Contributor: Connor Dillon
MMA fans rejoice, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) will soon bring about a long-overdue service: UFC Fight Pass. This will be their own streaming site, presenting the preliminary fights formerly featured on Facebook and YouTube in select cards, a unique fight card every month, exclusive back-stage content, and eventually, the entire ZUFFA fight library. For those who aren’t aware, that means every fight card, from the World Fighting Alliance (WFA), Strikeforce, Pride FC, and World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC), will ultimately be released on this platform for subscribers. Access to the entire ZUFFA fight library alone is worth the measly $10 a month that the UFC asking for a subscription.
And yet, I still see people complaining about this move.
Most of the intelligent (and not so intelligent) arguments I’ve seen against this are as follows:
[In regards to Facebook/YouTube prelim fights being moved to this subscription based model]
“It’s also not good for the fighters. What little sponorship [sic] they get, they can at least say “anyone can watch my fight live on youtube”…now they only fight for people who pay for this subscription.”
“There’s no chance they reach more people through a paid service than by offering the fights for free on a massive platform like YouTube or Facebook. The number of people who were willing to tune in through the free services was already pretty small, the number who would be willing to pay for it has to be even smaller still. I’m as die hard as they come but I’m not paying $10 per month for Facebook prelim quality fights and these mediocre foreign cards.”
[Comments about cost, fighter pay, etc.]
“premium cable subscription that includes FS1 and FS2 and $60 PPV’s each month isn’t enough. now an extra $120 more per year to see what we’ve been getting for free. thanks Zuffa.”
“I’ll only be a fan of it if it increases fighter pay.”
“Nope. I very rarely ever bother to watch old fights, and they’re all over the internet anyways. All you have to do is search “Fighter1 Fighter2 full fight” and it pops right up. And I know BE knows this too, since they always SEO their headlines with “Fighter1 Fighter2 full fight highlights” when all they have are the highlights. Yeah BE, I’m on to you. $10 to watch prelims and crappy foreign cards just won’t fly for me. I’ll give up watching the occasional big headliner like Gus.”
“The price is good for what they’re offering in that channel but the fact that I have to pay even more to continue following my favourite [sic] sport kind of sucks when its already pretty damn expensive. Add in that they’re now raising the prices of the next PPV, and probably others that involve mega fights then it kind of sucks.”
“No, they are asking you to pay for cards that were free before.”
“How are they only getting around to this in 2014? Zuffa’s online strategy has been abysmal. About two years ago I downloaded a torrent of every single past UFC PPV and Fight Night Card. The same is available for the Pride library. Piracy is bad, yadda yadda yadda.”
“Does that mean they won’t show those cards? That seems pretty greedy to me. Let me get this straight,to watch ufc right now you need FS1 and FS2 (higher cable package) then you pay 50$ per ppv and now you are supposed to pay another fee?! What?! And you guys are alright with this?” [In Response:] “yep corporate GREED!!!!!! Greedy fucks are trying to nail down every penny they can….. i for 1 was excited about the weidman vs silva fight, was going to get the ppv and invite a few buddies over! well then they announce 5 dollar increase…………wtf!(taking advantage of the fact everyone want’s to see this fight) the same corporate greed that run this country in the ground is asking me for another 5 dollars…..mmmmmm no eat shit ufc.. fuck corporate america! hopefully more will do the same!! Not to mention these ppv’s are getting so weak! only 2 worthy fights in my mind, weidman silva and the barnett fight, i dont think to many people are that interested in seeing Rhonda rape Meshia again!” [In Response:] The ufc is just begging people to just watch free streams! Dumb greedy assholes, I bet Dana and crew think they can stop piracy too huh?! Lol. Idiots!”
“Call me when they offer all of their events digitally. I love that I can buy the PPVs through my Playstation 3 (Weidman/Silva 2 is only $45), but I would love to be able to pay lesser amounts for smaller cards, or some type of subscription for all the non-ppv stuff. For example, if they charged $20 or $25 per month for all the non-ppv events to be available online, I’d totally sign up. I know they have exclusive deals with FOX that prevent this, but the future of TV is digital. My wife and I canceled our TV subscription and went with Amazon Prime and Netflix. I get those, and I could order every monthly PPV and still save about $40 per month over pay-television. More and more people are doing this, and as older folks who aren’t as internet savvy start to pass away, the old model of pay-tv will become more and more obsolete. It won’t happen overnight, but sooner or later things will change. The real way you combat internet piracy is to make things convenient to buy. At $65 on PPV, I’m guessing Silva/Weidman 2 will be one of the most pirated UFC events of all time. Because it is cheaper and REALLY convenient for me to order on my playstation, I’ll just do that. If an online subscription option were available, I’d be all over it and the UFC would get WAY more money from me, and with my thanks.”
