UFC mailbag: Looking ahead to UFC 305, the upcoming TV rights deal, and the year in review thus far

Monday, August 12, 2024 - 23:00

Whittaker v Du Plessis
Dricus du Plessis and Israel Adesanya face off | Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

UFC Vegas 95 is in the books and ... no one cares. Serghei Spivac got his revenge against Marcin Tybura and the world kept right on spinning. But we are now locked into UFC 305, which has one of my most anticipated fights of the year: Dricus du Plessis vs. Israel Adesanya for the middleweight title.

We’ve already discussed that fight and the event specifically this week, so let’s instead delve into some broader questions about UFC 305, the promotion in general, and how this year is going.

UFC 305 main event

For a fight that once had so much heat and anticipation after Izzy beat Pereira back at 287, why do you think DDP vs. Izzy seems to be lacking any sort of buzz less than a week out from 305?

This is a great question because it is absolutely spot on and I think there are two reasons for it.

The first is that this is just the world we live in now. With very, very few exceptions, UFC is a weekly content business. The build for fights lasts only as long as fight week itself and then it’s on to the next one, week after week, all year round. Because of this, the fandom just gets caught up in the monotony of repetitive scheduling until it’s, “Oh, I didn’t realize UFC 305 was this weekend. OK.” Unless it’s something like UFC 300, the promotion straight up doesn’t promote events anymore for longer than a week. And so you can forget about them until they are at hand.

There is of course an easy solve for this, but UFC will never do it: Have a gap week before every pay-per-view event. At this point PPVs are the only events UFC tries on (because you have to try to get people to pay $80) and so they could pretty easily leave the weekend before every PPV open. That would then afford them two weeks of promotion for the big event, letting it build the excitement up. But that’s not going to happen.

The other reason this particular fight feels underwhelming is because UFC screwed up. After Adesanya beat Pereira, this was the fight. There was serious animosity between these two, a real story to tell, and nothing standing in the way. Except some people thought du Plessis needed another win (they were dumb, it would have been fine, next man up is fine) and UFC had a schedule to keep so instead du Plessis fought Robert Whittaker.

That was a risky choice as Whittaker could have beaten DDP and derailed all of this, but instead he won, and suddenly this fight was undeniable. There was no fight I wanted to see more in MMA. But UFC again had a schedule to keep, and so when DDP couldn’t turn around on a few weeks to fight for the belt, in came Sean Strickland. Had Adesanya beaten Strickland, this fight would have been massive, but that’s not what happened. Strickland won, throwing everything into the shuffler for a bit.

Eventually we got here and the fight remains great. But it’s past it’s ideal time and a lot of stuff has happened since to take the sheen off of it, including both du Plessis and Adesanya seemingly less interested in diving into the fraught waters of the “true African” debate, at least for now. I suspect much of that will change this week as the fight builds and they try to sell more PPVs, but I guess we’ll see.

UFC 305, the card

Jed, longtime fan here. What was your FART score for Vegas 95, and what is the Meshewlin Star Rating for 305?

For those new here, I have two scoring systems in place for judging MMA cards. The first is the F.A.R.T. System — Fights Above Replacement Tussles — and the second is the Meshewlin Stars. APEX cards get the latter, PPVs get the former, and Fight Nights get one or the other depending on quality. Both are fairly simple.

The F.A.R.T. System scores each event based on how many high-quality fights are on the card, designed like WAR in baseball. Any ranked fighter on the card is worth .5 (either in the UFC rankings or MMA Fighting Global Rankings) plus other fights or fighters I may find especially compelling, above and beyond any random replacement matchup that fills APEX events.

Meshewlin Stars are handed out in a similar fashion to how Michelin Stars are: Each star basically represents how willing someone should be to travel to the event. One star is a very good card, worthy of attending if you live in the host city. Two stars is an excellent card, worthy of taking a short trip to attend (think a couple hour drive). Three is the maximum awarded and is reserved for exceptional cards that are worth a special trip just to attend. For reference, UFC 300 was three stars but UFC 301 received none.

Now, to the question: this will be controversial, but UFC Vegas 95 was better (on paper) than people wanted to acknowledge. Yes, the card was a brutal watch, but the system is not retroactive. You get the score you get based on the fights as they were booked. And while none of these got people excited, six ranked fighters competed this past Saturday, meaning the event gets 3 F.A.R.T.s. It’s not the lowest of the year, and sadly, it’s not that far off the average for APEX events these days.

