Pride has announced there will be events held in the U.S on the following dates- Feb. 24, end of April, June and October Translated from Post-Fight interviews on PrideFC.com Sakikaraba " For scheudle, Feb 24 Las Vegas "second coming" and in April at Saitama we'll hold Pride 34, and end of April Pride 35 will be held in Las Vegas again, In May Saitama we'll start the LW GP, In June we''re aiming for a show in California. In btwn July and September 2nd round of LW GP, and finals. And in October, Las Vegas and Otoko Matsuri in Dec. Next year GP series, Number Series, World Series will be the theme, as for World Series other than US, we're aiming for Korea, China, Brazil, Europe and Russia." Am I the only one questioning this strategy? I believe their Pride Real Deal event had about 60,000 ppv buys from the U.S which I doubt is much more than they get from the U.S regardless of where the event is held... Plus they are only going to get around 14,000 max to attend in contrast to their 30,000+ attendence at Japan events... I think they are getting drawn into a losing battle, the UFC has essentially sewn up MMA in the U.S similar to Kleenex replacing tissue... What they should do, is focus on Korea, India and China. Macau, China has already surpassed Vegas as the gambling capital of the world and is still growing. Not to mention the 1 billion+ people theree, and from what I know a relatively empty MMA market. Businesses are already scrambling to get a hold of the Chinese market as it is going to surpass the U.S, so why is Pride ignoring them and instead choosing to take on a very well establised company in the States? Then you have India, which also has a billion+ people and a booming economy(just like China). If Pride could conquer these markets like the UFC has conquered the U.S market then they will be in even better shape than the UFC... They are working on South Korea(as their tv deal implies) but they could attack that market harder... They should set up a "Pride China", "Pride India", and "Pride Korea" with lower level fights making up the organizations and putting on the regular events on regular tv. Then have the "big league" fighters star on PPV events, using the "lower leagues" as a developmental league. The up and coming stars will develop fanbases, which will lead to PPV sales and merchandise. If they really want to do something about the U.S, then they should get a tv deal with a TV station like the USA network and show their PPV's on regular tv. It would obviously be better to keep your main events on PPV but if they are only getting 60,000 buys from the U.S at 40$ a pop you are only making 2.5 million..... What are your opinions on Pride's current business strategy? I think they are smacking their heads into a brick wall and ignoring potential gold mines sitting right next to them in their attempts to steal a piece of the U.S market and I really see them continuing to struggle unless they change their strategy(which Sakikiraba seems to be saying they will not do).
Their buisness stratgy is fine, they are looking to expand in the right places. I mean their last US event wasn't a good draw, but they have replaced the people in Pride USA HQ so prehaps thats being adressed. All they need to do is keep expanding in the right places and not loose anymore of their big stars!
Do you really think they can "steal" a good portion of the U.S market? Most casual UFC fans think UFC is MMA... It is a huge uphill struggle to gain exposure in the U.S, meanwhile they are ignoring the huge markets right next to them. I'm not suggesting they completely ignore the U.S, but instead of a U.S based PPV event they should start with a tv show as a means of building popularity.
The US event did pretty good gates for a first event. While the PPV buys weren't huge, it was the 6th biggest selling MMA event ever held in Vegas; not bad gates and with the exchange rate, probably made them quite a nice profit. Dropping by and putting on shows in other markets isn't done for PPV buys, it's done for nice live gates. They may call it "expansion" but it's not, it's simply taking some money from an already-established market (ie, the fans who are already there). Live shows can carry over to increased ratings or PPV buys for other shows, but in and of themselves, shows in other markets don't exist for the PPV buys, they're all about the live gate Pride are making moves into Korea, Macau and China this year, so while they may hit America first, they're far from ignoring those markets; especially Korea where they have a huge live TV deal, have been bringing in fighters and sending their fighters over to do promotional work and beat people up in Korea's shows. MMA is in a nice up-cycle in the US right now and there's a good-sized Pride audience of hardcore MMA fans over there, so putting on shows over there is worth it from a financial perspective. No, they won't overtake the UFC in this particular cycle, if ever (they certainly won't if they don't sack that muppet they had commentating Shockwave and generally get rid of everyone in charge at DSE US), but there's more than enough of a hardcore MMA crowd at the moment for them to get a slice of the pie. No one likes a monopoly anyway, there's always a crowd that wants the same thing but different to everyone else, so it's not inconcievable that the US shows will help out with Pride's PPV buys Stateside
They have said themselves they are not looking to become the No.1 organisation in North America, but they do want to put on shows there. And with the likes of Wandy, Fedor, Gomi and Henderson (just using their "champions" as the main examples) they can take some of the market given the correct marketing. As I already said they are working on better marketing. Haven't they got Cung Le in for PRIDE 33? I mean that makes perfect sense as he has been a good draw for Strikefore (?)..... As Server said also, they are far from ignoring the huge markets next to them.
