Upcoming UFC pay-per-view takes place in England, but on USA time... wtf?

Paddy Pimblett said it best when he said "I just think it's ridiculous. What's the point in coming over to the UK and doing a card in the UK, but having it on American time?”

And I kind of agree with him. However, as I have said many times before these events are not about the sport, they are about making money and if they had the fights at a good time in the evening for the local fans in London, it would be on TV in the middle of the afternoon for much of the United States, which is where almost all of the UFC's revenue comes from.

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I'm not really that excited about this card and realize that the only reason it is happening is to give a shout out to the UK fans and support the scene over there via the fact that Leon Edwards is from the UK and is a current reigning champion. If it wasn't for his belt, this event would likely be taking place in Vegas or Florida or something like that. But I do kind of feel bad for the both the fighters and the fans that will spend a bunch of money to attend this thing even though the fights won't even start until after midnight. It is estimated that the main event will wrap up sometime around 6am so I guess a bunch of very drunk people can stumble straight on to church... if that is their thing.

For anyone that is familiar with jet lag, this benefits the Americans on the card immensely. All they will need to do is maintain a schedule that is on "American Time" and they will not feel any negative effects from fighting in the middle of the night, local time. The fighters who actually live and train in the UK will need to have adjusted their schedules over the past couple of weeks. I don't know about you, but if someone woke me up at 3am to go and do something physical, I wouldn't be performing at my best. There is also meal schedules and what not to consider. I'm sure it is all very complicated but the camps can work it out. The fans on the other hand, are a bit peeved.

UFC is unapologetic about this though because a very large part of the money that they take in from these events are not at the gates of the actual venue, but from the millions of people that are buying the pay-per-view for $50 and up. The bars that host these events, especially in larger cities such as the one that I live in, have to pay thousands of dollars to get the rights to show them on their screens. The prices vary depending on how big the event is, but I have been to a few where the fights were so in demand that the bar had to charge $20 a person just to get in the door. You also had to make reservations and pre-purchase at least 2 drinks.

The UFC tends to make around 1-5 million at the doors of events that are pay-per-views, but pull in 10-20 times that amount with broadcast licensing and pay-per-view buys. So even though it might piss of a lot of the rest of the world, at the end of the day UFC is in the business of making money, not in the business of MMA.

Fighters like Leon Edwards are taking this very seriously as it has been reported that in addition to his usual fight team, he has employed a "sleep and performance" specialist with an MD, to work on making sure that he will be at his peak of performance, even at 4am - which is around the time that the main event should be starting.

It will be interesting to see if some of the fighters are nodding off in the locker rooms before the events but hell, they are getting paid pretty well to be here, so I suppose it isn't a lot to ask. Now for the fans in the stands this seems really unfair but this is nothing new.

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When Rousey fought Holly Holm all that time ago, the event took place at stupid-o'clock in the morning in order to accommodate the USA TV crowd and this ended up being one of the excuses that Rousey would end up using as to why she didn't perform so well. This was basically ignored because Holly Holm was subjected to the exact same disparity in body clock, since she too is from the USA.

So while I am pleased that I will get to see the fights at a good time of day, I do feel bad for the people that are paying hundreds of dollars to go to an event that won't even start until well after their bedtimes.