The UFC launched Fight Pass at the beginning of the year and the pay wall went up for the service on March 1st with a month subscription costing $9.99.
When the service was initially announced at the end of 2012, UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta called Fight Pass, Netflix for the fight fan.
Initially, Fight Pass was supposed to be a way for fans to be able to watch the entire Zuffa library but it has evolved with live fights and recently added Invicta Fighting Championships.
Since the digital network went live, UFC President Dana White has called the service a “home run,” among over things. During a media scrum in Vancouver on Friday, White talked to the attending media about Fight Pass and discussed the negativity that Fight Pass has received by some of the MMA fans.
“Fight Pass has exceeded our expectations and the world is a very big place,” White said. “So you have 50, 60, 100, 200, 300, maybe 2000 people or whatever the number is that don’t like it, there are [expletive] billions of people all over the world that do. Fight Pass has been incredible successful and it’s the future. There has never been anything that we’ve done that’s had more negativity than Fight Pass and it’s an absolute home run.”
Every time that White talks about Fight Pass with the media, he always gets asked about how many subscribers the network has. Once again, he was asked about the subscriber base for Fight Pass and while he would not give an exact number, he stated that Fight Pass has big numbers.
“Big numbers, good numbers, fun numbers. Numbers that are so good that we are going out and putting Invicta on and we are acquiring other content, and all of these other things that we are going to make Fight Pass even bigger and better,” White explained. “We are just not doing that because this thing is — chugging along and it might work. It’s working.”
White did admit that he knows there are subscribers that will jump in and out of the digital network depending on when live fights take place on the network. The UFC wants to find ways to get people to maintain their subscription to the network and White said that his team has been working on different payment options including a twelve month plan.
“What we are going to do is — it’s like how DIRECT TV, you can buy stuff in bulk or you can jump in and pay month to month. We are going to start having tons of different payment options.”
Could a possible payment option in the future be buy twelve months and get a UFC pay-per-view for free? While White would not give specifics on what they are looking to do with different payment options, he did talk about how they are looking at offer one or two year plans that would be cheaper for the consumer.
“I am sure they are considering lots of things,” White said. “Marshall Zelaznik is running Fight Pass. Marshall is working on this thing 24-7 and the last meeting that I was in, they are coming up with a whole different pay structure where you can go $10 a month, you can pay for the year and get it cheaper, you can pay for two years and get it cheaper. The whole thing is a work in progress. They are obviously surveying and doing all of the things they need to do.We are basically building a network and you have to have a ton of different options for people.”
“Like I said, the people who jump in and buy the fights and jump out, what kind of deal can we cut to keep them in year long, keep them in the whole time? People who are kind of on the fringe and wondering, what kind of deal can we cut with them to make them interested in doing it? They want to create a bunch of different options and like I said, this thing is going to be a total work in progress for the next several years or as long as the thing exist.”
Following White’s comments to the media, TheMMAReport.com reached out to the UFC on the longer term payment options that are available for Fight Pass. Currently, subscribers can pay $9.99 a month for a month to month subscription but there are also two other payment options currently available as subscribers can purchase six or twelve month subscriptions.
The six month subscription runs at $8.99 a month, while the twelve month subscription is $7.99 a month. According to a UFC official, if you are currently a month to month subscriber and want to take advantage of the deal they are offering for six or twelve months, all you need to do is cancel your month to month subscriptions and sign up for either a six or twelve month subscription.
The UFC continues to add content to Fight Pass and that will continue this week as on Thursday they will premiere “Frank Mir: Fightography.” This feature will take you back throughout the UFC career of Mir and highlight all of his fights in the promotion, including his submission win at UFC 48 to become the UFC heavyweight champion.