Friday, December 21, 2012

Invicta FC lying to themselves by running iPPV

A couple of days ago, Invicta FC announced that their Jan. 4 show will be on iPPV for $7.98. Right off the top, I'll state that I'm not buying it. And I think that will be true of most folks. There are several reasons for this but a lot of folks still won't buy anything over the internet. They don't trust it. When Invicta first started, I predicted they would not survive without a TV deal. This particular move seems very desperate and shows that the end may be near. The biggest problem is that iPPV is not and should not be a primary revenue generator. The only other revenue that Invicta gets is from the live gate and maybe some small sponsorships. Clearly it's not enough. It's well known they operate on a shoestring budget. There are other issues of course. The one company that has any kind of iPPV track record is Ring Of Honor pro wrestling. They've been doing them over the last year. They have had serious technical issues that have improved recently and they just signed with a new provider. But a recent iPPV only drew 1,500 buys. ROH has a significant rabid fanbase built up over ten years and they can't draw decent iPPV numbers. Fortunately, ROH doesn't depend on iPPV. They are owned by Sinclair Broadcasting and have weekly TV. And they have sold DVDs since 2002. Invicta doesn't have anything near that track record. Considering the stream problems they had with the first three shows, what happens if they have stream problems again and they have to issue refunds like ROH did in the spring. So why are they doing this? After the first show, they announced an online viewership figure of 230K. That figure was unfiltered. How many of those 230K got kicked off the stream several times? I was kicked off three times. How many of those 230K stayed for minutes as opposed to hours? And don't forget cable companies change user IP addresses routinely. So no one really knows what the filtered figure is. This is what they're hanging their hat on. It's a house of cards. The other thing is if Invicta has been offered TV as they claim, it makes no financial sense to do an iPPV instead. It doesn't add up. Even live streaming guru Brian Makas doesn't like it. He believes Invicta doesn't have the infrastructure to do iPPV. They don't even have a mailing list to remind fans to tune in. He says they need to have TV first. That's what I have said since they started. There are other things. Nobody with sense announces an iPPV less than three weeks before the show. And they are trying to do this over Christmas. It's also very difficult to get people to pay for something after it's been offered for free. They're trying to get that genie back in the bottle. This is likely to be a major train wreck. And if it doesn't put Invicta out of business, maybe it will smarten them up. The whole thing seems very desperate.

2 comments:

  1. I'll buy it. It's less than $8. I spend that on coffee at Starbucks.

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  2. The price is not relevant. A lot of people won't pay any amount of money for anything over the internet. These are the same people who download music illegally and don't believe they are doing anything wrong. It's a crime.

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