Spike Executive: Bellator NYC was the ‘first of many’ PPV events we’ll be running
Expect to see more pay-per-view events from Bellator MMA, but not monthly like the UFC.
On Saturday night, Bellator MMA staged its second pay-per-view event in company history, and its first one under Scott Coker. The Bellator MMA president spoke with media in the post-fight press conference about the promotion’s plans for future PPVs. (Via MMA Fighting)
"I think we were trending all night, we were No. 1 on Twitter all night," Coker said. "This night had a lot of heat and was promoted extremely well. This was our first one, so we're excited to come back and do a pay-per-view maybe the beginning of next year and keep going. We're not going to just do it every month, but when we do this, there will be mega fights and big events just like this."
Coker announced an attendance of 12,133, but didn’t have an official gate number. Madison Square Garden typically seats 20,562, although the arena set-up (especially the stages) resulted in some section being blocked off. As far as a buyrate for Bellator NYC, Coker had this to say a couple of weeks before fight night.
"When you say expectations, it's something I think we're going to feel. To me, any [buy rate] in the mid-200,000’s would be respectable. And anything in the 300,000’s would be considered a big hit.”
Bellator 120: Rampage vs. King Mo in 2013 was the promotion’s PPV debut, and it cleared 100,000 buys. If Bellator NYC met Coker’s goals, it’d be the highest North American buyrate for any non-Zuffa PPV in MMA history.
Spike executive Jon Slusser, who was also present at the press conference, also confirmed Bellator’s PPV plans for the long-term.
"This is a new line of business, our pay-per-view business" said Jon Slusser, the senior vice president of sports at Spike TV. "This is the first of many we'll be doing with all of our cable partners and pay-per-view partners in the U.S. and all over the world."
So while Bellator MMA is still very much a Spike product, the MMA pay-per-view market just got a little more crowded.