The WEC's Pay Per View Problem: Why Should I Pay for Jose Aldo vs. Urijah Faber at WEC 48?
Photo by Josh Hedges. Copyright Zuffa, LLC
The WEC officially announced WEC 48 headlined by WEC featherweight champion “Junior” Jose Aldo (15-1) versus former champ ”California Kid” Urijah Faber (22-3) in Sacramento April 24. It’ll be the WEC’s first pay per view (PPV) event and they will charge $44.99.
The WEC has a big problem moving from Versus to pay per view. Why would I pay to watch an Aldo-Faber matchup I’m used getting for free on Versus?
It’s similar to the problem newspapers are having transitioning to the Internet. I’m used to getting news for free. Why should I pay now?
The UFC, which shares Zuffa, LLC as its parent company with the WEC, has successfully differentiated their PPV product from their SpikeTV product. There are fights I know I will never see on SpikeTV under the UFC’s current PPV-focused business strategy. Second-ranked heavyweight and UFC champion Brock Lesnar (4-1) versus third-ranked Frank Mir (13-4) will never be a UFC Fight Night main event.
The UFC has shown Europe-staged events for free on SpikeTV, but lately those cards have been weaker than the PPV cards anyway and the UFC has successfully presented it as an occasional special gift to fans. A treat!
But, Aldo versus Faber isn’t a treat. It could just as easily be a main event on the next Versus-televised fight card, and I could watch it for free. So, the proposition the WEC seems to be presenting to me as an MMA consumer is, “Come on! Give us $44.99 just this once!”
Admittedly, WEC 48 will group together the Aldo-Faber title matchup with another WEC on Versus potential main event, WEC lightweight champion “Smooth” Ben Henderson (10-1) versus “Cowboy” Donald Cerrone (10-3).
But, again, this differs from the UFC’s successful model because it’s just two Versus-caliber main events on the same card. There’s no added value that convinces me to pay $44.99 for two fights I’m used to getting for free. The UFC’s added value on the PPV events are fights and fighters I’ll never get to see live for free.
Even if the WEC starts segregating PPV fighters, like Aldo and Faber, from its Versus cards, they don’t have the depth of talent to continue producing a quality free product on Versus or an immediate vehicle to begin marketing fighters. Most of the UFC Fight Night cards are populated with fighters who’ve built audiences on SpikeTV’s The Ultimate Fighter reality contest. WEC’s second tier fighters aren’t popular enough to guarantee the same viewership on Versus if the popular fighters are taken off the Versus cards in favor of the PPV cards. And, the WEC doesn’t have a vehicle like TUF to market those second tier fighters.
So, are you going to pay $44.99 to watch Aldo-Faber, Henderson-Cerrone? Honestly, I don’t think I will.
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Good points. There really is no added value to this event as opposed to the usual WEC card broadcast on Versus. Multiple title fights on one WEC card? I feel like I’ve seen that done before… multiple times.
WEC should not be PPV and neither should UFC be PPV because too many fights are mismatched, uncompetitive, and totally predicatable. After a few years of disappointing mismatches on UFC’s ppv fights, I realized 1) the sport is too young to have a large talent pool of evenly matched high level guys; 2) Even when opponents are matched well, the small size of the gloves means a single punch, sometimes a lucky one thrown by the less skilled fighter, can end the fight instantly. I respect the skills of many of these great athletes, and I appreciate the realism like it is in a street fight, but it just does not make as good a use of $45 as a classic boxing match, a great football, game etc. It seems I invest a few hours waiting all night for one or two guys I was looking forward to watching, and their fights end in 20 seconds or 5 minutes. Put all these fights on free TV. Your ratings will be there and be satisfied with the money you get from the advertising on the network. Don’t ruin a good thing. Boxing got too expensive and ppv only to the point that nobody watches it anymore or can name the champions anymore…people lose interest.