They cannot make more money from the Gate in the U.S than they make in Japan..I don't have the exact numbers but reportedly Pride brings in at leat 30 thousand fans on average whil in the U.S even the UFC only brings in 14 to 15 thousand... If they are coming after PPV numbers, the 15,000 people who go to the event are not going to make a big difference... They should go after free tv deals worldwide, how many PPV buys do they get from China, India, Russia, UK, France, Brazil etc... I bet they could make a lot more money from those countries if they showed it for free on tv with a simple 1 million/year deal. I think Pride is going to lose all their top fighters unless they can do something magical, they are getting destroyed by the UFC revenue wise and the UFC is just going to keep buying their big fighters.
Well the UFC will buy some of their top stars unless they can get some exposure in the US.....If PRIDE had some exposure in the US then I doubt Cro-Cop would have left, so therefore it isn't all aboiut money just helping get their fighters some exposure.
Doing business in China and India is completely different than doing business in the US. China has issues all it's own when it comes to fights. The government not being the least of them... saving face and national pride play a huge part here in China. They haven't got the best of relationships with the Japanese - so it's no surprise the Japanese aren't coming here right off. Additionally there are preperations underway at the moment for a Chinese based MMA series. Over the last several months there has been a lot of activity in regards to this and over the last year we've had a large number of fight promoters head out this way with interest in the market. As for India - you'd have massive issues to deal with if you wanted to get anything set up in the country. Doing business in India can be tough... I'm sure the Japanese are well clued up to just how tough it can be. All they'd have to do is to ring Pepsi or Coke and find out.
I'm sure it is tough, but we all know money talks... I think it would be easier to give the various governments a piece of the pie(or simply bribe people lol) than it is going to be to break into the U.S market going against the UFC. As to the CHinese national pride, that could easily be exploited...Set up a Chinese "division" with a weekly television show airing 4-5 fights and have the most talented fighters go up to the "big leagues" and fight on the PPV's. There is 1.3 billion Chinese, presumably some of them will be great at MMA and will have a very bright future in whatever organization gets to CHina first
It's not a big leap at all to suspect that a show in America makes more proportionally than a Japan show For a start, you're hiring a much smaller arena: that's a huge slice off your overheads. Add to that, the fact that ticket prices will be up a bit since you're not having to have nosebleeder-cheap seats, the exchange rate and the cards tend to be done a bit on the cheap in that you can fill it with your lower-rent fighters and put two or three of the big names on it rather than fill it with big names and add in PPV/ advertising revenue from the US, Japan, Korea etc and you're not looking too shabby for a cheaper show at all. The fact that in the US, the NSAC pays all officials takes a bit of a chunk off the overheads too. The UFC, for example, put a show on in the UK (UFC38) when they had no TV deal whatsoever and aside from that one which did a weeks rotation on Sky Box Office, they didn't get any TV exposure over here for a good few years. They knew this is how it would go since no TV stations were interested in showing it long-term. It's all about the live gate As for the "UFC getting all the big fighters" thing - Dana White's not as dumb as he makes out. One or two big names, yeah, no worries, they've got the money now, but the suits at Zuffa know that their time in the spotlight's not permanant. They've got a year, eighteen months tops, of where they are now before the mainstream turns on to something else, the new hot thing will come along and take a good chunk of their audience with it. They won't spend the money that all of Pride's top fighters will want because when the down-cycle kicks in, they'll be paying huge contracts for people that far fewer people are watching than when they signed the contract. It's not exactly good business sense. Pride may go down (I don't believe it'll happen, maybe mergers or new management, but as an entity, it'll survive) but most of the top fighters will stay in Japan Still, feel free to email Pride with your business plan, I'm sure they'll be interested
