UFC 200 is one of the most stacked fight cards in the history of the promotion. On paper, it seems like a lock to break the coveted ceiling of one million pay-per-view buys, making it a resounding success and qualified money-maker for an organization that may or may not be in the midst of a $4.2 billion sale.
The light heavyweight grudge match between Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier—a rematch of one of 2015's biggest fights—headlines the July 9 card. Miesha Tate looks to capitalize on her star turn after defeating Holly Holm by defending her bantamweight title against Amanda Nunes. Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar will meet for a second time with the interim featherweight belt on the line.
The card's biggest name is unquestionably that of Brock Lesnar, the former UFC heavyweight champion and current WWE signee who drew the biggest box office numbers in MMA history.
And yet UFC 200 is still missing something. To be specific, the year's most important event is missing the UFC's biggest name, most proven draw and most charismatic personality.
UFC 200 is missing Conor McGregor.
This isn't to say that UFC 200, as currently constructed, isn't worth the viewer's time or money. It absolutely is, by any reasonable standard to which one of the promotion's pay-per-view events could reasonably be held.
But there's no replacing McGregor. Love him or hate him, everybody—hardcore MMA fans, casual sports fans, ESPN viewers and the everyday person on the street—has an opinion about the motor-mouthed Irishman. That kind of reach can't be matched no matter who else the UFC were to put on the card, except perhaps Ronda Rousey.
The rematch between Nate Diaz and McGregor was initially slated as the UFC 200 main event. Seeking to exercise some of his hard-won leverage in April, McGregor tweeted that he was retiring rather than give in to the UFC's demands to fly to Stockton, California, for a press conference, which ignited a feverish battle between the UFC and its biggest, loudest draw.
Weeks of back-and-forth followed, with the UFC pulling McGregor-Diaz from its headlining spot. The promotion replaced it with Jones-Cormier 2 after Jones captured an interim light heavyweight title against Ovince Saint Preux at UFC 193. McGregor's removal forced the promotion to add Lesnar, and it's a safe bet that his financial demands, in addition to those of Jones and Cormier, were steep.
When ESPN's Hannah Storm (h/t BJPenn.com) asked how much he would be making, Lesnar replied:
I can’t disclose, but there are lots of zeros behind it. I can’t disclose that, why would I want to? I am not here to brag about that. I am here to state that I’m a prize fighter and everybody is making money.
Those are the words of a man whose time is worth an enormous sum of money.
UFC 200 is almost certain to be a success. Jones and Cormier drew around 800,000 PPV buys for their first meeting, per Dave Meltzer of MMAFighting.com. Again per Meltzer via MMAPayout.com, no card with Lesnar ever sold fewer than 535,000 units, and he topped the one-million mark three times as a headliner. UFC 100, which had both Lesnar and Georges St-Pierre, was the biggest event in UFC history with a reported 1.6 million sold.
Whether Lesnar still has that drawing power after more than four years away from MMA is an open question, especially since the WWE's regular audience now receives what had formerly been individual PPV events as part of its subscription WWE Network.
One of Lesnar's great benefits as a UFC champion was a crossover audience habituated to paying for his individual performances, and that doesn't really exist anymore. That audience now pays a monthly fee and watches Lesnar as it pleases, and no longer has to fork over a chunk of cash to do so.
However, that's the pessimist's view. The optimist would say, with good reason, that Lesnar still has a huge name and crossover appeal. More than 175,000 people read Bleacher Report's article on the announcement of his return, for example. While it's harder to quantify raw buzz, the excitement factor certainly seems to exist.
Lesnar brought a huge audience to MMA during his first run, and some portion of that audience will certainly return with him again. Whether that's enough to sell another 1.6 million units is possible, but doubtful.
The combination of Jones-Cormier 2, Lesnar and the rising Tate, who is on the cusp of stardom in her own right, will make UFC 200 a success by any reasonable standard. Without McGregor, however, the UFC will have to spend more money to achieve the same result.
McGregor is a celebrity. He's a magnet for the kinds of TV, print and online outlets that constitute access to the mainstream of American culture. In the lead-up to UFC 194, for example, he appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Stories about him have appeared in Esquire and even The Atlantic. He was one of Rolling Stone's 25 sex symbols for 2015.
Those shows and publications reach millions of people outside the MMA bubble. Like Rousey, McGregor is an easy sell for the UFC's public relations department; outlets with this kind of penetration into the cultural mainstream are worth millions of dollars in what amounts to free advertising.
Jones, Cormier, Tate and even Lesnar simply don't have this kind of appeal.
Lesnar announced that he'd be facing Mark Hunt at UFC 200 on SportsCenter, and that was a slick bit of placement by the UFC and Lesnar's advocate, Paul Heyman. But Heyman understands that with Lesnar, less media is more.
"He just doesn't give a damn about publicity," Heyman told Bleacher Report last November. "He understands that he has an aura around him and about him, and every word that he says takes away from that aura and mystique. So he's antisocial and reclusive and strategic in the sense that the more he shuts up, the more people want of him."
Lesnar can't work the late-night circuit like McGregor or Rousey. Jones and Cormier haven't shown that kind of mass appeal. That leaves Tate, who recently appeared on Conan to promote her fight with Nunes, and it's a safe bet that the UFC will have her front and center with every possible media outlet leading up to UFC 200.
But Conan isn't Jimmy Kimmel Live! The week McGregor appeared on Kimmel, for example, the show pulled in more than 2 million viewers per episode. The week of June 6 to June 10, the most recent for which ratings were available, Conan had 460,000.
This is what McGregor brings to the table: Access to free advertising for his fights outside the demographics the UFC reaches through its normal channels.
Without McGregor, the UFC will have to spend more money advertising and marketing this card. The promotion has put together an incredible promo for UFC 200, but placing that promo in front of millions of potentially interested viewers costs money. A lot of money.
Per Advertising Age, a 30-second commercial during a primetime TV broadcast costs, on average, $112,000 in 2014. A single spot during a broadcast of The Walking Dead, TV's most expensive show, costs $502,500 in 2015. Ads during live sporting events, precisely the wheelhouse the UFC needs to reach its potential consumers, are the most expensive of all.
Some of those ad spots will be discounted through the UFC's relationship with Fox, but even those still cost money, and the promotion will need to break out of that bubble in order to reach the audience it wants.
While the UFC would have been doing some of these ads anyway in an effort to make UFC 200 part of the cultural conversation, McGregor's celebrity status would have allowed them to get away with less. Without McGregor, the UFC will have to spend, spend and spend some more to achieve the same kind of results.
Despite his hefty contract, McGregor's value to the UFC lies not just in the fact that fans will fork over $60 to watch him fight but that he saves the promotion money on the marketing side as well.
When everything is said and done, UFC 200 will be fine. It's stacked with name value and well-matched fights. The UFC is doing everything it can to make International Fight Week feel like an event, including the addition of a press conference featuring McGregor and Diaz on July 7.
Still, without McGregor the UFC's biggest show is missing its biggest star. With Rousey out indefinitely, McGregor is the only one who could drive UFC 200 into the cultural mainstream without a massive marketing expenditure, and even advertising can't match the value of having a legitimate celebrity atop the card.
No fan can afford to miss UFC 200, but UFC 200 is still missing that something extra.
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