Doing the math on Randy-Fedor
By Pramit Mohapatra
Randy Couture recently went on The Adam Carolla Show to promote The Scorpion King 2, which comes out on DVD next Tuesday. While there was a lot of the standard banter you would expect from Carolla and Couture, Couture did make some new statements regarding what he expects to make in a much-anticipated showdown against Fedor Emelianenko.
Here are the two major points Couture made on the topic:
- He believes a fight against Fedor can draw 700,000 PPV buys.
- He also believes that he and Fedor can make $6-10 million each in the fight.
Let's take a rough look at Couture's statements and see if he's being realistic. First, here are my assumpions: let's assume that the Randy-Fedor PPV sells for $50, that the PPV broadcaster takes 50% of the PPV cut, and that the event sells out a 15,000-seat arena.
At $50 a pop, 700,000 PPV buys gives us $35 million in PPV revenue. Give the PPV broadcaster half and the promotion ends up with $17.5 million.
Now, UFC 87 (with an announced attendance in the neighborhood of 15,000) made a reported live gate of $2.2 million. Let's be generous and say that Randy-Fedor garners a live gate of $3 million.
That gives the promotion a revenue of $20.5 million. Remember, this is revenue and not profit. In other words, we haven't considered the cost of producing the event, marketing costs, the cost of renting the arena, and -- as we've learned this week -- taxes. We also haven't considered the pay for undercard fighters. Or, the cut the promotion itself will take off the top.
Even without all of these costs factored in, Couture's estimate of a $12-20 million total payout for both him and Fedor seems very unrealistic.
To put all this in perspective, Ortiz-Liddell II in December 2006 garnered a reported 1 million plus PPV buys and based on salaries we've seen for both fighters in other events since, neither made close to $6-10 million each in that one event.
In addition, we could debate whether or not a Couture-Fedor fight could even bring in 700,000 PPV buys. Fedor has not proven to be a draw in this country yet -- his Affliction debut made arguably in the neighborhood of 100,000 PPV buys if you believe Affliction VP Tom Atencio and less if you believe other reports.
So, could Couture bring the number up to 700,000 on his own? Possibly but let's remember that's an excellent number even for a major UFC card featuring Chuck Liddell.
Regardless, even if the PPV numbers are that good, the math simply doesn't support Couture's belief that he and Fedor can make that much money in a single night.
(Photo of Randy Couture courtesy of Zuffa, LLC.)
Assist: MMAMania.com
Comments
6-10 million is too high for
6-10 million is too high for a flat figure
i say give them half of that and a cut of the ppv (tops)
seriously, no one, to date has broken 1 million for a fight (that i know of) ... as much as people want to see this fight, its die hards and die hards arent going to churn the ppv buys necessary to make this economically feasible.
at least making the pay a function of the ppv encourages the fighters to get their asses out there and promote the shit out of the event (and hey, randy is a movie star now so he might be able to work the promotion angle)
According to the Wrestling
According to the Wrestling Observer, Tito and Chuck each made $3 million for their second fight (the one with over 1 million buys). But, that wasn't their base for the fight. It factored in their cut of the PPV sales.
Regardless, Randy is looking for 2-3 times that number with fewer PPV buys. Unless Couture and Fedor own the promotion, I don't see how they can get that. Even if they do all the work, including selling the popcorn I don't think it's realistic.
Sometimes I wonder if Randy
Sometimes I wonder if Randy is stuck in his own reality....like when he claimed he wasn't getting paid that much by the UFC only to have Dana trot out copies of his paychecks (which, believe me, is incredible on its own) and leave him with egg on his face.
By the way, I received an
By the way, I received an advanced copy of The Scorpion King 2. I started watching last week and I'm struggling trying to finish it. Couture isn't very convincing in his role and I don't think I'm the target demographic for the movie...
Any chance that Couture is
Any chance that Couture is including money both him and Fedor would receive in endorsements for the fight? If so that number could potentially fall within that range.
Pramt, that's the reason that move went straight to DVD.
-The Captain
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Given the nebulous nature of
Given the nebulous nature of sponsorship money I suppose he could earn multi-million from that revenue source but my interpretation of what he said on the show was that he felt that he could earn the stated amount from the PPV sales. He seemed to draw the connection between the two.
Fighters typically don't include sponsorship money when they discuss salary numbers so I decided to go with the interpretation that I went with.
But, it's a very legit consideration for sure. I still don't see him making 6-10 million in one night.
Me neither but that would
Me neither but that would make a little more sense to this guy...
-The Captain
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I was thinking the same
I was thinking the same thing as Capt. You didnt calculate in how much Budweiser or other sponsors would pay to represent promotion and the fighter. Plus, they also get a lot of re-broadcast money down the road when they show it on Spike from the sponsors as well as the network. Thier base would probably be $1mm-$2mm ea plus residual from endorsements and royalties down the road.
Now having said that, $6mm-$10mm seems like a crazy out of the world number for MMA... but as you pointed out Randy/Chuck each made around $3mm with lesser sponsors.
I don't think money is the obstacle for the UFC in terms of making this fight happen...
Good point. I didn't factor
Good point. I didn't factor in Budweiser and other sponsors of the promotion itself. However, those would only apply if the UFC held the event. If not, what sort of sponsorship money could another promotion bring in?
Based on everything Affliction has said recently, I don't think they'll pay out this sort of money. EliteXC can't afford to either. So, the only hope would be the UFC.
And, given that the UFC has a league-based rather than a fighter-based philosophy, I can't see them paying out $12-20 million to just two fighters on a card. It comes down to revenue and Fedor-Couture is not going to make much more money than a normal UFC card, IMO...
Maybe I am just looking at
Maybe I am just looking at it only from the perspective of a hard-core fan... but I do think it would be thier biggest draw in a long time. They have done the whole 'super-fight' thing before when they brought in Gracie on a one-fight contract to fight Hughes so the precident is already there.
gracie got paid like 400k
gracie got paid like 400k ... not millions (plural) ...
other notables
tito was making about 210k flat (no win bonus)
chuck, for a while was making about 250k flat ... at some point i think it has doubled to 500k
as much as i loved meeting
as much as i loved meeting randy...he's wrong. in his book he says he's doing this for the future of the sport and he believes he's doing the right thing. but those paydays really aren't realistic. not even in the ufc.
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Maybe, maybe if this fight
Maybe, maybe if this fight happened when Couture's name was still really hot this fight could generate 500k buys but now that he hasn't fought in a year I see it generating maybe half of that. I think he is in for the shock of his life. He doesn't seem to realize there is not Tito or Chuck to help sell the fight.
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