The first three UFC pay per view events of 2010 have delivered underwhelming buy-rates, but UFC 111 is set to break that trend. A main event title fight featuring one of the organizations biggest stars, Georges St-Pierre, plus an intriguing heavyweight co-main event are generating a significantly increased level of fan interest and attention as compared to prior events, UFC 108, 109, and 110. The amount of fan interest in the last few days leading up to the event has reached a level not seen since UFC 101 and UFC 104 in late 2009. Taking all of the numbers into account, Tapology’s pre-fight prediction for UFC 111 pay per view buys is 650,000. Breakdown below.
Tapology translates the volume of online interest for the main and co-main event fighters into an absolute “buzz score” in order to model a pay per view forecast. The higher each individual fighter’s buzz score, the more people who have been searching and reading about that fighter online in the days leading up to the event.
Welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre defends his belt against Dan Hardy in what is clearly the headlining fight from an online buzz perspective. St-Pierre’s pre-fight online buzz score of 28.2 is the highest for any fighter since Tito Ortiz’s 30.6 at UFC 106. While many question if Hardy is a legitimate challenge for St-Pierre, his pre-fight score of 21 suggests that plenty of fans are bought in and intrigued by the matchup. The Shane Carwin vs Frank Mir co-main event is also delivering healthy interest, single-handedly rivaling the levels seen for recent main event fights.
| Fighter | Pre-Fight Buzz Score |
|---|---|
| Georges St. Pierre | 28.2 |
| Dan Hardy | 21 |
| Shane Carwin | 13.9 |
| Frank Mir | 14.2 |
| Total | 77.3 |
The combined score for the four main and co-main event fighters is 77.3, 54% higher than the 50.1 score seen for the UFC 110 event featuring Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira against Cain Velasquez. That card came in with an estimated 240,000 pay per view buys according to trending estimates from the Wrestling Observer newsletter. While that and other recent events are pulling the buy-rate forecasting model lower, the strong performance of events like UFC 101 and UFC 107 still help prop up the numbers.
As a result, when we plug a score of 77.3 into the model, we get an estimate of 650,000 pay per view buys, well above UFC 110′s level and setting the stage for what could be a very strong Spring and Summer period for the UFC.
| Event | Main & Co-Main Event Pre-Fight Buzz Score |
Reported/Estimated Pay Per View Buys |
|---|---|---|
| UFC 100 | 156.9 | 1,600,000 |
| UFC 101 | 83.1 | 900,000 |
| UFC 102 | 46.6 | 435,000 |
| UFC 103 | 56.2 | 375,000 |
| UFC 104 | 81.1 | 500,000 |
| UFC 106 | 63.9 | 375,000 |
| UFC 107 | 67.5 | 620,000 |
| UFC 108 | 43.4 | 300,000 |
| UFC 109 | 46.6 | 285,000 (trending estimate) |
| UFC 110 | 50.1 | 240,000 (trending estimate) |
| UFC 111 | 77.3 | 650,000 (pre-fight forecast) |
Post-event pay per view numbers are based off of the great analysis that can be found at MMAPayout.com as well as the Wrestling Observer newsletter.