As for UFC 305, it’s a One Star event. Were I in Perth, I’d definitely go. The main event is enough to merit that. But if — knock on wood — something were to happen to the main event, this card is sorely lacking. Kai Kara-France and Steve Erceg is a good fight but it’s a bit of a weak co-main event, and the rest of the main card is similarly good-but-not-great. Add in that the undercard is, shall we say mid, and the main is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Sorry, but I’m not recommending anyone from Adelaide take a four-hour plane flight to get to Perth for this event.

UFC Scheduling

Can you imagine a scenario where the next broadcast deal with the UFC reduces the number of contractually obligated events like UFC Vegas 95? Or do you think we’re stuck with ~42/year going forward?

If I had to guess, I’d say it’s more likely we end up with more events in the future than just the now standard 42.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I’ve settled on two possible outcomes moving forward as UFC’s broadcast rights deal comes up for auction soon. The first (and I think the most likely) is that UFC does not re-sign a single broadcast deal, but instead inks multiple. Televised sports rights is a massive business and from all the reporting, UFC is a hot commodity. In the end, I think we’re looking a split of events between multiple parties, because that’s likely how UFC can maximize its profit.

Now, could that mean ESPN keeps 20 events and say, Netflix (who I strongly suspect will be involved) gets 20? Sure. But I think the more likely outcome is UFC commits to offering more events split among multiple partners, probably upping it to 50 or so fight cards a year, perhaps with fewer fights on each card.

The other outcome (and this is more wish-casting than honest belief) is that one broadcast partner comes over the top with a massive offer for the next several years, which includes accepting fewer events.

Because here’s the thing about the APEX, I cannot imagine those shows are profitable on their own. They barely sell tickets after all. Instead, APEX events are profitable in the aggregate, as part of the bundle UFC owes ESPN for it’s massive payout each year. APEX events are two-way contractual obligations, giving ESPN what they have to and keeping up their end with the huge number of fighters they have to sign as part of having a big enough roster for all their events. That’s why every APEX card is dirt — it’s just a mishmash of people they owe fights, and by stocking the event with people making minimum contracts, UFC can depress its overhead because that’s just basic business.

But if you go to Dana White and offer him more money for less events, well, that’s a deal anyone would take. UFC could then reduce overhead even more, take a culling scythe to the roster, and continue to rake in money hand over fist, while also restoring product integrity with the fan base.

But again, this probably won’t happen. It’s like the NFL’s inexorable march toward a 20-game season that no one but the owners seems to want: Unfettered greed always wins.

The year in review thus far

We’ve had the highs of UFC 300 and the lows of Tybura v Spivac 2, what are we grading the year 2024 so far for the UFC?

Another good question with a boring answer: 2024 in the UFC has been good.

It is undeniably true that week in and week out, UFC is putting out the worst product it has in several years. As White famously likes to say about Conor McGregor, he doesn’t need to fight, so why would he? UFC doesn’t need to try anymore, so why would it? They won the sport, so now they can simply fulfill their obligations and rake in money, at the cost of the consumer quality. This is literally why monopolies are bad, unless you’re the monopoly.

That being said, it doesn’t matter in the slightest this year. Have there been more weekends with bad to meh cards than good ones? Probably. But are we going to remember those in a few years? Not a chance. Nostalgia is a powerful thing and people are uniquely bad at remembering the boring and underwhelming. People mostly remember all the highs and only the absolute worst moments, and this year has already given us a number of memorable highs.

UFC 300 was billed as the best event ever assembled and it lived up to the hype. UFC 299 was also exceptional. UFC 303 was super weird and awesome and gave birth to the Alex Pereira to heavyweight conversation. UFC 306 (or UFC Noche 2, whatever) is very likely going to be cool as (Mike) Heck. UFC 308 is Ilia Topuria vs. Max Holloway. And there’s still the chance of a Conor McGregor return (however remote).

When we look back on this year, we won’t remember week after week at the APEX with middling heavyweight main events, we will remember the high-water marks. And this year, the tide has been pretty damn high (when it’s not so devastatingly low).

Thanks for reading, and thank you for everyone who sent in tweets (Xs?)! Do you have any burning questions about things at least somewhat related to combat sports? Then you’re in luck, because you can send your tweets to me, @JedKMeshew, and I will answer my favorite ones! Doesn’t matter if they’re topical or insane, just so long as they are good. Thanks again, and see y’all next week.

Source: 
https://www.mmafighting.com/2024/8/12/24218684/ufc-mailbag-looking-ahead-to-ufc-305-the-upcoming-tv-rights-deal-and-the-year-in-review-thus-far