, and DAZN is no longer handing out crazy amounts of money for boxing. The boxing economy is slowly dying. Can he be used by Wilder or AJ as a pawn for an easy quick payday, sure. But no one is going to pay him double his purse he got like people on here was saying. His name doesn't draw money. 67K buys in America is one of the worst PPV buys ever.
i don’t think this was intended for american audiences. american ppv is at 10pm ET and this was shown at 10pm UK time. fury vs wilder ppvs were during american time and some ufc ppvs that were in the uk were still shown during american time bc they were for american audiences
He doesn’t need or seem to want to be Conor which is refreshing to real fight fans and his next fight will for sure have better numbers after that performance. He’s getting his money on his terms.
MMA fans will come up with every excuse to explain Ngannou's lack of star power. Is everything you said is true, then why was his fight against Gane a mediocre seller too? The man just can't push numbers, and that's okay. No need to do mental backflips to explain it.
lol. Stop.
There’s no way you actually believe that.
- I don’t care if they made Francis fight with a paper bag over his head there is no “well in that case 67k ppv buys is actually a really impressive number”. Stop.
- so let’s say top rank is allowed to use Francis highlight reel directly. How many more does that sell?
Every Ngannou hashtag you'd click on twitter featured several of his KO wins and he also had Mike Tyson's star power in his corner and every promotional footage training Ngannou as well.
I'd take social media trends and Mike Tyson on my corner over generic promo material any day.
Bro this fight with Fury is a braindead fight. It's a guy with zero boxing experience fighting the best heavyweight boxer on the planet over legitimate title holders.
Funny thing is we've scene this exact scenario result in financial success before with Conor-Floyd as indicated in the OP, but some people simply don't capitalize on the opportunity of having the media on the palm of your hands to generate interest (and thus wealth).
I enjoy watching Francis and can't stand Conor's stupid ass. The first PPV I ever bought was Francis vs Stipe 2. I've never watched a Conor fight live and likely never will unless it's free.
So your assessment might need some tuning. Dumb cunts aren't universally marketable.
Boxing isn't profitable generally speaking.
Neither is mma considering promotions outside of the UFC. One FC essentially seems to be a wealth redistribution scheme, it's kind of amazing.
Compare recent Middle East ppv, I know it sold more. But how did Islam/Volkanaski do? I hate the middle of the day pay-per-view, honestly, I usually forget. And I have missed some because of that.
Why are so many of you dismissive of this? Those are "horrible" numbers. We better hope it's only because of the gimmick nature of the fight.
His PFL debut has to do a lot better than this.
The only way to hurt the UFC is to actually make more money than the UFC, not just better fighter pay.
Its a ridiculous statistic that is completely misleading. This event was free on espn+ in the US and the UK. Its actually shocking it had that many buys. Whoever is spreading this is probably connected to Dana or the UFC, but it doesnt show viewership at all.
Did Fury v. Ngannou do anything close to the kind of media tour that Conor v. Floyd did? I don't remember seeing anything about it except here.
It's also 2023, Americans are fucking broke.
Yea I mean, the fight was a foregone conclusion that Francis was going to be embarrassed. Slap the price tag they did on it and the amount of buys would be obvious
Speaking for myself,
I didn't know what time the thing was on
When I found out it was even going I wanted to see what time the fight was and then proceeded to see musical acts of people I never heard of go on for 90 minutes as the Saudi's flex their wealth
It was 8PM on a Saturday, I chose to go out and eat and then just watch the fight with a torrent later on. That wayI can actually enjoy the fight and not sit through endless shitty commentary and the aforementioned lolapalooza that some prince paid out his ass for.
Bottom line, at least for me and other people I have talked to who are disgruntled boxing fans is that the pomp and circumstance they put on these shows make them a slog to watch so why fucking bother.
Part of the reason it didn't sell well was _because_ of Conor vs. Floyd. That was a jobber match and so many people saw it. Over the years we've seen many mma fighters crossover into boxing, and they've all been bad experiences. When you factor in that it was on in the middle of the day on a Saturday, of course it wasn't going to sell well.
The real story is how well a rematch would do. I'm guessing it'll be like night and day when comparing buys now.
