UnderGround Forum >> ESPN UK Possibly leaving UK market

I already have Sky, I have to pay extra for ESPN to watch the UFC, whereas I wouldnt pay for it if not for the UFC. That explains my reason for hoping it moves to Sky Sports.  PPV will never take off in the UK imo, so I dont fear it being PPV.

DOMINANTDAN#1FAN - 

I already have Sky, I have to pay extra for ESPN to watch the UFC, whereas I wouldnt pay for it if not for the UFC. That explains my reason for hoping it moves to Sky Sports.  PPV will never take off in the UK imo, so I dont fear it being PPV.

how much are you paying for  the sky sports sub?

I think its £21 a month for Sky Sports on its own.  My bill doesnt break it down, it just says what I pay:

Bisping=Gatekeeper4Life -  Good breakdown DomDan, it is 21 per month for Sky Sports.

The majority of people would end up paying less for their subscriptions if UFC went on Sky Sports or Fox. The only people who would pay more is freeview customers or non Sky Sports customers. There aren't to many of them, only the hardcores and TBH there aren't to many of them either. Most UFC fans in the UK also watch other Sports like DomDan and already have Sky Sports.

I realise we don't want PPV but that ain't gonna happen for at least a couple of years. If it did go PPV then at least we would get to see some quality cards over here. Also, Sky are going back into boxing PPV so at the most we would get 3 or 4 PPV per year or the market would become over saturated. If it went on Sky Sports or Fox I feel it would benefit the UK.

Yup, I'm hanging on Sky's nutts but I work for them so I get to.

Bisping=Gatekeeper4Life - Good breakdown DomDan, it is 21 per month for Sky Sports.

The majority of people would end up paying less for their subscriptions if UFC went on Sky Sports or Fox. The only people who would pay more is freeview customers or non Sky Sports customers. There aren't to many of them, only the hardcores and TBH there aren't to many of them either. Most UFC fans in the UK also watch other Sports like DomDan and already have Sky Sports.

I realise we don't want PPV but that ain't gonna happen for at least a couple of years. If it did go PPV then at least we would get to see some quality cards over here. Also, Sky are going back into boxing PPV so at the most we would get 3 or 4 PPV per year or the market would become over saturated. If it went on Sky Sports or Fox I feel it would benefit the UK.

Yup, I'm hanging on Sky's nutts but I work for them so I get to.

Outlaw'd by Lytle -

Bisping=Gatekeeper4Life - Good breakdown DomDan, it is 21 per month for Sky Sports.

The majority of people would end up paying less for their subscriptions if UFC went on Sky Sports or Fox. The only people who would pay more is freeview customers or non Sky Sports customers. There aren't to many of them, only the hardcores and TBH there aren't to many of them either. Most UFC fans in the UK also watch other Sports like DomDan and already have Sky Sports.

I realise we don't want PPV but that ain't gonna happen for at least a couple of years. If it did go PPV then at least we would get to see some quality cards over here. Also, Sky are going back into boxing PPV so at the most we would get 3 or 4 PPV per year or the market would become over saturated. If it went on Sky Sports or Fox I feel it would benefit the UK.

Yup, I'm hanging on Sky's nutts but I work for them so I get to.

Agreed, I'd say the ESPN subscription so would be delighted.

SKY are the best at covering any sport they commit to. That is beyond doubt.

They completely revamped other fringe sports like Snooker and Darts. The transformation was quite staggering with regards to Darts.

They could do wonders with a product like The UFC.

DOMINANTDAN#1FAN - 

3rdLion -

DOMINANTDAN#1FAN - 

El Toro UK -

Bisping=Gatekeeper4Life -

El Toro UK - 

NorthernIrishZombie -

I love how positive Dana is sounding about getting a TV deal done this week and the idea of having 4-5 events every year around the same date would be tremendous.

Yeah they must want nail a tv agreement if Lorenzo is flying specially

Watched both parts there guys. As you say El Toro, looks promising and with Lorenzo flying in, they must mean business. I really hope they can pull this off. 

Also positive news about their intentions to do annual live events in each of the capitals in our region.

Capitals in our region? As in London, Dublin, Edinburgh, Belfast? Hope that's not true, North shafted as usual.

Hope it's not true.

There's an arena just built in Leeds that holds 13.5k, it'd be perfect for a FUEL or FX up north (and convenient for me)!

Id be happy with Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, just anywhere in the North instead of everything being daan Saaf.

