Hit&Run
03-11-2010, 04:01 AM
Sometimes headlines unnecessarily throw people into a panic. Mostly human nature, it’s easy to read something like ‘WEC 47 Ratings Down 42%” and start immediately thinking negative thoughts and raise red flags about the company’s future.
In case you didn’t hear, the ratings came out for Saturday’s WEC 47 event and they weren’t necessarily great. The event had a total of 373,000 viewers which equals to a 42% drop from their last event, January’s WEC 46.
Before you start freaking out and preparing for the end of the WEC or placing bets on when the UFC absorbs them whole, stop and breath a minute. Here are five things to consider when looking at the rating:
1) It was on a Saturday night.
The UFC is a great draw on Saturday nights, but the WEC isn’t ready for that yet. There’s a major difference in that UFC is not just a sporting event, but an event that people plan around and make parties of. The WEC? Ehhhh, not so much. Fridays and Saturdays are a tough draw for regular TV anyway as people are traditionally out and about. WEC isn’t a ‘go to the bar and watch’ spectacle, so the rating was undoubtedly going to be down.
A better option? Stick to Sundays. It’s a great capper for the weekend and you’re not going to have a competition from other MMA organizations. Other than an occasional WWE pay-per-view to battle or something like the Oscars, the WEC would be in the clear. It worked so well before, so why change now?
2) Comparing it to WEC 46 isn’t fair.
WEC 46 was on (surprise!) a Sunday in mid-January and featured Lightweight Champion Ben Henderson vs. Jamie Varner and Urijah Freakin’ Faber in the co-main event. It may not feel like it at times, but Faber is well-known to the mainstream MMA fan – some of who watch WEC just for him alone. The card also had Mike Brown and was well-promoted as a whole thanks to the hype and push at UFC 108.
The WEC 47 event didn’t have anywhere close to that much star power, which leads to our third point.
3) The WEC doesn’t have a ton of star power.
Without a doubt, Faber is the organization’s biggest star. After that? It’s a tight race between Featherweight Champion Jose Aldo, Jens Pulver and Miguel Torres with Henderson and Donald Cerrone starting to enter into the mix.
You might be asking how Pulver is a star (hear that reaction Sunday?) or screaming that Aldo is dominant (he’s on the path, but not there yet) or thinking that I’m completely wrong on this in general and everything is fine.
But let’s face facts: the WEC doesn’t draw as much interest as the UFC. They’re on a network that is still growing. They have younger stars who aren’t that established outside the hardcore community. That doesn’t mean they eventually can’t be, but they’re not right now.
It’s not a bad thing. It’s just fact.
People don’t know Brian Bowles. They sure as hell don’t know Dominick Cruz. A title match isn’t enough to draw viewers, which is why having Torres and Pulver on the card helped…even if both of them lost badly. Of course there was going to be a drop off in ratings. How could you expect otherwise?
4) This doesn’t spell doom for the WEC PPV.
This is simply a dumb thought. They are not even related because you have STAR POWER with Faber/Aldo and Henderson/Cerrone II. The hardcores will buy the show on that alone and honestly, you’re not going to get a ton of new viewers anyway.
I’ve read that if WEC gets 60,000 buys for the event, they’ll be ecstatic. Quick math: that would be 16% of what they got Saturday night. I think they’re safe with that, don’t you?
It’s not wrestling where they have complete creative control and can really pull the strings with ratings if all the pieces come together. Every MMA event can be different and with those two fights heading up the PPV, that’s a great foundation to build on.
If there’s anything to be concerned about with the WEC PPV, it’s the price but that ship has sailed a long time ago.
5) Versus will be fine with the rating.
Given all of the above, Versus Network will be A-OK. Who cares if its the 2nd lowest rated event in WEC history? What else was Versus going to put there? Bullriding? Another airing of Bloodsport? It’s Saturday night at 10 pm EST, not primetime on Monday on ABC. I start to wonder if people even think of things like this before they freak out.
Feel free to come off the ledge at anytime. Versus isn’t dropping WEC and the promotion is fine. (Interestingly, the 8345 in the crowd was the WEC’s fifth largest attendance in history.)They just had a bad viewing night on a Saturday in early-March with two guys main eventing that aren’t household names.
