Brendan Schaub Believes The UFC Is Losing Casual Fans With PPV’s On ESPN+
There were problems for some people who tried to order UFC 236 earlier this month, a situation that retired fighter Brendan Schaub claims will make the UFC lose casual fans.
Schaub would say the following about this on Below The Belt, which was also posted on the show’s Instagram page:
A transcript of what was said by Schaub is below (transcript provided by Drake Riggs of BJPenn.com):
“Did anyone else have problems with ESPN+? So, I have all the family around. We got food and everything. Everyone ready? Here we go. Click. It goes, ‘This service does not work on this device.’ I’m like, ‘Ok, well, that’s not good.’ Try doing it again. Nothing. Try doing it from my phone. Nothing. ESPN, UFC, I’m trying to give you $80. And then finally I went, ‘Yo, if I don’t figure this out in five minutes… I’m going to turn to the dark side and have to illegally stream this.’ I must’ve got 2,000 DMs with different links. When I clicked on that link, that thing was better quality than I had on my f—ng… Than ever! What’s best for the fighters, what’s best for [Israel] ‘Stylebender’ [Adesanya] and Kelvin Gastelum and Max Holloway and Dustin Poirier, is getting as many eyeballs on this thing as possible. Not limiting, making people pay behind two paywalls so you’re getting this very small number of diehards that are going to tune into this thing. That’s not the best thing for the fighters. You’ve just lost so many casual fans. Cause you know what my dad did when I couldn’t figure it out? He went, ‘Who cares? Oh, it’s too much. I’m out.’”
UFC President Dana White did admit that there were some issues with the UFC 236 broadcast for some, but also said that the problems would be fixed for future events.
