UFC, FOX and Missed Opportunities

It would be unfair to say that the UFC on FOX deal has been a complete failure. FOX opened many new eyes to the UFC, and the FOX and FOX Sports platform is much larger than the platform that the company had on SpikeTV or Versus.

The deal wasn’t a mistake, but it’s certainly been a missed opportunity for the company.

The first missed opportunity came immediately. Cain Velasquez vs. Junior dos Santos for the heavyweight belt was a pay-per-view caliber main event that fans were grateful to see for free. But that was the only televised fight, and it unfortunately lasted 64 seconds. A lightweight bout between Clay Guida and Benson Henderson was relegated to Facebook. A one-fight debut on network television wasn’t ideal, and while the ratings were strong, it was obvious that things needed to change.

In the subsequent events, the UFC began to correct their mistakes. While fans never got a main event at the level of Velasquez vs. Dos Santos, they were treated to deeper cards with title eliminator and title fight main events.

The next missed opportunity came when they failed to follow up on the main events featuring Henderson and Demetrious Johnson.

The UFC is still a pay-per-view driven company. The FOX TV deal is nice, but in the end it’s a commercial to sell pay-per-views.

Henderson headlined two FOX events. First, against Nate Diaz, and then against Gilbert Melendez. Both fights were good fights that saw Henderson pick up a decision victory. The idea was that headlining two FOX events would turn Henderson into a bigger pay-per-view draw.

It didn’t work.

In Henderson’s next pay-per-view bout, a title fight against rival Anthony Pettis, the pay-per-view did 270,000 buys, the third lowest buyrate in 2013. Henderson never found himself on pay-per-view again.

But Demetrious Johnson is the fighter who really took the brunt of the UFC on FOX deal. Like Henderson, Johnson was put on FOX to showcase his talent in hopes that it would turn him into a pay-per-view draw. Johnson headlined three FOX events, defending his Flyweight title each time. In each fight, he looked better than in the previous. He took an entertaining decision over John Dodson, finished John Moraga with an armbar in the final round, and knocked out Joseph Benavidez in the first round.

Johnson vs. Dodson drew an average of 3.77 million viewers, but the next two bouts fell below 3 million viewers on average.

After his FOX run, Johnson headlined his first pay-per-view against Ali Bagautinov. The event did 115,000 buys. It’s the lowest UFC buyrate since 2005.

Despite his skill set and divisional dominance, Johnson was never going to be a draw on the same level as Georges St-Pierre or Anderson Silva. He’s more charismatic than given credit for, but he doesn’t have that same “it” factor that St. Pierre and Silva had. That said, there’s no reason as to why he drew 115,000 pay-per-view buys after coming off of three headlining fights on FOX.

Somewhere along the way, the ball was dropped.

Since Johnson vs. Benavidez 2, the focus on the FOX events seemed to switch. They moved away from title fights at lighter weights and started headlining the events with title eliminator bouts. There were six UFC on FOX events between January 2014 and April 2015. Four main event winners went on to fight for a title in their next fight. The close out 2015, the lighter weight titles took center stage again, but the winners of those bouts headed to FOX Sports 1 instead of pay-per-view.

The last five UFC on FOX main events have resulted in no positives gains for the winners.

Anthony Johnson and Glover Teixiera ended up fighting each other following their respective victories over Ryan Bader and Rashad Evans. The fight was the co-main event for Nate Diaz vs. Conor McGregor 2, which did more for the profile of either man than being in the FOX main event. Valentina Shevchenko, who defeated Holly Holm in July 2013, will headline another FOX show this Saturday against Julianna Pena. The winner will likely fight Amanda Nunes for the women’s bantamweight title later this year. Demian Maia has yet to fight since defeating Carlos Condit in August 2016, and the jury remains out on Michelle Waterson following her victory over Paige VanZant.

With the UFC running an event seemingly every weekend, the FOX outlet is an important one. It brings new eyeballs to the product and is two hour long commercial for their next pay-per-view. It just feels like they should have been able to do more with the outlet.