Issue 122
December 2014
Recently promoted UFC executive Garry Cook shares his massive plans for worldwide expansion
LEADING MAN
Garry Cook
UFC chief global brand officer
A few years ago it would have been unconceivable the UFC could sell out a 50,000-seater stadium in Europe. Canada? Already done it. Brazil? Easy. US? With the right fight. But now it looks a strong possibility in Dublin, Ireland, and Stockholm, Sweden, too. Potential title fights for huge mainstream crossover stars in Conor McGregor and Alexander Gustafsson are the primary reason. But more than a little credit should go to the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) UFC team, based out of London, UK.
It came as no surprise in August when EMEA boss Garry Cook was promoted to the UFC’s chief global brand officer, head of all the regions outside the US. Previously boss of the Air Jordan brand for Nike, and later chief executive of English Premier League soccer club Manchester City, Cook will switch to Las Vegas at the end of the year. Yet even he admits EMEA’s success came earlier than expected.
“When I was first invited to join the UFC, I saw the opportunity. When I was on the outside looking in, I thought, ‘There’s something going on here.’ So it was just a case of getting in and figuring it out,” he explains to FO. “I had no idea we could move as quickly as we are. I had every hope and every ambition that we would achieve our goals. But it probably happened 18 months sooner than I anticipated.”
Cook says the key going forward is all the regions needing to be handled locally and independently from Zuffa’s operation in Las Vegas. “They all have their nuances. Brazil, for example, is gripped by tremendous media appeal and television coverage, which attracts enormous numbers and public support. But then you look at the arenas and the facilities to stage events and that’s where it’s lacking, with a drop in quality of production for these events at these arenas.”
He adds: “What I don’t profess to know, going into all the regions now, is a surefire recipe for success. But what I do know is that you can’t please everybody all of the time with too many things. And when I look at the Asia region it’s very similar in landscape to Europe, in that it’s multiple countries with multiple cultures and the way I believe is best to tackle that region is to focus on just three.
“We will focus on China, Korea and Japan, and ensure to get our focus there. Then anything over and above that would be nice to have but not necessarily a must-have.”
Cook is now rarely in the same country for longer than a couple of days, and while the opportunities in the Far East have him excited, it’s the Latin American nations he believes are first going to catch UFC fever.
“Mexico is going to explode,” he says. “Not only do we have the support of the Spanish-speaking television networks down there, but the talent being developed is incredible also.
“Great fighters don’t just grow on trees, they need to be developed, they need to be trained and assisted in the best possible way, and that’s something we have been doing there for some time.
“And when you look at all the Latin countries you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that combat sports is in their DNA.”
Cook also revealed he expects North America to eventually become just another region, albeit the home region, in the UFC’s global business empire. He predicts the international business will be twice the size of the American business in time.
“There are 6.4 billion people around the world, there’s 232 million in America,” he states. “And so the way the organization is developing is that the regions will make up the globe and in the next four or five years the USA and Canada could be a region. Just like Latin America, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, the Middle East and Africa are regions.
“And they will all be independent businesses running simultaneously and developing their businesses using the same key components.”
There are three of them to focus on, Cook says. Content, in terms of televised and live events; commerce, in growing the UFC’s commercial partners; and communications, in the sense of awareness of the UFC.
He adds: “What we no longer want to get caught up in, and are working to get away from, is it being the international vs. the USA. It’s actually all one business but operating in four different markets.”
With two children still living in Portland, Oregon, Cook revealed on a personal level he’s excited to move back to the US and especially to Vegas – “the epicenter of combat sports” – even though he’s a self confessed “non-gambler”.
What he’s especially looking forward to is working alongside UFC bosses Lorenzo Fertitta, Dana White and legal honcho Lawrence Epstein.
“They don’t think they have all the answers,” he explains. “They want people from different backgrounds with different perspectives that can bring a different flavor and ask the question, ‘What if?’
“It’s taken us 13 years to get here, but it’s not the time to sit back and pat yourself on the back. You’ve got to plan for the next 20 years. You can’t now simply tell everybody how great you are because of where you’ve come from, you got to tell everybody where you are going.”
Pausing for a moment, Cook concludes: “You can be offered many jobs and take many opportunities during a lifetime or a career, but there are not many chances in life where you get opportunity to actually change the landscape of an entire industry. And I think the UFC has done that and will continue to do it.”
