UFC Missing an Opportunity with Stipe Miocic vs. Francis Ngannou

Francis Ngannou is a terrifying mountain that bores a path of destruction. He looks the part of the heavyweight champion of the world, and the hours are winding down to the date on which he can become it.

Ngannou’s thunderous rise has produced MMA’s most exciting heavyweight matchup in several years. On Saturday, he carries a freight train of momentum into a fight against heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic in the main event of UFC 220 on pay-per-view.

The following Saturday, UFC returns to Fox with one of the weakest cards it has ever featured on the network. It’s a throwaway show and a waste of a platform that UFC has generally mishandled over the past six-plus years.

Miocic vs. Ngannou is a fight tailor-made for Fox: one fighter is beginning to find traction with the audience and gaining steam, but isn’t going to draw major pay-per-view numbers at this stage. But instead of positioning a potential superstar on a platform that would expose him to largest audience possible, he will fight on pay-per-view television in perhaps 450,000 homes.

The fight being locked behind a paywall embodies UFC’s general misuse of the Fox platform, which has seen quick cash grabs take precedence over long-term star building.

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By early 2015, Conor McGregor’s rise was undeniable. He likely added about 50,000-75,000 buys to UFC 178 in September 2014, just three fights removed from complete anonymity in North America.

To build him further before a clash with featherweight champion Jose Aldo, UFC booked McGregor for a special show on Fox Sports 1. It would be entirely booked around the Irish star, held in Boston and promoted heavily on Fox during that night’s broadcast of the NFL’s NFC Championship Game.

The result was the biggest fight ever on Fox Sports 1, drawing 3.16 million viewers for the main event, and a major boost to McGregor’s profile. Google searches for McGregor’s name spiked, and he headlined two majorly successful pay-per-views before the year’s end. McGregor is an admittedly special case and would have become a transcendent superstar with or without that fight. But going from third-from-the-top on a 205,000-buy pay-per-view to drawing 825,000 buys for a fight with Chad Mendes two fights later is an unprecedented increase that must have been partially due to the exposure from his Fox Sports 1 bout.

Although the bout didn’t take place on Fox proper, and McGregor would have found a way to become McGregor either way, this is the best example in the past six years of UFC effectively using its television platform.

As UFC began its relationship with Fox, then UFC owner Lorenzo Fertitta stated a goal of adding 100,000 new regular pay-per-view buyers. For a variety of factors, but partially because the UFC never tried the same formula that worked with McGregor on other stars with major potential, the promotion fell well short of that goal.

When Fertitta made that statement, UFC’s pay-per-view baseline sat at about 280,000 buys. Last year, The Wrestling Observer estimated all but three UFC pay-per-views at 250,000 buys or fewer; one show barely scraped 100,000 buys.

UFC could have applied the same concept that boosted McGregor to help Jon Jones, Ronda Rousey, and now Francis Ngannou. The promotion can still employ it to boost rising stars like Max Holloway and Khabib Nurmagomedov.

The act of placing fighters on big stages clearly doesn’t work miracles; Demetrious Johnson has headlined several Fox cards that did virtually nothing to increase his profile. Rather, this is a platform that can provide a boost to fighters that already have something special, and help them become difference-making attractions sooner.

The ideal for any promoter is for their fighter to become appointment viewing. Conor McGregor, Ronda Rousey, and Georges St-Pierre will draw bigger numbers against certain opponents, but they will draw strong numbers even against unappealing opponents. The same can’t be said for Jon Jones, who has only shown to be a strong draw situationally.

Historically, fighters reach appointment viewing status following a few consecutive big fights. Sometimes, the big fight simply isn’t there, as was the case with Jon Jones in 2013 following his bout with Chael Sonnen. The top two contenders for his light heavyweight title, Glover Teixeira and Alexander Gustafsson, didn’t seem to be intriguing fights and weren’t pay-per-view draws. It would have been sensible to book one of the fights on Fox. Jones was already a big name, but a couple of minor pay-per-view bouts (neither did better than 350,000 buys) were enough to stall his momentum.

One fight on Fox during that time would have been enough to boost Jones’s momentum (although his personal issues would have stalled that momentum anyway). It would have also helped Ronda Rousey, who was an immediate star for the UFC, but took two years to find her footing as a major solo pay-per-view draw. Before that happened, she drew an estimated 450,000 buys against Liz Carmouche, and then an estimated 340,000 buys against Sara McMann. Neither number was bad at the time, but they were also far from essential to the success of the promotion.

