UFC vs The World

Twenty three years is not a long time for a company. So for UFC to go from an underground niche product to a TV ratings and pay per view buyrate giant in that time paints it as white hot product, the ultimate proof being its recent sale for 4.2 billion dollars. But does the future of the company burn as brightly as its recent past? Let’s take a look at combat sports giant’s current and upcoming obstacles.

UFC vs their decisions

No matter what super fight gets booked, or shocking defeat, or sudden scandal might happen in the near future, UFC’s biggest story this year will be its historic big money sale. The purchase by talent agency WME-IMG and some affiliated investment firms shocked the sports business world, and that may have been the correct response. Sports brands typically stand strong and stable with their dedicated fans, but combat sports are a different animal. It’s not the brand that moves, but the stars. And UFC’s star power has changed dramatically since their big sale.

Ronda Rousey came as a gift; the perfect storm of a combat star. She had the look, stylish and always a little bigger than her opponents. She had the talent, submitting most of her opponents in the first minute of round one. And most importantly, Ronda brought in people no one else could get. Ronda would go onto talks show, look great, talk tough, and pull in scores of women who would otherwise never watch a UFC show as she backed it up in the ring. UFC got all in and promoted her as a star, getting her in the media and on the posters as often as they could. By 2015 Ronda main events would get close to and beyond the one million buys mark.

There aren’t many perfect records in sports, and on November 15th of 2015 Ronda Rousey lost hers when Holly Holm picked her apart with precise striking in the first round, and dropped her with a head kick early in the second.

The people who followed Ronda closely knew to be worried, she did not take well to losing. Rousey competed in the 2008 Olympics, taking the bronze in Judo. Third place in the world might sound good to some, but Rousey took it as a sign to retire from the Olympics. Financially, it worked out for her.

A little over a year from her defeat by Holm, Ronda reentered the octagon on December 30th, 2016. The women’s bantamweight title had changed hand several times, now held by the fierce Amanda Nunes. Ronda hadn’t done any media for the fight, a worrying sign for where she was mentally as a fighter. It didn’t affect the buyrate, as the show pushed past a million buys just as the Holm fight did. The bell rang, and Nunes slaughtered Rousey with punches. Like many Ronda fights, this one didn’t last a minute. Ronda faced her second consecutive knock out loss. Predictably, despite beating one of the biggest stars the company has, neither Holm or Nunes inherited Ronda’s star power. Ronda’s fans either left or are waiting for her to return, both amounting to the same thing.

UFC has the opposite problem with their other breakout star, the notorious Conor McGregor. Conor with his mouth, precise punching, and rock hard chin shot up the UFC featherweight rankings, capturing the interim championship before becoming sole champion when he knocked out Jose Aldo in eighteen seconds. He would then lose to Nick Diaz in Conor’s first match in the UFC’s lightweight division. He returned quickly from the submission loss for a rematch with Diaz which he won. Conor then claimed the UFC lightweight belt from Eddie Alvarez, becoming the first person in the company to hold two titles at the same time.

Hold being the operative word. Conor had to be stripped of the featherweight belt and has yet to defend the lightweight title. Conor instead looks towards the biggest money fight available, with a man outside his sport; Floyd “Money” Mayweather.

Super fights that cross between sports have been talked about since fighting started; who would win Ali vs Bruce Lee. That very line of thinking was the impetus of UFC. But the fights had always gotten hung up over one of two things. The first roadblock is agreeing upon the rules, which Conor has completely ignored by challenging Floyd to a straight boxing match. The second obstacle is getting permission from all parties. In this case UFC would typically block the deal, the logic being that they don’t want their top draw to get beat outside of their promotion, a certainty in a boxing match against Mayweather. But instead, UFC are letting it happen for a cut of the action.

Any fight can fall through, but that Mayweather v McGregor has come this close to happening is a blatant admission that Conor is bigger than UFC at the moment. He’ll get eight figures for this fight, which means after UFC is going to have a hard time getting him to fight for less.

In 2016 UFC held thirteen pay per view events which averaged around 650,000 orders. They had four cards with over a million buys, three headlined by Conor and one by Rousey. All the effort and marketing put into Conor and Rousey seems to have peaked by this point. This year it looks like neither will be fighting for the UFC, giving the new owners a different looking company than the one they bought.

UFC vs The Fighters

In reality, it’s the top of the card that people pay for; the stars. And most fighters don’t have all the tools to reach the top level of stardom. UFC has made their roster very aware of that fact. The UFC rank and file makes about five grand per fight, not that great for a night of getting your head punched. The monetary woes worsened when UFC signed a sponsorship deal with Reebok, which gave the fighters drab matching uniforms and in exchange squashed any outside sponsorships a fighter could have gotten. A few big stars got compensated for this; most did not.

In short, most UFC fighters don’t feel like they work at a four billion dollar company. They certainly don’t need any salt in that wound. Recently, at a fighters retreat held by UFC, a Reebok represented made note that fighters weren’t promoting the brand as much as they could. They were encouraged to “be themselves. Be Conor McGregor.” This is not the sort of thing fighters want to hear when they’re forced to take breaks from their training.

This is an inherited problem, although the new owners haven’t done anything to improve things. Still, the cracks of this problem are showing now. No longer drinking the company’s kool aid, fighters recently are less willing to do the company favors like taking fights on short notice. It may not seem like much, but a company running as many shows as UFC does often has fights get unmade. And when no one steps up, fans start to notice the holes.

UFC vs The Future

It needs to be mentioned that UFC was not bought with 4.2 billion in cash. WME-IMG took out huge loans to pay for it, and are now facing a rougher year than they might’ve imagined. They’re pay per view buy rates will be way down this year.

The big money for any sports product right now comes from television rights deals. Out of any TV product, live sports typically have the least to worry about in terms of cancellation or getting bad money deals. However, the entire TV landscape is in uncertain times, rapidly changing and being abandoned as people flock to all the different ways to watch.

UFC got incredibly hot in the years before its sale, and there’s no reason they can’t get hot again. They’re far hotter than their competitors like boxing or pro wrestling. All it needs is for a charismatic fighter to win some fights. But that simple thing doesn’t happen so often, and when it does a million different things can derail it.

I’ll be watching either way, I’m an addict. But I’m glad I don’t have four billion dollars bet on them.