Pay Per View Cinema

The trend was started by the demand of the Filipino nation
to watch boxer Manny Pacquiao knock out superstar Mexican fighters as he was
doing it. Solar Sports, Manila’s top cable sports channel, tied up with SM, the
nation’s most dominant shopping mall chain, to broadcast "Pacman’s"
second bout with Eric Morales live nationwide in SM movie theaters.

Solar and SM continued the experiment with WWE pay per view events. A popular
WWE Smackdown character (or if you really insist…sports entertainer) called
Batista has Filipino heritage which the marketers were able to successfully
leverage. In fact, WWE on the silver screen has become such a hit that each pay
per view show is kept running in theaters for an entire three-day weekend and
is no longer played live.

They’re featuring UFC 46 this weekend. No Filipino fighters here, but we just
seem to enjoy watching fresh fights on the big screen over pop corn and soda.

So there you have it. American pay TV is actually exportable with a market
value equivalent to that of any blockbuster film. Why isn’t America doing this
in its own theaters?