By James Wells and Gifford Lee
UFC 193 held in Melbourne last Sunday has set a new record for Fox Sports Venues and Foxtel For Business with the bout which saw an upset loss by Ronda Rousey to Holly Holm lifting sales for the Pay Per View event by over 50 per cent.
UFC fans queue to get into The Sporting Globe in Richmond
According to Fox Sports Venues national pay-per-view manager, Japhy Duldig, several venues were inundated by people arriving at their pubs and clubs on the Sunday resulting in the call centres overflowing with orders for UFC 193 just hours before it began.
“UFC 193 was the biggest UFC event ever for Fox Sports Venues and Foxtel for Business licensed venues. We can confirm a record number of venues subscribed to this UFC event – which is more than 50 per cent higher than the previous record,” Duldig said.
“Our feedback is that there were plenty of packed pubs and clubs last Sunday full of passionate and well-behaved fans. Subscribing venues received over five hours of content with preliminary bouts leading into the main card headlined by UFC superstar Ronda Rousey.”
“Despite the upset win by Holly Holm, this has resulted in even more post-match interest and a potential re-match in 2016. This now leads into the huge UFC 194 – Aldo v McGregor event – to be held on Sunday 13 December. This demonstrates that UFC is the perfect sport to drive Sunday revenues in venues.”
Sean Kagan, venue manager for The Sporting Globe in Richmond, Victoria, said he didn’t think the strong support for UFC 193 was only because the event was staged in Melbourne, but rather due to the ever-increasing popularity of the sport.
“UFC 193 was the biggest UFC event we’ve ever experienced. Our capacity is 460 and we were full with a line out front that wound itself around the corner. We invested a lot of marketing into this event but it really paid off. Everyone had a ripper of a day across all of our Sporting Globe venues.”
“I think it’s more of an indicator of what to expect in the future. UFC has grown (at The Sporting Globe Richmond) with every single fight we’ve hosted and the next one – UFC 194 with the hugely popular Irishman Conor McGregor – we expect to be bigger again.”