RSS
Home
UFC 100: The world will be watching. Are you?
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
Brock Lesnar is one of the biggest stars in the UFC.
It was sometime in 2005 when Dana White called me several times trying to set up a meeting. At the time, I was Sports Editor of the Houston Chronicle, dictating what we covered and how we covered it.
I knew nothing about UFC. I had never watched a fight card and had no interest, even though I had a martial arts background and loved boxing.
I was like much of the mainstream media, largely ignoring it.
After several false starts, I finally met with White in my office. I had no idea who he was.
In five minutes, my perspective on how sports should be covered was turned upside down.
White was actively seeking mainstream newspapers at the time. He wanted UFC covered like other sports.
"You need readers. You need young readers. I am giving you males 18-34. I'm begging you to cover us!"
White was dynamic. Persistent. Convincing.
And he was right.
We started one of the first MMA blogs, and ran regular coverage. We sent reporters to the fights. We did a weekly notebook in print. MMA is especially big in Houston, and we saw the benefits.
We increased our readership in print, page views online and brought in an entirely new audience.
When I left, they eliminated most of the coverage, like most traditional newspapers.
(That is yet another reason print is struggling, but that's another topic for another day).
Dana White and the UFC don't need newspapers anyway. They never really did. They built themselves up without the mainstream and are now bigger than the newspapers he coveted at the time.
MMA in general is huge, but the UFC is a behemoth. Its audience grows with every fight, and its fighters are some of the biggest stars in the world. The Ultimate Fighter has become the ultimate reality show.
Three days after Dana White left my office, I watched my first fight. Like a lot of people, I have been hooked ever since.
Saturday night , UFC 100 will feature some of the biggest stars in the sport. The pay per view buys will be tremendous. New fans will be born.
UFC is the new NASCAR. It has eclipsed almost every sport in viewership with the exception of the NFL. It is extremely popular in the most critical demographic for advertisers -- Males, 18-34. Print craves that group. Radio craves it. TV, too.
Yet most traditional media outlets still have no clue when it comes to MMA. Very few of the big Web operations seem to get it. Yahoo does a nice job; ESPN.com -- THE center of the sports universe on the Web -- is hit and miss.
The problem? Most in the media still don't understand it. They still think of it as undisciplined street fighting -- one of those sports a bunch of kids are into.
A passing fad.
MMA is none of that, and UFC 100 is the perfect showcase.
Lesnar vs. Mir. St. Pierre vs. Alves. Those names mean everything to fans, nothing to people who don't know the sport.
Those are two of the best and most anticipated matchups in the sport, and over 7 million viewers are expected.
The NFL is a clear No. 1 in the sports landscape. Basketball and baseball are still covered as No. 2 and 3, but you can make a case that MMA has passed both. At worst, it is No. 4, ahead of hockey and NASCAR.
Yet very few outlets still cover the sport at the level it has achieved. Few national radio shows give it much more than a passing mention. Newspapers still devote more effort to sports like horse racing, tennis and even cycling. TV doesn't quite get it, either.
NASCAR is a good example. It's popularity exceeded its coverage for many years. But NASCAR got arrogant when it became mainstream, and has been in decline.
Even in an economic downturn, the UFC continues to grow. White runs a tight ship. He has a business model in mind, and he follows it.
And the sport thrives, even without the depth of coverage of more traditional sports. In most places, it gets cursory, a-b-c coverage -- and advance and a game story. No depth, no analysis. That requires effort and resources, and that only comes when the people making decisions change their minds.
How do you change that perception? The easiest path is ESPN, of course. If the network ever gets involved, the rest of the media world would follow.
Most traditional sports get covered because traditional journalists understand them. It is why baseball still gets overcovered in relation to its interest. Until someone traditional journalists respect -- like ESPN -- gets on board, they won't acknowledge it.
That is why Dana White went to Sports Editor's offices all over the country and tried to sell his product.
White's quest was largely unsuccessful. But his sport grew anyway. If ESPN gets on board, it will grow faster.
If not?
So what? UFC 100 is the biggest sporting event of the month. Period. It will continue to grow from here.
It's time for any stragglers to admit that MMA is a major sport. That the UFC arrived years ago, and now it is thriving. It is athletic. It is dramatic. It is compelling.
Like Dana White, it is convincing.
Much of the world has bought in. It's time for the media to do the same.
Related Articles:
Comments
.jpg)
