What’s preventing UFC/MMA from being the #1 sport in the world?

[Son of Werdum]

MMA is far too violent for most casual viewers. I have known grown "men" who were literally disgusted by the violence and occasional gore of MMA. That is not even approaching the sensibilities of overly fearful and cautious mothers who see it as a danger to their kids via disensitization or potential reenactment.

That in itself severely limits the audience therefore potential monetization of the sport and subsequent merchandise as a whole.

The niche nature of MMA makes it more akin to a spectacle like Battlebots or Tough Man as opposed to a legitimate sporting organization to most people.

 

[awymore]

Pay is a big reason

Yep. How many fighters do we have right now sitting on their asses waiting for a payday It's ridiculous.

 

[Law Dog]

I’d punch a chick in the face Hardy style, before I ever let her sub me. Unless she had a strap-on - no homo

 

[king of theRing]

Anyone can afford to kick a ball around every other day, Not everyone can afford to get punched in the face every other day

No they can't cause mma is fucking expensive

 

[WingsLax9042]

its true of any individual sport

people may support a guy who comes from their country, or their town, but they will never support them with the same fervour they support their football team, or rugby team etc

its also a bit about how often they compete

you support a team that plays 40 weeks a year, not some guy who might fight cnce

Thats simply not true. None of the WEC guys (except for Stann) were from anywhere NEAR me.... Sakuraba is around the world... Bisping across the pond.... Mir across the country.... Genki Sudo... Bas... Rampage... Hendo... I could go all day. I watch for the fighters. Not for Dana.

https://www.sportsjoe.ie/mma/ufc-pu...rcial-move-carlos-condits-walkout-song-145709

Fuck Dana and UFC for life.

 

[DeeDubb]

Soccer is played by kids all over the world during recess, and after school. Of course it's the most popular sport in the world. Do you really want to see 8 year olds practicing ground and pound during PE class?

 

[Ronin13]

Soccer moms don’t want to see their kids become fighters

 

[FrodoFraggins]

Soccer
Football
Basketball
Baseball
Hockey
Tennis
Golf
...

 

[snugglecakes]

It being the biggest rip off sport in the world doesn’t help it’s case. It’s a rip off from every angle. It’s a rip off for the athletes with low pay and it’s a rip off to the consumer with rip off pay per view and ticket prices. I guess you could including boxing here with their 100 dollar Mayweather snoozefest pay per views. Combat sports in general are a rip off for the consumer unless it’s the jobber bingo hall Indy leagues.
I’d like to see what would happen to the superbowel or World Cup viewership ratings if it suddenly became a 60-100 dollar pay per view.

 

[PeacePipe]

People say soccer is the #1 sport in the world because it’s accessible. Whether you’re rich or poor all you need is a ball. You don’t even need a ball in MMA. So shouldn’t MMA be or have the potential to be the #1 sport in the world? Throughout mankind fighting has been in our DNA. So what’s keeping MMA back from being the biggest sport?

Is it because Dana is holding it back?

Is it because the talent is holding it back?

Is it because grassroots MMA is holding it back?

Or is it because millennials do nothing but stare at their phones, don’t engage in sports, are to blame with everything wrong this generation and therefore holding the sport back?

The structure of the sport is holding it back. In football all the teams play a set amount of games per season, then the top 2 team play for the final.

In MMA, a "team" is made champion for no reason, then this title is stripped away, some guy from WWE with no experience gets to play, 5 people test positive for steroids, another guy fights in a different division, retires, a new champion is crowned, one of the best teams plays a different sport, etc etc.

How can you expect it to be taken seriously, haha

 

[Haifisch]

Several reasons:

• Existence of Football, Basketball, and literally every team sport. And some individual sports with higher consistency than MMA too.
• Olympics and MMA's absence from Olympics and inability to introduce it to Olympics with the existence of boxing, wrestling and judo (also, lets face it, Olympics MMA is gonna be a killing ground for Sambo masters and nothing else, so just might introduce combat sambo instead)
• Low competitor wages, low performance rewards, which leads to low average quality of performants
• Low average quality of events (pushing cat fights as entertaining or meaningful doesn't work)
• High average quantity of events (this is OK, if it wasn't for the low quality of the product)
• High price relative to quality (I get to watch a football game twice a week, actually as many times a week as there is an event available, I pay 10 dollars for cable)
• Hard to be a fan of individual units within the sport (as in, being a fan of a team means you get to watch them play every week or twice a week, somebody getting injured doesn't mean whole event gets scrapped, etc)
• PPV is niche business model that does not work outside of the US (and some additional countries, idk)
• Just bleed mentality that doesn't appeal to most of the people around the globe (most people live in a bubble, and you fuckers want every single fight to be a gore fest and look down upon "wrestlefucking")
• General inability for foreign fighters to penetrate in the UFC which is the top org (gotta speak english, gotta be funny guy, gotta be drama queen, gotta be good fighter, gotta be handsome, gotta be idk what else, just to not earn peanuts... most euros won't even get past the first criteria here, not to mention the rest)
• Pretending to be a sport without having actual structure (you get titleshot because you pull the most PPV, not because you earned it)

Simple to fix these issues and get to the top of the world, let's go boys!

 

[Deleted member 385619]

Have you ever followed any other sport? Its even worse on Basketball forums

Hockey, it isn't nearly as bad

 

[Jah Broni]

Inactive fighters is your answer.

Especially, the casuals fans want to see fighters like Conor, Nate Diaz, Khabib, GSP (recently), and Colby Covington.

I work with a newby to the MMA world and he loves it. But doesn't like champs or contenders fighting once a year. Or in Colby's case, holding out forever for a title fight instead of beating another dude.

 

[Dessyboy]

There's a lot of reasons

Accessibilty to proper training facilities. To train at an MMA train costs money, to kick a ball around with friends cost nothing

Too violent for many people

but another big factor is the frequency of competing. IF you follow a soccer team or a basketball team, you can watch them pretty much every week for 70 percent of the year. If you follow a particular fighter, you might get to watch them 3 times a year

Team support is a huge thing which makes Soccer and basketball huge

You have to be really really into MMA to enjoy watching different people fight every week to the same level.

 

[Saku'sEar]

A level vs. D level

 

[Tito Tapped]

It's hard to get invested in a sport where wins and losses don't mean anything. In the UFC your opportunities are based on how much money you can make the company. Imagine the Cowboys playing in the Super Bowl every year simply because they are a huge market. You'd never get invested in other teams. The UFC loves to pretend this booking gives them more freedom to "make the fights the fans really want" but all it really does is devalue the championships.