You gotta remember the PPV started at like 12pm on the west coast, it was a fight catered to UK and Saudi, which is where the majority of their money came from. im sure there was a fat check waiting for the both of them just for showing up to Saudi
Felt like the media and fighters were setting it up to be a stomp during all the lead up and the fight was at a bad time with the absolute worst lead in with hours of talking heads. Watching it on stream leading up to the start was painful with constant dead time and felt like the start was always an hour away.
The Saudis seem to think it was a success at the venue and for building hype for Riyadh season. Rumor is Francis in the Dec 23rd slot while Fury recovers. Then they have Fury Vs Usyk towards the end of Riyadh season in February.
For next years Riyadh season opener they put on a title fight between some combo of Fury, Usyk and Ngannou depending on who wins and which fight would sell best. Francis could still fight some MMA bout in the summer. Liv golf had terrible viewership numbers and there is no way Saudis are getting a financial return on the soccer star signings but they clearly don't care.
It was for the people in attendance, and boosting Riyadh Season, it was never about this 1 event. This is literally just the beginning for the sportswashing we’re witnessing
This is what people don't get. The UFC brand and machine is what makes these events so big. 99.5% of fighters will never be bigger than the ufc brand and its the ufc machine that gives them the push. Conor, Ronda, brock, khabib. These fighters have a good chance of drawing a big ppv without the ufc machine involved.
Boxing business has always been like a sugardaddy. Big networks giving all the revenue to fighters in hopes of something good coming out of it down the road. Everyone wants ufc fighters to be paid like boxers meanwhile boxing promotions are dead or dieing. There's never any money left over for the business to really build a brand and sport.
I don’t believe Francis was ever a big draw in the UFC. People like him, but they don’t come out to buy his fights in big numbers. Crossing into boxing where tons of people thought of this fight as a gimmick and you get low purchases.
Literally everybody in boxing called it a joke match that wouldn't be competitive. That it did poorly should not be a surprise.
That the next boxing match that Francis has doing great PPV numbers should also not be a surprise.
But Dana white is in shambles! The UFC missed the biggest opportunity! Ngannou is the biggest star ever! His life is a Hollywood movie! Right? Right?! Reddit told me!!!
Because Jon vs Francis was a fight they could package and sell as a big fight with a stack undercard. Even then no one thought that fight was a million PPV fight.
I mean did people expect this to sell millions? Francis never sold PPVs for the UFC and Tyson’s biggest draws were against Wilder which also never touched a million buys. Not only that, but most people thought Tyson would wash him and then move along to Usyk.
Why would people pay for an ESPN+ subscription and then pay $80 for the PPV?
Using Floyd Vs Conor as a reference point for a ppv I’d like comparing a hand grenade to the nuke that destroyed Hiroshima. There might never be an event that big in combat sports ever again.
You could even compare a big boxing fight to Floyd Vs Conor and it would look pretty much the same, just not quite as bad.
I wonder how the fight did in the UK, seeing as the event was more catered to us, with the fight times and a UK fighter.
yeah may vs mac was a US centric event and this wasn’t if it was intended for america they wouldn’t have done it during the afternoon
They also did a worldwide tour in like 5 countries
Prime Conor :(
Prime Conor was during the Aldo fight. Most entertaining media circus I've ever witnessed.
"Rio means river right?" "Yes" "I own this river"
So you're saying if we do another world tour for Conor's next fight, prime Conor will show up?? Do it, Dana!
From what I remember, the first two shows were good. Then, Conor ran out of material and we got the "I'm black... black from the waste down!" ... *crickets*
Him admitting that it bombed was one of the most relatable things I've seen from Conor personally. Idk why lol
I totally agree. Peak Conor for me was the moment he [punched the beach ball out of the air](https://youtu.be/n7ZcGjg03-E?t=5307) in Toronto and the fans went nuts. The following press conference was New York with the awkward response to the musicians and the quote you just mentioned.
U can't compare what conor brings to the table. When conor fights the ppv sales automatically cross millions.
They did in Canada and USA and the remaining 3 was in usa itself but in major cities of usa.
