UFC Fight Pass was met with a lot of skepticism and frustration as fans lamented having to spend an additional $10 per month to catch the fights that would be broadcast on the new subscription-based digital platform.
Sunday brought the initial month with Fight Pass as a paid part of our lives to a close, and looking back fans who shelled out for the subscription service have to unanimously agree that the returns in March made it a worthwhile venture.
Combing through the two events that were exclusive to the digital platform and the handful of additional preliminary card fights that kicked off shows, here’s a 13-bout amalgamation of the best action that aired on Fight Pass over the last 24 days:
Main Card
Alexander Gustafsson vs. Jimi Manuwa
Dong Hyun Kim vs. John Hathaway
Brad Pickett vs. Neil Seery
Matt Mitrione vs. Shawn Jordan
Gunnar Nelson vs. Omari Ahkmedov
Preliminary Card
Luke Barnatt vs. Mats Nilsson
Vaughan Lee vs. Nam Phan
Yui Chul Nam vs. Kazuke Tokudome
Ilir Latifi vs. Cyrille Diabate
Louis Gaudinot vs. Phil Harris
Justin Scoggins vs. Will Campuzano
Sean Strickland vs. Bubba McDaniel
Godofredo Pepey vs. Noad Lahat
That collection produced two of the best knockouts of the year thus far (Kim, Pepey), a pair of entertaining back-and-forth scraps (Nam/Tokudome and Pickett/Seery) and served as a platform for a throng of emerging talents who more people should be watching.
Additionally, that cut-and-paste fight card above doesn’t include bouts like Michael Johnson’s lukewarm win over Melvin Guillard or Hatsu Hioki’s victory over Ivan Menjivar either. Add those contests in and you’ve got 15 fights that delivered in one form or another. Even the staunchest critic of Fight Pass has to admit that’s a pretty decent return on a $10 investment.
And watching live fights isn’t the only piece of the Fight Pass puzzle either. Along with the collection of fights detailed above, it also offers quick access to replays of all the fights broadcast exclusively on the platform, as well as bouts from televised events.
Want to watch Dan Henderson’s dramatic finish of Shogun Rua from Sunday repeatedly? You can, in addition to catching complete replays of the two Fight Pass events and the other bouts from Sunday’s card in Natal, Brazil.
While there are certainly still some kinks to be worked out and the archive is not yet complete, this is a pretty solid start for a project that feels like it was rushed to market before it was 100 percent ready to roll.
Will the month ahead produce the same kind of quality returns? Probably not, but mostly because while there were two events exclusive to Fight Pass in March, April will only feature one full fight card and a handful of preliminary card fights.
But it’s not like the April 11 fight card from Abu Dhabi is devoid of interesting matchups and you’re shelling out big bucks for what is being offered in the month ahead. Even if there aren’t any bouts added to Fight Pass from the three events scheduled from the middle of the month on, that’s still only a dollar per fight for the month.
That may not sound worth it for Jim Alers versus Alan Omer (although Alers is a nice prospect), but a heavyweight battle between Minotauro Nogueira and Roy Nelson has got to be at least a $2 fight, if not more, and the rest of the main card contests are all solid $1 matchups.
I understand the “It’s getting expensive to be a fight fan” backlash, as you’re looking at $70 plus the cost of cable to have access to all the events the UFC holds in a given month. Personally, my cable bill (including the sports package required to watch televised UFC events) runs me $50 a month, so my monthly UFC costs equal $120.
Here’s what I got for that $120 outlay in the month of March: Four events and 41 fights, including a back-and-forth championship bout, Henderson’s third-round knockout of Rua, and even more emerging talents making names for themselves on television, plus the previously discussed Fight Pass goodness.
On average, that’s $30 per event, which isn’t bad for five hours of entertainment once a week and the ability to go back and watch many of those bouts again right away.
You can’t go out for a nice dinner (read: table service, not takeaway) for less than $50 and a trip to the movies is $13 per head — if you’re not springing for snacks — for less than three hours of entertainment, and you don’t get to go home and re-watch the film once you leave the theatre.
And really, cable is a sunk cost many of us are paying already, so the truly pricey expenditure is the monthly pay-per-view offering, which can (theoretically) be offset amongst friends or recouped through the beverages and munchies your house guests bring over when they come to watch the fights.
Or you can find an establishment in your area showing the event, nurse a pint or two for 10-15 bucks, and listen to the know-it-all dudebro in the stretched out Affliction shirt prattle on about how “Diego Sanchez is going to murder Myles Jury” and how he “trains UFC” all night long.
Bottom line: entertainment rarely comes for free, but the return on investment from the UFC over the last 24 days has been pretty solid, and my guess is that’s going to remain the case more often than naught in the months ahead.