Deontay Wilder vs. Robert Helenius was always going to be a hard sell at $74.99, and it looks like the marketing engines behind it weren’t quite up to snuff. Dan Rafael reports that the pay-per-view generated around 75,000 buys, beating out last month’s Andy Ruiz Jr vs Luis Ortiz show by ~10k.
As Rafael points out, the show was kinda doomed from the start. Even putting aside that viewers paid the price of a current-generation AAA video game for less than three minutes of action, it went head-to-head with Devin Haney vs George Kambosos Jr 2 and assorted college football games. It’s a shame, because it did produce a pair of terrific knockouts.
That said, one would hope that this would get the powers-that-be to reconsider their broadcast structure. Not to sound like a whiny consumer who wants everything for free, but the sheer glut of pay-per-views creates a genuine barrier to entry for fans that want to keep up with the sport. Say what you will about how the UFC operates (no, seriously, please do. White and his fellow assholes deserve it), saving PPV for the major events and putting the rest on either free television or a subscription service makes it easy to follow fighters’ development and develop organic fandom.
Hell, at least lower the price. $75 for one or two good fights ain’t it.