Ratings-wise, this was the equivalent of that LC Davis/Deividas Taurosevičius snoozefest: not enough to take down the promotion but something you don’t want to see again
In case you didn’t hear, the ratings came out for Saturday’s WEC 47 event and they weren’t necessarily great. The event had a total of 373,000 viewers which equals to a 42% drop from their last event, January’s WEC 46.
Before you start freaking out and preparing for the end of the WEC or placing bets on when the UFC absorbs them whole, stop and breath a minute. Here are five things to consider when looking at the rating:
1) It was on a Saturday night.
The UFC is a great draw on Saturday nights, but the WEC isn’t ready for that yet. There’s a major difference in that UFC is not just a sporting event, but an event that people plan around and make parties of. The WEC? Ehhhh, not so much. Fridays and Saturdays are a tough draw for regular TV anyway as people are traditionally out and about. WEC isn’t a ‘go to the bar and watch’ spectacle, so the rating was undoubtedly going to be down.
A better option? Stick to Sundays. It’s a great capper for the weekend and you’re not going to have a competition from other MMA organizations. Other than an occasional WWE pay-per-view to battle or something like the Oscars, the WEC would be in the clear. It worked so well before, so why change now?
2) Comparing it to WEC 46 isn’t fair.
WEC 46 was on (surprise!) a Sunday in mid-January and featured Lightweight Champion Ben Henderson vs. Jamie Varner and Urijah Freakin’ Faber in the co-main event. It may not feel like it at times, but Faber is well-known to the mainstream MMA fan – some of who watch WEC just for him alone. The card also had Mike Brown and was well-promoted as a whole thanks to the hype and push at UFC 108.
The WEC 47 event didn’t have anywhere close to that much star power, which leads to our third point.
3) The WEC doesn’t have a ton of star power.
Without a doubt, Faber is the organization’s biggest star. After that? It’s a tight race between Featherweight Champion Jose Aldo, Jens Pulver and Miguel Torres with Henderson and Donald Cerrone starting to enter into the mix.
You might be asking how Pulver is a star (hear that reaction Sunday?) or screaming that Aldo is dominant (he’s on the path, but not there yet) or thinking that I’m completely wrong on this in general and everything is fine.
But let’s face facts: the WEC doesn’t draw as much interest as the UFC. They’re on a network that is still growing. They have younger stars who aren’t that established outside the hardcore community. That doesn’t mean they eventually can’t be, but they’re not right now.
It’s not a bad thing. It’s just fact.
People don’t know Brian Bowles. They sure as hell don’t know Dominick Cruz. A title match isn’t enough to draw viewers, which is why having Torres and Pulver on the card helped…even if both of them lost badly. Of course there was going to be a drop off in ratings. How could you expect otherwise?
4) This doesn’t spell doom for the WEC PPV.
This is simply a dumb thought. They are not even related because you have STAR POWER with Faber/Aldo and Henderson/Cerrone II. The hardcores will buy the show on that alone and honestly, you’re not going to get a ton of new viewers anyway.
I’ve read that if WEC gets 60,000 buys for the event, they’ll be ecstatic. Quick math: that would be 16% of what they got Saturday night. I think they’re safe with that, don’t you?
It’s not wrestling where they have complete creative control and can really pull the strings with ratings if all the pieces come together. Every MMA event can be different and with those two fights heading up the PPV, that’s a great foundation to build on.
If there’s anything to be concerned about with the WEC PPV, it’s the price but that ship has sailed a long time ago.
5) Versus will be fine with the rating.
Given all of the above, Versus Network will be A-OK. Who cares if its the 2nd lowest rated event in WEC history? What else was Versus going to put there? Bullriding? Another airing of Bloodsport? It’s Saturday night at 10 pm EST, not primetime on Monday on ABC. I start to wonder if people even think of things like this before they freak out.
Feel free to come off the ledge at anytime. Versus isn’t dropping WEC and the promotion is fine. (Interestingly, the 8345 in the crowd was the WEC’s fifth largest attendance in history.)They just had a bad viewing night on a Saturday in early-March with two guys main eventing that aren’t household names.
Ratings-wise, this was the equivalent of that LC Davis/Deividas Taurosevičius snoozefest: not enough to take down the promotion but something you don’t want to see again