Earlier this week, Dave Feldman had some good news about his latest event and the pay-per-view numbers it drew. At BKFC 6, Artem Lobov took on Paulie Malignaggi which generated a ton of interest, and Feldman had a high estimate for the card.
“We got our digital numbers right away,” Feldman told MMA Junkie. “In April, we did a certain amount, and in June, we did six times that digitally. It’s given us a gauge that we’re going to end up at the 200,000 line.”
Yet, it was not even close to 200,000 or even 20,000 according to pay-per-view expert Dave Meltzer. He reports on MMA Fighting that BKFC 6 did 18,000 PPV buys, a big difference between the 200,000 Feldman estimated.
Melzter goes on to say the estimate was greatly exaggerated and goes on to say:
“Based on industry estimates, the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championships look to have done in the range of 18,000 buys on traditional television pay-per-view. Digital numbers for FITE TV are unavailable, but it is extremely rare that a pay-per-view event that airs on television does nearly the same number on digital. The BKFC show is believed to have done well based on the standards of a FITE TV broadcast, but unless it’s a giant UFC or boxing event, doing even 25,000 buys on Internet pay-per-view is a rarity,” he says.
Obviously it a huge disappointment for BKFC as they were putting on their biggest card and fight of their history. And, it did not deliver on pay-per-view numbers.
