Based On The Numbers, Strikeforce Has Some Work To Do
I think we would all have been worried if a Strikeforce event came and went without Dana White weighing in on it. As you probably can guess, when Dana spoke to MMAfighting.com it was anything but positive.
“No, I don’t worry about Strikeforce. Strikeforce is a lower-level show where young, up-and-coming talent and guys who aren’t in the UFC can go make some money. It’s never going to be more than that, ever.”
Based on the numbers that have been released for Strikeforce Miami, Dana White isn’t wrong in this insistence. He actually hit the nail right on the head. Before I delve into crunching the numbers, let me preface it. This is not an attempt to bash Strikeforce. Frankly, I want the up and coming MMA promotion to succeed. There is nothing I would like more for the UFC and Strikeforce to go head to head like WWE and WCW did in the late 90’s. It will drive the sport to bigger and better things. There is just an illustration to show where Strikeforce is at and where they need to go. So let’s begin.
Ratings wise, Strikeforce Miami did pretty good pulling in 517,000 viewers according to MMAjunkie.com. This is around the same number that some of the most recent UFC pay per view events are pulling in. The big difference is the UFC makes more money since people actually have to purchase the PPV whereas people that watched Strikeforce Miami already subscribe to the Showtime channel. In comparison, the UFC is pulling in a lot more revenue on PPV getting the same numbers Strikeforce is getting on Showtime. Would the same number of people that tuned into Strikeforce Miami on Showtime bought it on PPV? Probably not.
Maybe a more fair comparison would be to see how Strikeforce Miami stacked up against the last WEC card considering neither events were shown on PPV. As stated above, Strikeforce Miami drew 517, 000 viewers whereas WEC 46: Varner vs. Henderson drew 640,000 viewers according to fightofthenight.com. You also have to consider that Versus is in three times are many households as Showtime, which could be the reason why WEC 46 outdrew Strikeforce Miami. Then again, if WEC 46 and Strikeforce Miami were held on the same night, you figure most MMA purest would have tuned into WEC 46 due to the quality of the card. Again, this is just speculation.
What should be the most troubling number for Strikeforce is the number of fans that were actually in attendance for Strikeforce Miami. According to MMAweekly.com, Strikeforce Miami had 7,010 fans in attendance which accounted for $301,424.60 from ticket sales. This is not good. Not good at all. Let’s compare. The worst UFC PPV events routinely draw close to 2 million dollars in ticket sales. UFC 108 was one of the worst events for the UFC in terms of ticket sales in a while and according to MMAfighting.com, it still made 1.9 million dollars. Even the last UFC Fight Night (UFN 20) had 8,078 people in attendance which accounted for $753,962 in ticket sales. Strikeforce needs to figure out a way to get more people in attendance if they want to become one of the big boys.
What should be the most troubling thing for Strikeforce is that one can make the argument that Strikeforce Miami’s numbers were inflated due to a promotional stunt. Not to take anything away from Herschel Walker who did better than anyone could have expected, but if you take him (and Bobby Lashley) off the card, would Strikeforce still got the same numbers and attendance? The honest answer is no. Unless you are a hardcore MMA fan, you are not going to tune into see Nick Diaz vs. Marius Žaromskis and Robbie Lawler vs. Melvin Manhoef. You just aren’t. The causal fan tuned in to see a Heisman trophy winner and a former-WWE (and current TNA) pro-wrestling superstar.
If Strikeforce wants to rival the UFC as the biggest MMA promotion in the world, they need to focus on getting people to tune in when Fedor or Herschel Walker-types are not on the fight card. They will never be on the same level as the UFC getting only getting monster numbers off the three to four events they have on CBS a year (which they don’t make that much money off of). If they can’t accomplish this, then Dana White is right when he calls Strikeforce a lower lever promotion.
