..Boxing And MMA(UFC) Comparison: Part 1...

This particular part of the comparison is going to be about the business side of the sport. Let's start it off with the ratings. Their ratings, though they seem impressive, fail to impress. Their UFC: Fight Night series, on average gains about a 1.5 to 2.0 rating. From any report on any of those show ratings, they fall somewhere in between there. Perhaps some lower, and some a bit higher. Though, Fight Night 9 drew the lowest ratings ever with a 1.2. Now, for the sake of argument, lets say they drew a 2.5 for their showers on average. (Which is not the case.) That's SLIGHTLY better than ratings than Calzaghe-Kessler and Cotto-Gomez received. While that sounds perfectly fine, it's really not. Those two shows were the WORST shows, for Championship boxing that HBO EVER received. Not to mention the fact that SpikeTV is on basic cable and HBO is a subscription network with NUMEROUS different channels and options. You could argue that those shows don't feature the sports biggest stars, but then again in America, aside from Cotto, neither did those two HBO telecasts. Calzaghe and Kessler being both bigger stars OUTSIDE of the U.S. Ultimate Fighter draws in similar ratings to that of Fight Night, so that issue is a moot. EliteXC on regular TV would be an unfair comparison because the show was on ENTIRELY free cable, it's really not comparable. The average PPV price for either boxing or MMA is something around $50.00. So now, we take a look at the PPV sales. For 2007, excluding UFC 78 and 79, this is what the sales look like compared to boxing. Liddell-Jackson, 675,000 Sylvia-Couture, 540,000 Couture-Gonzaga, 520,000 Liddell-Jardine, 475,000 Tito Ortiz vs. Rashad Evans, 425,000 Silva-Lutter, 400,000 Silva-Franklin, 325,000 Which amounts to, 3,760,000 While boxing looked like this.... De La Hoya-Mayweather, 2,400,000 Mayweather-Hatton, 850,000 Pacquiao-Barrera, 350,000 Cotto-Mosley, 340,000 Which amounts to, 3,940,000 The difference is about 180,000 buys. Although, this seems to say that with the next two UFC shows, they would surpass boxing (and they would), that isn't the best of news for MMA. They brag about incredibly stacked shows, more impressive fights and better fans, and it takes them ATLEAST 8 shows to beat 4 boxing PPVs. Let's make it even worse. Take away the De La Hoya-Mayweather fight. That leaves boxing with 1,540,000. If you doubled that amount it's about 600,000 or so shy of what SEVEN UFC shows did, with only three cards. Which would mean that show-for-show, they would still be on pace to gain about the same amount of buys. And this is EXCLUDING A MEGA event in boxing. Now, forget about the fans for a while. I brought up the prive of these PPVs for a reason. MMA has sold some 3,700,000 odd PPVs ATLEAST in 2007. Times that by 50 dollars, and you get 185,000,000 dollars. AMAZING. With LESS than 85 million dollars, just cutting the small chunk off, so to speak, you could pay out all of their fighters for the ENTIRE year. Shit, I beat you could do it, or come close with cutting off the 5 million dollars. Dana White, President of the UFC continues to tell people that boxing was ruined by bastard promoters who screwed fighters and fans. Yet, MMA makes near the neighborhood of 200,000,000 dollars and his fighters get paid in peanuts and raffle tickets. Furthermore, don't by the B.S. about the fans. This is the same guy willing to SUE Randy Couture for wanting to fight the best opponent for him, JUST BECAUSE Dana White didn't promote him. Talk about a fucking hypocrite. (That fighter being a gentleman named Fedor Emelianenko.) Even with the peak of 2006 (their biggest year), they still have less crossover stars. People need to realize that when most American fans compare boxing and MMA, it's essentially boxing and the UFC. And when you compare the stars, boxing blows the UFC out of the water. Boxing is a GLOBAL entity, UFC is trying to become one. Liddel, Jackson, Silva, Franklin, Hughes, Pierre, Couture, Griffin, on a WORLD WIDE basis don't compare to Mayweather, De La Hoya, Hatton, Calzaghe, Hopkins, Kessler, Cotto, Mosley, Pacquiao. Their biggest athletes get paid 250,000 at best. That would mean that when De La Hoya turned from in his debut and received somewhere in the area of 40,000, he was a midcard fighter in the MMA. Why this is important is simple. If the sport was so big, and the athletes so much better, why aren't they getting properly compensated? Perhaps it has something to do with an American monopoly of sorts. Maybe it has to do with the promotion and advertisement costs that it takes to get to their sales. Regardless, they rob themselves by claiming to be on the up and up and most of their fighters are still having to work regular day jobs, at the mid level of their sport. Part 2: The Fighting... Coming soon.