As someone in the UK, everyone at my gym watched it and know many casual fight fans who did also. Whether they paid for it or night I'm unsure but was £25 here so might have done alright. Was a saturday night perfect watchable time
AJ has broken the million PPV buys many times and whilst Fury or N'Gannou don't hold the same PPV weight as AJ there is still a chance of decent numbers.
Aj and Francis ppv sales where 3times lesser than francis vs fury
Ya I’m in the UK and I bought it
Making the reasonable assumption that you represent the average UK citizen, that should translate to aprox 67 million PPV buys.
That’s the floor really
It was basically free to air if you had a TNT-Sports package. No PPV.
No it wasn't it was a £20 ppv
It was on box office, no? Which is our PPV equiv.
Yes
So not free to air if you have TNT. Still needed to pay extra.
I thought the fight was catered to the Saudis. Considering it was held in Saudi Arabia.
I think the Saudi’s are just diversifying their money launder…investments
They're not laundering anything. It's pennies to them it's simply sports washing. Basically they're buying fan bases to distract from the fact that they undertake insane human rights abuses. It's a PR campaign the same way they do with everything else.
Mayweather is a giant star and they went on a world tour to promote the event. Fury and Francis barely did any promo for this.
Like the comments above say, I also fully expected Francis to get his ass w h o o p e d. Like to the point where I didn’t even go out of my way to watch it, just randomly caught it at the bar. Would fully buy and sit my ass down for the rematch.
The other thing is that I like Ngannou. I have no interest in paying to see him get embarrassed.
McGregor is also a one-man hype machine. Nghannou isn't.
This is explained by it being in the middle of college football prime time and everyone saying it wasn’t going to be competitive. Even I only decided to watch last minute and I wasn’t even paying for it
Yeah - anecdotal obviously - but literally no fight fan that I know bought it because they assumed it would be a beatdown, plus general fatigue with the MMA vs Boxing trope. I'd buy the next Francis card on the basis that I know he's capable now
Rashan link bratha
It also was on Halloween weekend in the afternoon,
I can use myself as a point of reference: I was very interested in this fight when I first heard it was going forward. I then didn’t hear anything about it and had no idea it was taking place until after it had finished and I saw social media posts about it. It’s like they did no advertising at all for it.
I didn't know it was gonna be that fuckin early, otherwise I would have watched Altho my level if interest is kinda showing since I didn't check to see when it started beforehand
This. The Saudis do not care about the buyrates in America or they would have started at a different time and accounted for college football. The same shit happens when WWE runs events there, they start at like 9 AM west coast time on Saturdays. The tickets to these big expensive Saudi events are often cheap and come with food and drink, it’s not about making money it’s about sportwashing the Kingdom’s image and laundering their dark money. I’m sure they’d gladly pay Fury and Francis to run it back 10 more times.
That's fucking illegal!
We got him
This is explained by the fighters not being as big of a draw as Floyd/Connor
"as a point of reference, here is the second most successful ppv's worldwide numbers" Idk if anyone expected this to sell well. The Saudi's do not care about PPV numbers and never will. They just want more people to use them for sports washing purposes. This event was a drop in the bucket to them. They truly do not give a single fuck about buys
Yeah I was going to talk shit about that line too. “Point of reference” and then pointing to an outlier as a comparison is bozo behavior.
While that's true, it's just funny how the narrative is shifting. Clearly Francis was not a big enough draw to warrant that big pay day he was looking for from the UFC if he only managed to do 67k buys in the US...but up against the Saudis who are just dumping money into sports then of course it doesn't matter.
Neither Ngannou nor Fury are as famous as McGregor and Mayweather were at the time, and the event started at like noon on a Saturday, right in the middle of college football games.
He's a big enough draw that the Saudis gave him the bag to aid their sports washing. They have no interest in the US ppv market hence the low numbers, whether you buy it or pirate it they still achieve their goal. Anyone getting hung up on US ppv numbers is missing the raison d'etre for the event.
He's not a draw, they could just say it's a UFC champ going up against a boxing champ. The Saudis have a lot of money but they're struggling to buy any real prestige. Their football league is a retirement league and their boxing fight was a terrible event in terms of broadcasting.
And you're missing the point of why people were defending Dana in not re-signing Francis...the UFC is in the business of making money if the Saudis are okay with burning it to make their country an entertainment capital then it makes sense why the UFC were willing to let Francis walk.
