Author: Jack McHenry
In the era of high definition (HD) television, watching sports at home is becoming the best way to experience a game. While most sports can be enjoyed in HD on network television and basic cable, the viewing market for combat sports has been cornered by pay per view, where viewers at home must order the individual event if they want to watch it.
However, as sports media and the home-viewing experience becomes more popular, changes are beginning to occur in watching sporting events that were traditionally exclusive to pay per view.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was broadcast on the FOX network on Nov. 12, the first time any such event had been broadcast on network television.
Not coincidentally, FOX received a record number of viewers during the Heavyweight Championship fight between Mexican Cain Velasquez and Brazilian Junior dos Santos, which lasted just 64 seconds.
These ratings, which exceeded the viewing audience of game five of the 2011 World Series, raise the question as to whether or not future UFC or boxing events will break from pay per view and broadcast via network television.
The unprecedented mark of 8.8 million views made many individuals wonder how high viewership may have reached had the bout lasted the full and scheduled duration of 25 minutes.
Although systems for pay per view television were being explored as early as the 1950’s, pay per view ultimately gained relevance with cable television. This is about the time it really began to corner the market for boxing matches.
The first major fight on pay per view was in 1975, when Muhammad Ali fought Joe Frazer in the Philippines. While this is regarded as one of the best fights of all time, ironically due to its pay per view broadcast, it can ultimately be linked with the demise of the sport.
The 1980’s saw all major fights shift to pay per view, and it became the choice method among boxers and promoters for airing fights. While the greatest boxing matches of the 1960’s and most of the 1970’s could be seen on network television, by the 1980’s none could.
“I can’t tell you that pay per view helps the sport because it doesn’t. It hurts the sport because it narrows our audience,” said HBO Sports President Ross Greenburg in a 2007 interview. Indeed, even the biggest fights have attracted only about 2.5 million viewers apposed to the 8.8 million for the most recent UFC on FOX, demonstrating the higher potential for more views on network.
The UFC, which had aired some events on the cable networks Spike and Versus, followed the boxing model and held its major fights on pay per view. This changed dramatically in August, when the UFC signed a seven-year contract with FOX.
While this contract included the rights for UFC analysis shows, as well as the reality show The Ultimate Fighter, the most groundbreaking part of the deal was that FOX broadcast a title fight.
As the aforementioned ratings suggested, it was the most viewed combat sport event in years. Its ratings rivaled those of the world series, which are unprecedented in the modern age of sports media.
The big uncertainty now is whether or not boxing will abandon pay per view after the success of the UFC’s network experiment or continue with its current broadcast model.
The biggest obstacle for boxing to change up their strategy is the apparatus of fighters and their promoters, because pay per view maximizes their earnings for each fight, no matter the outcome.
If boxing is able to make popularizing their sport a priority, then it will not be long before boxers like Floyd Meyweather and Manny Pacquiao grace network television and a greater portion of the American sports-viewing public rediscovers its dormant love for the sport.
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