Ultimate fighting finds its legs after shaky start

The UFC’s emergence as the premier mixed martial arts sport in the country and the show’s popularity have made Liddell and other UFC stars wealthy.

That first fight in 1998 earned him $1,000. Now Liddell makes more than a $1 million a year from UFC bouts and lucrative sponsorships. And he doesn’t fight in podunk towns. His last fight was in Las Vegas in front of 12,000 people.

“I can’t complain,” the 36-year-old Liddell said. “The TV show has helped us grow.”

For Spike, the series brought in serious advertising dollars targeting men between the ages of 18 and 34, the network’s prized demographic. Burger King, the U.S. Army and Taco Bell are among the advertisers.

Kevin Kay, Spike’s general manager, said “Ultimate Fighter” was the network’s highest-rated program and biggest revenue generator.

But like Ratner, Kay worried whether UFC would repel advertising instead of attracting it, given its violent image.

“There was a lot of consternation,” he said. “Is it gonna work? Are advertisers going to run away from it?”

The reality show, along with other UFC programming, has allowed the UFC to create and market its stars, the fighters who will ultimately decide the company’s fortunes. Crowd pleasers such as Chris Leben and Forrest Griffin have become big draws.

“We’ve given them a huge television platform, and we helped them in their pay-per-view fights,” Kay said.

Company executives wouldn’t disclose what kind of audience their pay-per-view fights are generating but they did say recent numbers are at least comparable to World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the WWE had four events that averaged 482,000 pay-per-view buys in the fourth financial quarter of 2006.

However, UFC’s cable ratings lag well behind the WWE broadcasts on USA Network.

White thinks the UFC could generate a million buys one day very soon. Saturday’s rematch between Tito Ortiz and Shamrock, bitter rivals who starred in the latest “Ultimate Fighter,” was expected to tally more than a half million buys the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino in Las Vegas.

For the second time, Ortiz beat Shamrock.

The fight sold out, with ringside seats fetching $750. About 12,400 people attended and tickets generated a $3.5 million gate — a far cry from Zuffa’s first UFC fight in Atlantic City that drew less than 5,000 people, and a $217,150 gate.

While UFC attempts to conquer television, hurdles remain in getting the sport legalized across the country. In New York, the UFC faces a difficult battle; Gov. George Pataki opposes the sport.

The Fertitta brothers have poured millions into the UFC, and they haven’t seen a return on their investment yet.

But the Fertittas aren’t known for their bad bets. They made a fortune with Las Vegas-based Station Casinos Inc., a Wall Street darling.

“We saw this thing as a diamond in the rough,” White said. “We haven’t scratched the surface of this thing yet.”

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