Francis Ngannou is the hottest new star in the UFC. An impressive victory over Stipe Miocic will only make him a bigger name, but without the right opponents he won’t draw big numbers. With the heavyweight division in its current state, “the right opponents” is limited to Cain Velasquez, Brock Lesnar, and Jon Jones. Two of those fighters are not currently active, and injuries have kept the other out of action for most of the past four years.

That makes it important to build as much momentum as possible for Ngannou, hopefully to the point of appointment viewing status. He would need it against Fabricio Werdum, who he would likely face next with a win over Miocic. That status will only be reached quickly through a big television push, and it certainly won’t happen in the course of one pay-per-view fight.

The timing of Miocic vs. Ngannou only strengthens the idea that it would be best utilized on network television.

On January 21, Fox airs this year’s NFC Championship, a game which has averaged 47.88 million viewers over the past five years. Big UFC fights on Fox typically receive a decent promotional push during Fox’s broadcast of NFL games. That promotion is tremendously valuable, and helped lead Rashad Evans vs. Phil Davis, Quinton Jackson vs. Glover Teixeira, and McGregor vs. Dennis Siver to strong television viewership. Miocic vs. Ngannou carries more magnitude than any of those bouts did, and Ngannou is on a faster trajectory to the top than all but McGregor.

On the correct platform, the fight could create an overnight superstar and draw UFC’s biggest television audience in years. It would boost a product in the midst of selling its television rights following a year with a noticeable ratings downturn: UFC’s four Fox specials in 2017 averaged 2.1 million viewers, the worst yearly average in the six-year history of the series and down 21 percent from the prior year.

The last UFC heavyweight championship fight on Fox, with enormous promotion behind it, averaged 5.7 million viewers for a sixty-four second fight (9.566 million people watched the fight itself live on Fox and Fox Deportes).

The idea is a short-term loss for a long-term gain. Losing Miocic vs. Ngannou would cost a show like UFC 220 about 250,000 buys, equating to roughly $7.5 million in lost pay-per-view revenue. But holding the fight on Fox would, in theory, help make that money back in the winner’s next one-to-three fights, and perhaps give the UFC some momentum for other shows. Perhaps the ratings drawn from one or two similar fights per year on Fox will add value to UFC’s television rights.

However, with few exceptions in the past six years, we have seen UFC opt for short-term gains time and time again. UFC on Fox events have become a haven for title contenders, but those with significant momentum—who have the most to gain from the platform—are vaulted to pay-per-view.

UFC has evolved into a company where the big stars can be bigger than ever before. This is the product of increased mainstream acceptance, owed to years of work to normalize the sport and its visibility on a mainstream network like Fox, along with having the right stars that found the right platforms to build their names.

At the same time, the average UFC show is more inessential than it has been at any point in the past dozen years. This is due to the sheer number of events UFC produces, which is necessary to maximize their revenue from television rights fees, but also makes it difficult for the layman to follow. It is also the result of a noticeable lack of difference-making stars.

The only active difference-making stars on UFC’s roster (that have proven their status as such) are Conor McGregor, Ronda Rousey, Jon Jones, Georges St-Pierre, Cris Cyborg. McGregor’s future is unknown due to the windfall he received from fighting Floyd Mayweather, but he will most likely fight again at some point. Rousey’s career is likely over. Jones is facing a potential four-year ban. St-Pierre may never fight again, and if he does fight again, he probably doesn’t have many fights left. Cyborg is the only star that was active throughout 2017 and whose future is not a question mark, but she is easily the weakest draw of the group.

Consistently building new stars is the name of the game. There are always going to be ups and downs in the fight business. Big draws get old, their drawing power weakens, and at some point they retire. Another fighter isn’t always there to replace them right away. But making a consistent effort to showcase new stars with momentum on the biggest platform possible will help alleviate those issues and keep business healthy.

Francis Ngannou may or may not be the right fighter. Stipe Miocic has the power to take him out within one minute. However, the time and opportunity certainly lined up to showcase Ngannou on Fox and maximize his potential. UFC failed to seize that opportunity.

Dan Plunkett has covered MMA for 411Mania since 2008. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @Dan_Plunkett.