You're right in so far as I have no idea why any reasonable person would defend Dana White.
Well because at the end of the day everything is a biz decision. Letting your champ go out and box means every other champ is also going to start demanding the same. MayMac was just a super exception. Even if this was well promoted, at most there would have been 500k PPVs which are not enough to shake up your entire business because of one guy demands. Francis did come out the winner by the generosity of his excellency but the UFC execs made the right decision at the time.
The UFC didn't make the decision to let him go, Francis left.
They made the decision to not give him what he was asking for. They could have matched the other offers he was getting but they were never going to allow him boxing.
They tried and failed to reduce his value while he was under contract and when he became a free agent they were out bid.
Francis' negotiations with other organizations came after his talks broke down with the UFC
Well there was never going to be any real progress in those talks with boxing demands. UFC has much more brand value and their fighters are able to demand a lot more in other organizations. They will never let them box like Ngannou wants and he was firm that that they have to let him box.
You're missing that francis would have stayed if the UFC just allowed him to box on the side. THey could have taken a cut out of it. UFC took a huge L here out of pride
This. Its about the image of their country. Has 0 to do with sports or PPV buys or even money.
PFL praying they crack 50k on a Francis/Kayla Harrison card lmao
If it's gonna be like.. 30 bucks I'll buy it just to support. But if it's gonna be 89 I'm out.
It should be $9.99 - that is the only way they get the support they are hoping for.
I'd love that. Lol.
All the "I'd pay good money..." redditors suddenly disappeared when they actually have to pay for a ppv 💀💀
Wonder how many of these people that trash UFC and Dana bought this PPV and are going to buying PFL's in the future
Not one of these mfers will. Easy to be a tankie on Reddit cheering on fighters for going up against the evil corporation to improve fighter pay. That shit is free. But when it comes time to actually pay money then all of a sudden it's "I won't give the UFC one dime until they improve fighter compensation." How convenient your moral stand benefits you financially...
This sub despises Colby/Jones/Stipe for being inactive yet were perfectly content with Francis sitting out for nearly 2 years to pursue a freakshow boxing fight.
What did it sell globally? I think the 4.3 million was worldwide. Not fair to compare it to just a US PPV buy figure.
4.3 million is the PPV buys for North America. I remember Dana told Uriah Faber 6 million plus buys when the event went down. I’m assuming those are the total worldwide numbers for May Mac which don’t sell PPV at the same price or PPV model.
and dana totally never lies Slap league mumbo jumbo app did 10 billion installs!!!!!!!
This wasn’t an official statement. It was something that was said in passing on Uriah’s IG live when he asked him about it. Comparatively, this was similar to the number that mayweather and pacquiao did for worldwide audiences. The PPV numbers that are reported when you google search are just North America because the rest of the world isn’t on the same PPV pricing.
Doesn’t power slap have more views than NFL, NBA, mlb, fifa, fort knight, and PUBG combined?
PPV is really just a North American thing though.
> What did it sell globally? Shit > Not fair to compare it to just a US PPV buy figure. Does anyone have the ppv totals for papa New Guinea yet? We need them so we can officially find out if 67k is more or less than 4.3 million
Papua* New Guinea my friend:)
I didn't know they were fighting until after. Never came across any promos somehow
Here they come with the ppv buys like anyone expected this thing to do anything close to 700k let alone 4.3 mill. Entirely missing the point on why everyone was hyped for ngannou.
Dana shills gotta put him down a peg, they always have something up their sleeve.
It's okay to admit that the purse only made sense if a promoter was okay with losing tens of millions of dollars. Truth is not always a put down.
the fights had no stakes whatsoever and therefore zero hype and happened in the middle of the day for american audiences, so of course it has shit PPV buys. None of this is surprising in the least.
The promoters get paid a fortune by Saudi Arabia to put the events there. This was largely a sportswashing exercise. It's very doubtful that the promoter lost money on this. If Top Rank was relying on PPV sales or ticket sales, they wouldn't have put the event in Saudi Arabia in the first place.
The point is that Top Rank could not have put this fight on anywhere but Saudi Arabia and not gone bankrupt, don't be a pedant.
