UFC205 first for Madison Square Garden is hottest digital ticket in town
UFC 205, which will take place at Madison Square Garden in New York this Saturday night, is claimed to be the “biggest, baddest” pay-per-view (PPV) event that the world’s leading mixed martial arts (MMA) league has ever assembled. Among the record three world title belts on the line is the much anticipated lightweight match-up between MMA’s biggest star Notorious Conor McGregor and Eddie Alvarez.
NeuLion powers UFC.TV and will be delivering the ‘UFC 205 digital ticket’ which will offer fans live and on-demand pay per view access to all of the UFC action, on every leading internet connect device. UFC lets streamers select red- and blue-corner video cameras, as well as a camera suspended above the octagon.
Anticipation is high for the first UFC event in New York since mixed martial arts was legalised last April, and has created Super Bowl-like ticket prices with ringside seats going for up to $8,000 on the secondary market. Upper levels seats can be as high as $4,000 and nosebleeds for $1,500. The arena is configured around the Octagon to seat more than 20,000 people on fight night.
But for UFC fans who that cannot make into MSG that night, there is another way to watch the fight. Powered by NeuLion, fans can buy a digital pay-per-view ticket, available on any internet-connected device. And Sony Ultra HD TV owners are eligible to watch the event in 4K live streaming. This is available on all Sony 4K Ultra HD 2015 and 2016 TV models in all countries except China.
The 4K market continues to grow as more and more people buy 4K TV sets. IHS predicts penetration of US households who will own at least one 4K TV set will rise quickly, hitting 34% by 2019, representing about 34 million homes. With this, the availability of 4K content will also continue to rise and live sports proves to be the most compelling and engaging in the higher quality.
UFC introduced 4K streaming with its UFC200 meet in Las Vegas last July. At that event the UFC used six Sony HDC-4300 4K dameras to cover the action, along with a Sony F44 for the fence cam. All seven cameras provided dual HD and 4K streams. On-screen graphics came from a 4K Vizrt graphcis system provided by Reality Check Systems, and clocks and stats were generated in 4K by Fight Metric. NEP provided its SS32 produciton truck.