It'll never get the necessary promotion siiting on FX(Fox) in with re-runs of Family Guy and American Dad.  Getting the content on Sky Sports would be more beneficial in the long run by increasing viewership and legitimising the sport. The lack of acceptance of MMA as a legitimate sport is the biggest problem in the UK.  Even ESPN was progress from Bravo, but FX(Fox) is a backwards step for short term gain over longterm benefits.

^ Fropenis = Southern Fairy

Tartan warrior - 

Bisping=Gatekeeper4Life -  Good breakdown DomDan, it is 21 per month for Sky Sports.

The majority of people would end up paying less for their subscriptions if UFC went on Sky Sports or Fox. The only people who would pay more is freeview customers or non Sky Sports customers. There aren't to many of them, only the hardcores and TBH there aren't to many of them either. Most UFC fans in the UK also watch other Sports like DomDan and already have Sky Sports.

I realise we don't want PPV but that ain't gonna happen for at least a couple of years. If it did go PPV then at least we would get to see some quality cards over here. Also, Sky are going back into boxing PPV so at the most we would get 3 or 4 PPV per year or the market would become over saturated. If it went on Sky Sports or Fox I feel it would benefit the UK.

Yup, I'm hanging on Sky's nutts but I work for them so I get to.

I disagree on your point about the move to PPV providing better cards. You are forgetting that there are time differences between usa/canada and the uk/europe. The vast majority of ppv money will always come from the north american market. The uk/europe market will never produce enough income for the ufc to bring in big name fighters even if they did move to ppv. For a start it would be the same as now with the big names refusing to fight here because they'd earn less of a ppv cut.

Sky is not and will never be a good move for any sport. Sky is a monopoly when it comes to sport in the uk and that is not a good thing especially for a sport that cant compete against the big sports over here.

All this talk about better coverage and sky sports news coverage is fantasy talk. Sky is driven by subscribers and ad revenue. Big companies that want to be associated with football, rugby, golf etc dont want to be anywhere mma which is still seen as cage fighting. And the vast majority of subscribers wont even watch because of the 3am start times. Even repeats wont be on at decent times because of the sports that already have good time slots being the cash cows for sky.

The ufc and mma in general needs a channel that will prioritise the product and sky sports is not that platform. I'd honestly be surprised if sky take the ufc on. I just dont see it happening...

If the sport was to go PPV in the UK they would have to give us better cards than what we have been getting.

I agree with Outlaw'd by Lytle that when Sky promote a Sport they are capable of taking it to the next level. He also mentioned that Dana should think about taking a shitty short term deal to begin with and when the sport grows go for a better deal. Excellent idea IMHO. I  can certainly undersatnd why Zuffa don't want to give away the product for Free though.

The talk about Sky Sports News isn't fantasy, they have already had mentions on Sky Sports News. This happened when FX showed the TUF Finale. Sky also have a dedicated page on their Sports website for UFC.  I have mentioned the coverage is poor but it wouldn't take much to improve that.  If Sky put more in, then the Sport would grow, there is no doubt about that. 

We know Sky is driven by subscriptions, I mentioned this a few days ago:

UFC doesn't need a dedicated channel to prioritise them, they need to be better promoted and Sky could do that. I would be happy if they went on Fox though. I just don't want them on Primetime or some obscure channel that will harm the growth of the sport.

Looks like they are going to end up on some other shit channel like FX, which will do nothing for them in the UK.  Sky Sports is pretty much the only route they can go and always has been, Sky know this and will strongarm Zuffa, Zuffa on the other hand are pretty stubborn so they will try to do something else like they have done all along in the UK market, but it simply won't work to their favour.

john joe - its Sky ; stay tuned

john joe - its Sky ; stay tuned

john joe - its Sky ; stay tuned

Bofbro -

john joe - its Sky ; stay tuned

Match of the day then bed looks close on a Saturday night for me then.

Bisping=Gatekeeper4Life - 

Bofbro -

john joe - its Sky ; stay tuned

Match of the day then bed looks close on a Saturday night for me then.

How come mate, don't you have Sky or Virgin?

Bisping=Gatekeeper4Life -  But you will be giving Virgin your money.

You get all Sky's content on Virgin. If you don't have Sports already surely it will only cost a max 20 pounds per month. Well worth it for excellent UFC coverage.

Bofbro - It was an lnb problem on the dish that was on my building when i moved in, they did not even installed a fresh dish when i joined them, but charged an installation fee.
And then wanted to charge to replace the lnb,the cheeky Cads.