While these are just some specific examples, most of their arguments boil down to three things:
- It’s bad for prelim fighters being moved to this subscription channel because they won’t be paid as well from sponsors, and if fighters’ pay isn’t increased then they won’t subscribe.
- The fight libraries don’t interest people because you can find them online and can torrent them.
- You’re paying for events and prelims that you would presumably view on FS1, FS2, or FOX.
My thoughts on this are in the completely opposite direction. Firstly, I think the move to a paying subscription model for the live prelims and one full live event a month is a solid idea. They hadn’t put these events up before so where else were the UFC gonna put them? FS1? Fox? FS2? Those channels are already filled up with events, and this streaming service allows the UFC to still make some kind of money while providing events and hiring fighters. The prelims being moved to this is a little sad, but in all honesty the quality of these have gone down drastically from when they were first introduced. If you’re really gonna get upset that the UFC is going to have you pay for one to three fights every PPV and Fight Night (along with everything else I’ve talked about), then I think you’re overreacting. Unless you are among the more hardcore of fight fans, there’s not really a reason to watch the debuts of two regional fighters on the big stage. The few times these prelims have been worth anything in recent memory is because of stacked cards like UFC 166.
Secondly, with these live events being broadcast and available for almost instant turnaround over the streaming service, an argument is being made that the prelim fighters won’t be getting as much money from their sponsors because they can’t say they’ll get as many eyes on their products and sponsor logos. As I’ve heard through the grapevine, the UFC is working to increase this, period. That’s before they were moving to this streaming site. Furthermore, I can almost guarantee that most of the fighters being pulled onto the prelims are making more than they were on the regional scene. For a couple promotions I’ve worked for, most fighters make 1k/1k up to 6k/6k in title fights. For fighters making that much, a bump up to 8k guaranteed and 8k more if they win is great. So their base pay is already increased. Add to the fact that the events, which wouldn’t have been put on Fox, FS1, or FS2, are bringing in more fighters than before (in other words, they’re hiring more people) and the UFC is already improving fighters’ lives by hiring them period. On top of this, if they win in impressive fashion they could potentially receive Of The Night (OTN) awards for the best fight, knockout, or submission, or alternatively get some of those famous back-room bonuses. So already I don’t see any problems for the prelim fighters. They’ll still get sponsors, and the UFC will probably help them get sponsors too. They’ll actually get a contract for more money than they get on the regional scene. All of this increases fighter pay.
Thirdly, torrenting is illegal. Arguing that it’s better to perform an illegal action than to pay for a UFC event or in this case, streaming service, is disgusting to me ethically. When you download a UFC PPV without paying for it, they don’t receive money, which then means their gross income doesn’t increase, which means their costs are still the same, which means they can’t pay the fighters more money. A thing I’ve noticed is that several of the people arguing that they’d rather torrent than paying $10 a month for a streaming service also argue that they won’t purchase this if it doesn’t increase fighter pay. Funny how that works, huh?
Finally, if I haven’t said this enough already, the full events that will be played live on this streaming service are not events that would’ve ended up on FS1, FS2, or Fox. The UFC has already fulfilled their contract by scheduling fight cards with the channels, these events are extra servings for fight fans. And sadly, because they cost money to produce (fighters getting paid, production staff getting paid, etc), it will cost to purchase them. Which, in all honesty, isn’t that bad. You get a live fight card for $10 a month? It’s better than $50 or $60 a month. Access to prelim fights and the entire ZUFFA fight library? Goddammit is that a steal.
The point of this is to stop the complaints about UFC Fight Pass. If you’d rather torrent events, I hope you go to jail. If you want to complain that it isn’t helping the fighters, well that’s just bullshit. I have little doubt this won’t change minds, because people are people and stuck in their ways; but for God’s sake, stop complaining if you aren’t going to buy it for the reasons above. I’m not pointing this at people who have families and can’t spend the money on it, this article isn’t for the people who just can’t afford it period, and definitely not for people with shitty internet service. This is for the fight fans with some misguided sense of sticking it to the man who complain that ZUFFA’s greed is harming the fighters and turning people to torrenting events, rather than purchasing them. That’s a misguided notion, as I’ve pointed out, one that I’d like to see put down under ethical concerns.
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