Dave Meltzer stuff

[KrisZ]

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/mma--dana-whi...OVYFYanajw9Eo14

[kjh]

More from Jamie Penick on the UFC on FOX 3 rating:

 

The UFC's broadcast did win the key male demos on BROADCAST television that night, but they were outdrawn by ESPN's Sportscenter and three different NBA games on cable television in the men 18-49 demo and men 18-34 demo. In fact, a game between the Memphis Grizzlies and the Los Angeles Clippers doubled the UFC's rating in the men 18-34 demographic (3.45 to 1.6).

 

Additionally, in terms of overall viewers, five programs on broadcast television that night outdrew the UFC on Fox broadcast, with the aforementioned Shark Tank and NCIS: LA being joined by the ABC Saturday Movie, Crime Time Saturday, and 48 Hours Mystery. During the day, 21 programs on cable outdrew the 2.4 million in average viewership the UFC on Fox card brought in on network television. That included two NBA playoff games on ESPN and TNT, respectively, ten airings of Spongebob Squarepants and three of The Big Bang Theory on TBS.

 

Also, to address White's point about the HUT levels, i.e., the number of people home watching television: viewership was down by 8.9 million viewers overall, not the ten million White stated. That accounted for a 13% decrease in overall television viewers from the November Fox debut. However, the UFC's household rating was down 53% from the November event, so that HUT level reasoning can only go so far.

[rovert]

Thought this was excellent:

http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2012/5/16/30231...nt-uncalled-for

[Childs]

You have to love the level of discourse in the comments under that article. A lot of days, I think I hate the internet more than I love it.

[jdw]

I thought you knew better than to read the comments section. There are a rare places on the net where the comments sections are worthwhile, and those usually have a short shelf life before increased attention can doom them.

 

John

[KrisZ]

I don’t want to go too much into this one, because this Dave Meltzer vs. Dana White stuff has gotten silly, particularly since we are, as funny as this sounds if you saw his video blog, in pretty regular contact and on good terms. Not that there wasn’t an issue, but that’s likely to happen again. He’s a promoter and that’s his job. The FOX rating was down, but he focused on the idea that they delivered they won the night in the key demographic, which is true compared to the other network shows, but it was also not the highest rated show that day in those key demos. And they were also way down in the key demos from the prior shows. But everything going in knew that would be the case, between the competition and the weaker lineup from a marquee standpoint.

 

The 1.5 rating and 2.418 million viewers were both the lowest marks for MMA on network television . It was below that of a 2008 Elite XC show headlined by Robbie Lawler vs. Scott Smith . That show did a 1.75 rating and 2.6 million viewers. And that show had head-to-head competition from a UFC show on Spike with the first TV airing of Chuck Liddell vs. Wanderlei Silva fight from the previous December, which at the time was a monster fight. That replay did a 1.23 rating and 1.6 million viewers. That CBS show did not do well with Males 18-34, doing a 1.0, but did a 1.6 in Males 35-49. The UFC show last week did a 1.6 and 1.8 in those respective demos. MMA is on network television more to target Males 18-49, the idea of super serving a unique clientele than draw the largest total viewing numbers. It’s already accepted that older people and younger people aren’t going to watch MMA in great numbers on television. But for advertisers, the idea is for people looking for males with disposable income of a certain age group, UFC can be a strong target buy. At least, that’s the theory behind it.

 

The other low rated MMA show on prime time network, the disastrous April 17, 2010, Strikeforce show from Nashville, headlined by Jake Shields vs. Dan Henderson fight, did a 1.76 rating and 2.86 million viewers. Once again, it had to compete with UFC ran counter programming on Spike, a tape of a PPV show headlined by Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Cain Velasquez that did a 1.0 rating and 1.37 million viewers. That CBS show did a 1.3 in Males 18-34 and 1.7 in Males 35-49. Still, CBS was in first place that night among every adult male demo that night, the point White made about the FOX show on 5/5, but it wasn’t enough. CBS never ran another Strikeforce show. The primary reason given was the brawl at the end involving the Diaz Brothers, Gilbert Melendez and others beating down Jason Miller when he got in the ring to challenge Shields to a rematch. However, if the show had done better ratings, it would have been saved. The reaction at CBS was very negative to the rating. There were those at the time against the programming to begin with, but the first show with Fedor Emelianenko on top did well. When the rating dropped big, even though it was the brawl as the reason, there were plenty of people saying CBS needed to get out of this because it does weak ratings as well. Those ratings were comparable, a little higher in most demos but lower in Males 18-34, than what the UFC FOX show did on 5/5.

 

White did note the reasons, and in our article last week, we noted almost every one of them as well. The point about the number of homes watching television that night being down 10% from a usual Saturday night is valid. The opening of “The Avengers” absolutely hurt the rating. All the other factors are also not a secret. Even throwing them out, this show wasn’t doing close to what the other two shows did. But the Mayweather fight was bucking all the same things, the holiday, the movie, prom night, the other sports, and did great, the second biggest non-heavyweight fight in history and the biggest boxing PPV show in five years. But that was a must-see event for a lot of sports fans and the UFC event was not.

