The numbers aren't official yet, but UFC president Dana White on Saturday night indicated that everything about Georges St. Pierre vs. B.J. Penn 2 affirms its mega-fight status."We did a gate of $4.3 million, 14,885 people," he said at the post-fight press conference. "This thing was more than a sellout. The casino was scrambling today to add more seats. Other casinos were looking for tickets. This was the craziest event we've ever done, by far."
If those numbers prove to accurate, it easily puts UFC 94 as one of the top grossing UFC gates of all time.
Fight night numbers were the latest in a tremendous week for the promotion. On Friday at the UFC 94 weigh-ins – an event in and of itself – security had to turn people away at the door. UFC officials said that the set-up for the weigh-ins accommodated somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 fans, yet they were still turning them away in droves... for the weigh-ins!
At least as a live draw, UFC 94 could only be regarded as the resounding success that the promotion had expected.
11 comments:
Glad the gate was so successful. Now pay the fighters what they deserve! they are the reason you had a gate like that and should be paid accordingly . Especially GSP, the face of the UFC along with Anderson Silva and even B.J. Penn ( at lightweight). Stop paying washed up fighters like Liddell and Hughes these big payouts and pay the real fighters.
Dude you really need to back off with this pay thing. Do you realize that they mainevent holders get a percentage of the ppv, or do you choose to be ignorant. Man thier pay is a base and is the only thing reported to the NAC. The rest is confidential. DOH>
You never hear the fighters complaining about the pay they get from the UFC, and I'm sure there is a reason for that. I figured after the disclosure of all of Couture's pay from a couple years ago that would have been squashed. These guys are being well taken care of.
There have been plenty of UFC fighters that have complained about their pay. Pay attention to the sport for more than 5 months before you make ridiculous claims.
I've watched UFC evolve from an underground sport to the world of MMA.I've watched Royce Gracie, Shamrock, Dan Severn, Mark Coleman all start the sport and it was expected that the fighters would not get paid a hell of a lot because it was not well known and it was not as popular as it is now... but give me a break it's really funny how now a days UFC out sells boxing PPV and in a main event boxing match the fighters get paid like 15- 20 million a fight. GSP should of got atleast 1 million for winning and BJ Penn at least $500,000..Ya and who made that rediculous claim....dude go back and learn the sport before talking. what the heck do you think randy couture left for, he was trying to make a statement that the fighters are underpaid. Couture was the UFC heavy weight champion and getting under paid. Randy had to suck it up or get taken to court for breach of contract.You shouldn't even talk buddy. Your probably one of these guys who just started watching the sport cause of the big hype of lidell at the time and now GSP.
Oh and one more thing that bothers me is i'm tiered of ordering these PPV and seeing like one good fight...give me a break it's been like that for last few PPV..like the next PPV Joe Stevenson VS Diego Sanchez, what the hell kind of a main event is that....i order the AFFLICTION PPV and i see fedore and arlovski fight witch was bigger than GSP and Penn sorry to say, and guys like Vitor Belfort, Barnett...Every fight i watched on the AFFLICTION PPV was awsome....knockouts...crazy submissions. All i'm saying is i'm a big fan of MMA not just the UFC and i think people should do their homework and learn the sport a little better before makeing rediculous claims and comments..
you are absolutely right. I started watching UFC about a year ago and i can tell that they are getting underpaid.
C'mon. The more u pay a fighter the less they want to fight. You have to prove yourself and then from there you begin to recognized. Dont get me wrong all the fighters like Fedor, Couture and all of them they get paid for what they do. But for them to get paid millions of dollars like boxers do then that is where i dont agree with it. They dont do it anymore for the sport they do it for the money. And thats how boxing has lost most of its appeal to many. Im not saying either to pay them nothing, but when it becomes millions of dollars then the sport of MMA will lose its strength and will die. Eventually just like Affliction paying out almost 3 million dollars for all the fights. They will end up closing shop and sorry congress will not bail them out!!
The only thing I have against the pay argument is the fact that when fighters start getting into the million dollar for a fight range, sooner or later you'll have what happened to boxing.. guys fighting do just enough to win by decision, because win, lose or draw they still bring home millions for the fight. It'll come to the point where the titles in each division gets defended once a year because the will be thinking about the purse agreement and/or the UFC or any other organization can't afford that many millions just on the payroll each year. Then UFC, Affliction and other companies will be asking for a bailout out of our tax dollars. Darn...
my friends, i agree with you all.
1. Yes, fighter need to get better paid.
2. UFC need to get better profit.
3. Congress should stop bail out companies that loss. It is like giving ufc title fight to Ken Shamrock.
4. PPV events need to get more buyers by lower the price. At the end customers get profit.
5. I like Dana white alot. And I think he should stop saying "F -word".
Just a quick correction Alex, the Stevenson vs Sanchez fight is not a PPV. It is being shown on Spike and is a free event. The next UFC PPV is the Rampage vs Jardine tilt in March.
well i'm not saying pay thme like 20 mill but i do think pay needs to be increased a bit for sure....all the training and hard work they go through and then to risk serious injury during the fight...not to mention getting KO'd...like look at tim silivia for example. First of all i don't like him, but let say he would of never recovered from the broken arm frank mir gave him...then what..."oh here's 70 grand for the fight...sorry for your injury and that you can't compete anymore, and thanks for comeing out"...lol..have to realize it is a serious contact sport.. and there is no assurance that you will not get serious injury...
so then who puts all this money in their pocket.dana white and ferttita brothers.i mean they should get the most they are the owners and the president of the company...but they must be getting a HELL of a lot more than the fighters... if it wasn't for those main eventers and all the good fighters who perform great they would be notheing..... all i'm saying is feed the work horses that keep your company going so well..they're the reason UFC sells so much....but i am glad to see pay has increased definatly..
i hope affliction doesn't fold, although i can see it happening....competition is always good...it will keep UFC on they're toes and forces them to put on good cards... if UFC is the only major company than they can do whatever they want cause they control the market with no competition... oh and one more thing you people may disagree with this but the first affliction PPV i thought was better than any UFC PPV for the 2008... even the last affliction PPV was better than the last UFc PPV sorry to say...they're just a new company who needs to start promoting more...that is one thing UFC does so well....ALL ACCESS shows...the ultimate fighter...prime time...i think those a great, lets the audience know who the fighters are and sets up up great hype for the PPV...it's really smart...affliction should start trying that...once people know who the fighters are they are definatly more interested in it...like what the hell was with paying Oscar delahoya 5 mill for just showing up...lol...way to waste money i think....tactics like that is why they won't profit...i hope affliction doesn't fold....oh ya and i think fedor is the shit...awsome fighter...may not be as good a striker as arlovski.. but it is MMA not strikeing....he knows what it takes to win a fight and he always finish his fights....the guy is technically undeafted in my books....that B.S no contest a long time ago was B.S.....i just like seeing true champions that can hold down a title for more than a few fights... i do think fedor is the number one fighter in the worl for MMa even better than anderson silva, but again thats a matter of opinion....even though anderson is awsome....another true champion too.....
oh and thank god it's not Joe Stevenson and Diego for the PPV main event....that would of been of joke....lol....my fault..
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