WWE DOMESTIC PPV AVERAGES

2007: 204,000

2008: 226,000

2009: 185,000

2010: 158,000

2011: 171,000

2012: 200,000

This is a little misleading because in running fewer shows, the big three make the average go up.

NON-MANIA AVERAGE

2007: 160,000

2008: 189,000

2009: 155,000

2010: 129,500

2011: 127,600

2012: 153,000

This still has the same thing, in the sense with fewer shows, the value of SummerSlam and Royal Rumble increase on average, but there was a significant turnaround in PPV business over the bottoming out 2010 and 2011 period. Some of the increase was Brock Lesnar’s two shows, but most rank-and-file shows this past year were up. The only shows down from last year were Elimination Chamber, Money in the Bank (which figured to be), Night of Champions and Survivor Series (which also figured to e). It’s not quite as close to 2009 levels as this chart would indicate, and Brock Lesnar being on two shows is a factor, but there is still a legitimate upswing.

So we have a situation where PPV did increase for both UFC and WWE over the past year while ratings for both groups declined. As far as live attendance went, UFC was up because of going to new markets. WWE was down significantly as far as shows that drew 10,000 fans or more both home and abroad, but as far as overall attendance, they had months that were up and months that were down. Overall they were down the first two quarters, up the third quarter, and down so far in the fourth quarter, but the variations are fairly minimal.

Where UFC had big declines is TV ratings moving from Spike to FX. UFC averaged a 1.73 rating for live shows on Spike in 2009, 1.26 in 2010, 1.37 in 2011 and a 0.91 this year on FX, or a drop of 33.6%.

Strikeforce averaged a 1.23 rating on Showtime this year, a drop of 16.3%. The 2009 rating was 1.40, bolstered by Carano vs. Cyborg. The 2010 rating averaged a 1.30 and the 2011 rating averaged a record 1.47 due to Fedor Emelianenko’s fights with Antonio Silva and Dan Henderson, plus good ratings drawn by Alistair Overeem, Nick Diaz and Herschel Walker. This year you had no big attraction except for Ronda Rousey, and her undercards were a million times worse than those in previous years.

The UFC on FOX shows averaged a 2.00 rating. There is nothing to compare them with at this point.