The Bottom Line: UFC’s Super Bowl Weekend Switch an Encouraging Precedent

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The Ultimate Fighting Championship event scheduled for this Saturday was originally supposed to be on pay-per-view. That was before injuries derailed the possibility of a heavyweight title fight main event between Fabricio Werdum and Cain Velasquez. The UFC responded in a way that couldn’t have made more sense. The weakened card was pulled off pay-per-view and moved to Fox Sports 1, where Johny Hendricks vs. Stephen Thompson represents an intriguing television headliner. Fans in Las Vegas will still get to see the card, and fans at home won’t be asked to pay $60-$70 for it. The UFC, meanwhile, renumbered its events so that it can make up pay-per-view revenue in May, when a PPV-worthy card is ready. It’s a win-win decision all around, perfectly logical on every level.

That’s why it’s so strange that this decision goes against pretty much all past UFC precedent in handling situations like this. The UFC has long emphasized the necessity of going through with scheduled pay-per-views if at all possible. It has led to some of the promotion’s all-time weakest events, including UFC 161 (Dan Henderson vs. Rashad Evans when both were coming off losses) and UFC 177 (T.J. Dillashaw vs. Joe Soto in the latter’s UFC debut). The running of substandard pay-per-views is not only bad for fans but bad for the UFC, as well, because it has led over time to many more fans picking and choosing rather than reflexively ordering every event like was the pattern for many more UFC consumers a decade ago.

The few times that the UFC did not have something it could justify as a pay-per-view event, the shows were completely cancelled rather than run on television or postponed (UFC 151 and 176). Stranger still, rather than renumbering events so that UFC 151 would follow UFC 150 on pay-per-view, the UFC decided that UFC 151 and UFC 176 would simply not exist. UFC 150 would be followed on pay-per-view by UFC 152. The decision felt punitive initially -- a way to remind fans what Jon Jones had done, according to the UFC narrative. That then became precedent and was repeated for 176. With UFC 196, the UFC has reversed course and hopefully brought to an end ghost cards that will forever float in the ether, neither fully existing nor vanishing.

That’s not to say UFC will never return to ghost cards. The UFC had a powerful incentive to renumber this time around. With UFC 200 approaching, the promotion elected originally not to run a pay-per-view in May to time UFC 200 for July. Now, the UFC can run that extra event but only via renumbering. Next time, the UFC may choose differently, but at least the positive precedent is there.

Likewise, it may not be possible next time around to schedule an event on short notice for Fox Sports 1. The time of year is extremely important for scheduling on a sports network. FS1 is almost always at least partially free on the evening of UFC pay-per-views because it hosts the prelims, but some nights are going to be more available for last minute switches than others. There’s also the consideration of dealing with the pay-per-view providers, but the UFC has tremendous leverage with those providers already, as it makes up a larger and larger percentage of overall PPV revenue.

Additionally, there is an important new factor when considering the movement of severely compromised pay-per-view cards to another platform. That is the increased promotional emphasis on building up UFC Fight Pass. The UFC has made a concerted effort to increase subscriptions to Fight Pass, adding higher-profile prelims like Joseph Duffy vs. Dustin Poirier to the service and even more notably scheduling Anderson Silva vs. Michael Bisping for Fight Pass.

Silva vs. Bisping on pay-per-view would do better than a number of the main events on UFC pay-per-views last year. If UFC is willing to put a fight like that on Fight Pass, surely it can do so with the much weaker main events left behind when cards completely fall apart. Fight Pass has an added benefit: It presents no scheduling conflicts whatsoever. The UFC could theoretically put a card on Fight Pass with just a few hours’ notice if needed.

The UFC as a business shouldn’t be expected to lose money in the name of acting in a benevolent manner. However, moving severely weakened cards to Fight Pass or FS1 would in time pay dividends financially. Fight Pass subscriptions go up. Pay-per-view does better over time when there are fewer cards that make PPV feel unimportant. What’s lost financially is merely the pay-per-view revenue that would be generated for the very weakest cards, which hurt business for other mid- and low-level shows moving forward. Fan loyalty goes up. Fighters don’t have to reschedule the bouts for which they have trained. It’s the altogether sensible course of action, and the UFC’s decision to do so this weekend makes it more likely it will do so again in the future.

Ultimately, the UFC may view this weekend’s switch as a unique circumstance brought on specifically by the timing of UFC 200 this summer. Hopefully, that isn’t the case. Establishing this as the new normal course for the sporadic cursed pay-per-view card would be a positive new direction, whether stumbled upon by accident or carefully planned out in advance.