 

FOX also didn’t market the show well.

 

One point that needs to be brought up is the marketing of the event during sports broadcasts were built around “four fights,” as noted last week, never saying UFC, never saying MMA. If you heard the commercial and didn’t know better, you would assume it was a bunch of no-name boxers except put in prime time. The argument was that Jim Miller and Nate Diaz weren’t big names to the public is true, but how do you become big names? A big part of it is being marketed as big names. Who, really, was Junior Dos Santos to anyone but a UFC fan in August of last year? But they promoted the hell out of Dos Santos and Cain Velasquez, and the night of the show, they were big enough stars to have 9.5 million people watching that one minute fight.

 

I’m not saying if FOX promoted the hell out of Nate Diaz, they’d have gotten a similar rating, because that wasn’t going to happen on that night. The heavyweight title meant something. Two big knockout artists mean something. It wasn’t the right night. And Jim Miller as an opponent, God bless him, but he’s not a guy who is going to draw you big money on top. Football season shows have an advantage because such a huge male audience watches the NFL and they can directly hit people who at least may have the proclivity to be MMA fans. But if FOX promoted the hell out of Nate Diaz on all their sports properties for a month, all of a sudden, as sports fans keep hearing his name as the main eventer of a major fight card, it becomes a recognizable name.

 

White even argued that Diaz came out of the show a bigger star. And he got a decisive win in a main event that 2.9 million people saw. It probably does help the eventual Diaz challenge to either Frankie Edgar or Benson Henderson. White said coming off this that the Diaz Brothers can be one of the hottest commodities in UFC. And the show was good, although I’ve seen plenty of awesome exciting sports events from leagues that aren’t in existence today. This isn’t saying UFC is going down, just that it’s great to have a good show, but a company can’t hang its hat on good shows and that being enough. It needs to constantly make big stars, because star power trumps exciting fights every time, and Mayweather Jr.’s numbers prove it since he’s a superstar, but he rarely has exciting fights (the last one being an exception). And if anything, UFC’s has clearly proven for years that it can be a successful sports franchise without prime time network television.

 

On 5/12, as part of FOX’s new Saturday night sports experiment, a NASCAR race from Darlington Speedway did 5.716 million viewers, well over double the UFC audience, and beat the UFC number by 50% in the targeted 18-49 demo. Granted, it was an easier night. No Mayweather. The Avengers did “only” $42.9 million on that night as opposed to the $69.6 million it did the prior Saturday. But there were still NBA and NHL playoffs. The baseball numbers are going to be important as well this summer. In the end, UFC in prime time is going to be judged by how well it produces in the ratings with the other sports in FOX’s Saturday night lineup, baseball in the summer, college football in the fall and winter, and NASCAR. Strikeforce got canceled winning the target demographics of Males 18-34 against shows the equivalent of Crimetime Saturday and 48 Hours Mystery on other networks that everyone knows mainly hit a lot older viewers. UFC does have an advantage Strikeforce and Elite XC don’t have. UFC is a key sports franchise under the company’s umbrella and having big shows on the big network adds prestige to the franchise as a whole. They have a long-term deal and the franchise is key prime time programming on FX, and the entire Fuel station is being built around UFC as its key programming. But at the end of the day, nobody stays on network prime time without delivering.

 

The card was the No. 1 show on network television in both Males 18-34 and Males 18-49. But three NBA games and one episode of Sports Center that day on cable beat them in Males 18-49. Four NBA games beat them in Males 18-34, including a Memphis vs. Los Angeles Clippers game that aired at 5 p.m. Eastern, outside of prime time, that did a 3.45 rating in the Male 18-34 demo as compared to the 1.6 the UFC show did in prime time.

[flyonthewall2983]

Can someone tell me why, WHY, the show with Alvarez isn't free on iTunes? With the right sponsors, they could get more exposure as a podcast.

[Strummer]

Todd is giving up the RAW reports when the show moves to 3 hours in July

[Dylan Waco]

I love the idea of Todd finding out about the hours change and immediately sending in his resignation

[sek69]

Todd Martin has lost his smile.

[rovert]

Todd is much better on audio than he is on the written word. So I am ok with this.

 

Poor guy seemed intent on reviewing Sports Entertainment as Wrestling.

[Eduardo]

Lesnar vs Cena Buyrate

147,000 in North America

 

104,000 outside North America

Ouch.

[NintendoLogic]

Good thing they got their one big buyrate from Brock before he had a chance to flake.

[Slasher]

I didn't expect it to be that bad, but honestly, I did not expect it to be great either. This is ONE month after the huge Rock/Cena and HHH/Taker HIAC show. There was nothing else that would help support that main event, especially as people already started to tire of the Punk/Jericho feud by then.

[kjh]

It's the level they're at for a big B show PPV today.

