Sources of Direct Demand: An Examination of Demand for the Ultimate Fighting Championship

Nicholas M. Watanabe

Sport demand literature notes multiple sources of demand for a sport product. Two forms of direct demand come in the form of live attendance by patrons and purchases of pay-per-view (PPV) to watch sporting contest through a television set (Borland & Macdonald, 2003). That is, attendance and PPV purchases are both direct consumption of the sporting product. Recent theoretical discussion has noted the importance understanding both live attendees and television viewers of sport events in order for organizations to behave more strategically (Budzinski & Satzer, 2011). This study attempts to examine two sources of direct demand for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), one of the most popular combat sport organizations in the world. Prior research into the UFC has provided individual examinations of single sources of demand for televised events (Watanabe, 2012) or attending events in person (Tainsky et al., 2012). This research examines events from 2001 through 2012 and finds that an individual sport product may have different determinants for live attendance and television viewership.