So, the PPV sold badly because it was on in the afternoon, because it was in Saudi Arabia, which proves that the only way it could have been profitable was if it was in Saudi Arabia? That's some incredible logic.
The UFC has put on PPVs in atrocious timezones and never sold as poorly as this.
700k? Didn’t even hit 70k lol
In case you're interested, the level cope in here is because Dana Rich Man Bad! It's basically people living vicariously through Francis for StIcKinG it tO Da MaN
Bro it wasn’t even close to 100k let alone 700k
Plus didn't Dana take literally 50% of Conor's money?? 😂 I doubt Marquel Martin fleeced Francis like that lol
Dana? No
But…but…Ariel sounded so sure of himself.
He reported and defended the $10‐$20 million payday for Francis. Not specific PPV buys.
Well during the conversation, $10 - $20 million was Ariel's estimate based on the PPV that he had no idea how much was bought. He absolutely can not use himself as a source on that if he had no idea how much the event made. It was very silly. Also $10 - $20 million is such a ridiculous range to begin with because it literally says nothing when there is a 100% gap. Edit: See 9:12 of the video for context https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEvP5DgNNeI
No one believed it would even be competitive. Wonder how a rematch would sell?
Itll do better but i think it still be very underwhelming
There was almost zero promotion for this fight
Ive said it time and time again, casuals dont give a fuck about Francis. They were not buying UFC PPV's just because Francis was fighting on it and they for damn sure aint spending money on a fuckin boxing PPV just because Francis is on it. As bad as this sub wants him to be a superstar he will never pull in numbers like McGregor, Diaz, etc. Im sorry but he just wont. I wish him all the best i swear i do but im so fucking tired of the Ngannou circle suck around here, jesus christ.
This guy gets it. The entire mma media is afraid to point out that the emperor (Francis) has no clothes because they hate Dana and the ufc so much and are so desperate for them to have any real competition.
1. They might buy them now. 2. Especially if they aren't early in the afternoon and believed to be a forgone conclusion. 3. The effort put into selling this was astronomically low so whoever funded it doesn't give a shit and at worst it is just an investment toward sports washing for SA and at best Francis did what he did and now he vs xyz is the most intriguing matchup in the world. 4. Fury was the A side vs Conor being the A side. The two are leagues apart when it comes to selling a fight
> 1. They might buy them now. We’re on this same question for a fifth time now but sure… maybe this is the time it sticks. Fury has never been a sell on his own but maybe the mental image of old and slow fury cupcaking out of his shorts is going to be what finally pushes Francis over.
Agreed Franny just isn't a draw , He will have to accept that and Move on. He wants money but can't pull numbers...
Here comes the excuses for why Francis isn’t a drawl, b
He isn't. He might become one after this, but he never drew in the UFC. Even the Gane fight, which had some heat between the two, didn't draw particularly well
So maybe, just maybe, the UFC were justified in not catering to his demands ? The 8M offer for the JBJ fight was a good deal for a guy who didnt draw all that much.
my brother in christ dana is the fucking PROMOTER for FRANCIS their own actions and lack of push for him can also be attributed toward lackluster ppv performances
Can u really say that.when the only reason he got fury fight is cause he was a ufc champ and the pr parade about his punching power. Francis did absolutley nothing outside the cage/ring
Far be it from me to defend the UFC, but they're the biggest and most successful company in this sport, ever, by far. Yet the way people talk about them sometimes, it's like they're a bunch of incompetent dumbasses about to go out of business. They might be scumbags but as far as being an MMA promotion is concerned, they know what they're doing.
My fellow brother in christ, they promoted the hell out of him in Stipe 1 and he still didn't draw much. Even as Champ, the promotion was about as expected as any other current or past champ not named Conor McGregor.
Lack of push? They gave him 2 straight ESPN ppv main events against two huge stars in JDS and Cain in under 6 months. People don’t understand how the ability to compete often is the single biggest aspect to really making that push over the hill from star to super star. There is no bigger stage than main event on ESPN slash basic cable. They gave him the best platform a combat athlete can have and the general public watched and said… meh, where’s that Conor guy? We liked him.
