In today’s market climate, it is a near given that when Vince McMahon fields questions about WWE’s business, he will be forced to address the role of UFC as a competitor.<\/p>\n
And just as inevitable as that question is, so too is his response that the mixed martial arts promotion is in a different business. WWE, he contends, is an entertainment series, while UFC is a sport.<\/p>\n
Occasionally, however, he will deliver an offensive strike against the state of UFC’s business. That was the case in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter.<\/p>\n
“We’re in show business, they are a sport. Their ratings are abysmal. They are in the pay-per-view business, and they do reasonably well there. We just set a record for WrestleMania. We had 1.3 million buys for this year’s WrestleMania, and our pay-per-view numbers for our shows have been up 30 percent since then. So, we are looking pretty good,” noted Vince McMahon.<\/p>\n
When it comes to ratings, McMahon is supported by clear evidence. His organization’s “Friday Night SmackDown!” dominated UFC’s “The Ultimate Fighter” in both total viewers and the adults 18-49 demo each week this past\/winter spring, and the company’s flagship WWE RAW does even bigger numbers.<\/p>\n
RAW, in fact, regularly draws more viewers than the average for all of UFC’s primetime FOX specials. Its typical adults 18-49 rating greatly exceeds that drawn by the most recent “Diaz vs. Miller” FOX card.<\/p>\n
When it comes to pay-per-views, however, one can argue UFC does more than “reasonably well” in comparison to WWE. Though its numbers have trailed off from their peak, even the ultra-low-profile UFC shows tend to outperform all but the biggest WWE events in domestic PPV buys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"adace-sponsor":[],"yoast_head":"\n