[goc]

I had said from the beginning of this whole thing that while I was personally happy to see Brock back because I'm a huge fan, I couldn't see how they would make money off him if they were really paying him $5 million. Didn't think there was any way he'd move the buyrate more than adding around 50,000 buys. His UFC appeal was being the pro wrestler in real fighting, there's no reason for that audience to follow him back to WWE.

[KrisZ]

This week seemed as heavy of an MMA version of WON as there has been.

[rovert]

This week seemed as heavy of an MMA version of WON as there has been.

But it did have this:

 

Frank Deford, generally regarded as one of the best sportswriters who ever lived, and who was a personal mentor of mine some 22 years back when I worked at The National, released a new autobiography this month called “Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter.” In the book, he spoke about Rodney Dangerfield, who he did a series of TV commercials with, and talked about what a jerk he was. Then he said that of all the people he had come across in his life, Dangerfield was only No. 2 on the list, saying No. 1 was Vince McMahon. This one relates directly to me and I am mentioned in the story briefly. It actually had to do with a story at a birthday party for John Fillipelli in 1991, a close personal friend of Deford who at the time was one of the top executives in WWF. Deford and his wife were at the party, as was Vince and a lot of WWF execs. At the time, Vince was mad at Deford because Deford made the call to hire me, ironically based on the recommendation of one of McMahon’s best friends, Dick Ebersol, as well as the sports editor at the time of the Los Angles Times, John Cherwa. At the party, everyone decided to go bowling. At the bowling alley, apparently there was someone bowling that night named Dick, and Patterson and Vince kept making jokes about penises whenever he’d bowl, which apparently had the Fillipelli family rolling their eyes because these were all upper class types there. Then McMahon and Pat Patterson stole one shoe from Deford as well as his wife while they had their bowling shoes on. Keep in mind these aren’t 20 year olds. Vince at this point is 45 or 46, Patterson is 50, Deford was 52. So when they’re done bowling, the Defords can’t find their shoes and McMahon and Patterson are laughing. So they figure okay, joke, where’s the shoe. But McMahon and Patterson never gave up the shoes and they actually had to leave the party with one shoe each. It’s one thing to do it to a guy, but then doing it to his wife? But what Deford actually was madder about is that after the death of Chris Benoit, Deford wrote a piece, based on an article I wrote at the time, about deaths in pro wrestling. Since it came from Deford, when McMahon testified before Henry Waxman’s committee, and they brought up the article, McMahon claimed that Deford held a grudge against him because he and his wife had their shoes stolen at a party. The idea that he wrote an article about dozens of dead wrestlers, and Vince’s explanation of the article is that he stole the guys shoes 16 years earlier and he was holding a grudge.

[Dylan Waco]

Good thing they got their one big buyrate from Brock before he had a chance to flake.

 

I think only delusional people ever thought Brock was going to pop a substantial buyrate. I made that point on multiple podcast and posts on various forums because it seemed obvious the real stupidity was in giving the guy that kind of money in the first place when he is not a proven wrestling draw and there was zero reason to believe he would raw MMA loyalist to a phony "sport" they generally loathe

[jdw]

So much for the myth that Brock spiked UFC buyrates because he was drawing pro wrestling fans over to UFC. If it were true, that pro wrestling fans sure as hell didn't want to see him in, er, Pro Wrestling.

 

John

[FLIK]

Well, for me atleast the above is true. I generally hate UFC/MMA but I went out of my way to watch a lot of Lesnar's fight's and really could care less that he's back in wrestling and actually would prob prefer that he didn't come back at all.

[jdw]

Well, for me atleast the above is true. I generally hate UFC/MMA but I went out of my way to watch a lot of Lesnar's fight's and really could care less that he's back in wrestling and actually would prob prefer that he didn't come back at all.

You actually paid for the PPV? Or went over to a friend who ordered them anyway? Or got them for free through various means?

 

Buyrate = Actually buying it.

[Dylan Waco]

My dad bought at least one entirely because of Brock fighting and his wrestling card. So did a couple of my work friends. And at least three guys I go to the sports bar with.

[El-P]

Hunter : "See, I told you, Brock isn't a draw, he failed miserably. I should go over him clean at Summer Slam."

[goc]

So much for the myth that Brock spiked UFC buyrates because he was drawing pro wrestling fans over to UFC. If it were true, that pro wrestling fans sure as hell didn't want to see him in, er, Pro Wrestling.

 

John

This is not a myth, where else were all those buys coming from that weren't there for other UFC PPVS? The curiosity factor is seeing how a guy from a "fake sport" will do in a real one. There is no counter appeal to him returning back to WWE. MMA fans whose first exposure to him was in UFC aren't going to suddenly become wrestling fans to see what Brock Lesnar is up to. And the wrestling fans have already quit buying WWE PPVs outside of Mania and Rumble for the most part. I would have bought the Mir/Brock fight had my cable company not been a incompetent that night. Bought the Heath Herring fight at my apt, went to a friend's house who bought the Couture fight, bought Lesnar/Mir 2. And haven't bought another UFC PPV since. So yes Brock did get people who otherwise would not have bought UFC PPVs to buy them.