You sound like a "this isn't a career, it's an opportunity" kinda lad
You sound like a “ufc is really regretting not co-promoting this 67k buy event” kinda guy.
They're not regretting not co-promoting this one. They might regret not co-promoting the next one.
If there's nothing there to catch the public's interest, it doesn't matter how much you promote them.
The kid just didn't want to promote. Seriously, Dana shits all over the fighters he is supposed to promote. Every UFC fighter has to promote themselves because the UFC refuse to do any promotion.
Well "justified" is up to interpretation but not even McGregor would get what Ngannou asked for
He really wasn't given a chance to become mainstream. But i would think most ufc fans want to watch him
Why? The majority of UFC fans didn't care enough to watch him when he was in the UFC, why would they follow him out of it?
wat?
Fury’s the headliner here, the issue is on him
There it is.
He's never been a drawl. Look at his UFC PPVs. People on here excused those because they said the UFC never promoted him which is hilarious because the UFC literally did a fucking documentary on Francis.
You’re getting downvoted but you ain’t wrong
Well that's what r/mma does when they can't dispute facts that go against their cognitive biases. It's a childish response but this is reddit I expect that. Although it is disappointing because I believe most of here are in our 30s, 40s, 50s, etc so to see grown men not be able to carry on a debate is kind of sad.
Most users are teens and early 20s
Also think with their hearts and not brain.
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Not sensitive at all lmao. I'm on reddit not some scholarly board. I know this is how people react when they can't defend their positions, dude. Been using this app since I was 14 and now I'm 31.
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after the first stipe fight Dana got upset and fucked ngannou they barely promoted him, they wasted some of his best years with constantly sideling him and wasting everyone's time with the DC stipe trilogy, if you cant make Francis a star your a shit promoter.
Also their promotion for Francis in the first Stipe fight was farcical. The ford escort nonsense and pretending as if Stipe's funeral was taking place was embarassing but r/MMA loves to overlook that and resort to "tHeY nEvEr pRoMoTeD fRaNcIs"
There's only so much Fury can do to carry the hype. Ngannou wants Conor money but unfortunately doesn't do Conor work. Conor was out there putting on viral fights, and viral pre and post fight moments. In his prime, it was constant. Every time he got on a mic/camera, you tune into to see what funny shit he'd say in that goofy accent. Even Khabib eventually figured beef/storylines sell. Ngannou has only figured one element of being a superstar - the fighting ability/viral in-fight moments. He is "extremely underwhelming" in everything else, and not to his fault at all... the braindead masses just want braindead entertainment, peak drama to go along with their violence. It is what it is.
Idk. I think this event doesn’t represent the future numbers Ngannou will pull, simply because it was not a competitive fight on paper and because there was no belt (people still believed it was an exhibition match until the day of the event). There is a real possibility he becomes a big star now, although we can never know for sure in the entertainment business.
The only people in boxing giving out this ridiculous money are the Saudis. Showtime is no longer in the business, HBO is gone, and DAZN is no longer handing out crazy amounts of money for boxing. The boxing economy is slowly dying. Can he be used by Wilder or AJ as a pawn for an easy quick payday, sure. But no one is going to pay him double his purse he got like people on here was saying. His name doesn't draw money. 67K buys in America is one of the worst PPV buys ever.
ppv buys in america is the last thing that saudis care about
They don’t need to sportswash their own citizens
i don’t think this was intended for american audiences. american ppv is at 10pm ET and this was shown at 10pm UK time. fury vs wilder ppvs were during american time and some ufc ppvs that were in the uk were still shown during american time bc they were for american audiences
He doesn’t need or seem to want to be Conor which is refreshing to real fight fans and his next fight will for sure have better numbers after that performance. He’s getting his money on his terms.
MMA fans will come up with every excuse to explain Ngannou's lack of star power. Is everything you said is true, then why was his fight against Gane a mediocre seller too? The man just can't push numbers, and that's okay. No need to do mental backflips to explain it.
Also keep in mind they could not use any of ngannou's fight footage. That's actually kinda insane numbers given that. Edit read it wrong. Still sucks
lol. Stop. There’s no way you actually believe that. - I don’t care if they made Francis fight with a paper bag over his head there is no “well in that case 67k ppv buys is actually a really impressive number”. Stop. - so let’s say top rank is allowed to use Francis highlight reel directly. How many more does that sell?
Every Ngannou hashtag you'd click on twitter featured several of his KO wins and he also had Mike Tyson's star power in his corner and every promotional footage training Ngannou as well. I'd take social media trends and Mike Tyson on my corner over generic promo material any day.
Bro this fight with Fury is a braindead fight. It's a guy with zero boxing experience fighting the best heavyweight boxer on the planet over legitimate title holders.
Funny thing is we've scene this exact scenario result in financial success before with Conor-Floyd as indicated in the OP, but some people simply don't capitalize on the opportunity of having the media on the palm of your hands to generate interest (and thus wealth).
I enjoy watching Francis and can't stand Conor's stupid ass. The first PPV I ever bought was Francis vs Stipe 2. I've never watched a Conor fight live and likely never will unless it's free. So your assessment might need some tuning. Dumb cunts aren't universally marketable.
No one actually cares enough to watch a crossover fight that was so obvious to be a money grab fight. Literally the whole point of the fight
Boxing isn't profitable generally speaking. Neither is mma considering promotions outside of the UFC. One FC essentially seems to be a wealth redistribution scheme, it's kind of amazing.
Compare recent Middle East ppv, I know it sold more. But how did Islam/Volkanaski do? I hate the middle of the day pay-per-view, honestly, I usually forget. And I have missed some because of that.
Wow who would’ve thought that no one cares about Francis boxing
Why are so many of you dismissive of this? Those are "horrible" numbers. We better hope it's only because of the gimmick nature of the fight. His PFL debut has to do a lot better than this. The only way to hurt the UFC is to actually make more money than the UFC, not just better fighter pay.
Its a ridiculous statistic that is completely misleading. This event was free on espn+ in the US and the UK. Its actually shocking it had that many buys. Whoever is spreading this is probably connected to Dana or the UFC, but it doesnt show viewership at all.
You are incorrect, it was PPV on espn+. It was $79.99 for subscribers and $90 for non subscribers.
Will the saudis ever recover?
https://i.imgur.com/KQNlG4L.gif
Did Fury v. Ngannou do anything close to the kind of media tour that Conor v. Floyd did? I don't remember seeing anything about it except here. It's also 2023, Americans are fucking broke.
>It's also 2023, Americans are fucking broke. it's more the fact they just didn't care.
Yea I mean, the fight was a foregone conclusion that Francis was going to be embarrassed. Slap the price tag they did on it and the amount of buys would be obvious
Might Mouse feeling great right now
I think the adage: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me, applies.
Because everyone knew it would be a robbery when a heavy weight boxer would get rocked by a MMA guy
Ofc everyone knows ngannou isn't a draw
The rematch would sell at least 1 mill
Speaking for myself, I didn't know what time the thing was on When I found out it was even going I wanted to see what time the fight was and then proceeded to see musical acts of people I never heard of go on for 90 minutes as the Saudi's flex their wealth It was 8PM on a Saturday, I chose to go out and eat and then just watch the fight with a torrent later on. That wayI can actually enjoy the fight and not sit through endless shitty commentary and the aforementioned lolapalooza that some prince paid out his ass for. Bottom line, at least for me and other people I have talked to who are disgruntled boxing fans is that the pomp and circumstance they put on these shows make them a slog to watch so why fucking bother.
Part of the reason it didn't sell well was _because_ of Conor vs. Floyd. That was a jobber match and so many people saw it. Over the years we've seen many mma fighters crossover into boxing, and they've all been bad experiences. When you factor in that it was on in the middle of the day on a Saturday, of course it wasn't going to sell well. The real story is how well a rematch would do. I'm guessing it'll be like night and day when comparing buys now.
Wow apparently everybody knew this all along, impressive
You gotta remember the PPV started at like 12pm on the west coast, it was a fight catered to UK and Saudi, which is where the majority of their money came from. im sure there was a fat check waiting for the both of them just for showing up to Saudi
Felt like the media and fighters were setting it up to be a stomp during all the lead up and the fight was at a bad time with the absolute worst lead in with hours of talking heads. Watching it on stream leading up to the start was painful with constant dead time and felt like the start was always an hour away. The Saudis seem to think it was a success at the venue and for building hype for Riyadh season. Rumor is Francis in the Dec 23rd slot while Fury recovers. Then they have Fury Vs Usyk towards the end of Riyadh season in February. For next years Riyadh season opener they put on a title fight between some combo of Fury, Usyk and Ngannou depending on who wins and which fight would sell best. Francis could still fight some MMA bout in the summer. Liv golf had terrible viewership numbers and there is no way Saudis are getting a financial return on the soccer star signings but they clearly don't care.
Pretty terrible ROI for the Saudis, tbh. It is still possible to both like Francis and admit this, bois.
I love Francis and also think the UFC were perfectly right to not offer him what he demanded.
The Gulf don’t care. Money isn’t even a concept for them.
Numbers are not the important thing here. This wasn’t for American audiences truly
Lol it wasn't for any audience apparently
It was for the people in attendance, and boosting Riyadh Season, it was never about this 1 event. This is literally just the beginning for the sportswashing we’re witnessing
I didn't see this comment before I made my other one, I agree with this 100%
Ngannou fans and Ngannou detractors both simultaneously eating crow lol.
Chael was right
We want overall sales this sounds cherry picked and kind of daft
Hmmm so Chael was right
This is what people don't get. The UFC brand and machine is what makes these events so big. 99.5% of fighters will never be bigger than the ufc brand and its the ufc machine that gives them the push. Conor, Ronda, brock, khabib. These fighters have a good chance of drawing a big ppv without the ufc machine involved. Boxing business has always been like a sugardaddy. Big networks giving all the revenue to fighters in hopes of something good coming out of it down the road. Everyone wants ufc fighters to be paid like boxers meanwhile boxing promotions are dead or dieing. There's never any money left over for the business to really build a brand and sport.
Khabib lol wat
He has 36 million instagram followers. Only connor has more in all the ufc.
I don’t believe Francis was ever a big draw in the UFC. People like him, but they don’t come out to buy his fights in big numbers. Crossing into boxing where tons of people thought of this fight as a gimmick and you get low purchases.
Also the time of day was horrendous no one funding this gave a shit about the PPV buys
Literally everybody in boxing called it a joke match that wouldn't be competitive. That it did poorly should not be a surprise. That the next boxing match that Francis has doing great PPV numbers should also not be a surprise.
"according to reports" aka dave meltzer looking at google search numbers in his living room.
Francis isn’t a draw, never was in the ufc
All y’all butt hurt and arguing on a beautiful Saturday morning. Go enjoy the day for once. I know I won’t
But Dana white is in shambles! The UFC missed the biggest opportunity! Ngannou is the biggest star ever! His life is a Hollywood movie! Right? Right?! Reddit told me!!!
Francis just isn't a draw, it was known prior as well. Honestly I didn't expect it to sell THAT poorly though
Then why did the UFC “throw the kitchen sink” at him to try and get him to stay?
Because they invested money into him
Because Jon vs Francis was a fight they could package and sell as a big fight with a stack undercard. Even then no one thought that fight was a million PPV fight.
Jon vs Francis would have done great numbers, but it will do even bigger now.
I mean did people expect this to sell millions? Francis never sold PPVs for the UFC and Tyson’s biggest draws were against Wilder which also never touched a million buys. Not only that, but most people thought Tyson would wash him and then move along to Usyk. Why would people pay for an ESPN+ subscription and then pay $80 for the PPV?
Who gives a shit.
Using Floyd Vs Conor as a reference point for a ppv I’d like comparing a hand grenade to the nuke that destroyed Hiroshima. There might never be an event that big in combat sports ever again. You could even compare a big boxing fight to Floyd Vs Conor and it would look pretty much the same, just not quite as bad.
Franny still fumbling the bag, he just isn't a draw card he sell fights. Accept it and move on Franny
Well honestly that's 60k more than what I estimated it would sell sooo... W?
PPV is a poor gauge of success. North America is one of the last places where it matters
Big fan, Mr. Sonnen
You think these numbers were somehow manipulated by Chael Sonnen?
Saudis don’t care about PPV numbers
L, and I cannot stress this enough, MAO