Issue 063
June 2010
When journalists first started covering MMA, the business side of things rarely came into question. Reports in the mainstream media, when they occurred, were always of the same vein: Sensationalist pieces that concentrated upon the dubious moral nature of two barely clothed men scrapping in a wire-mesh arena.
All other concerns simply paled in comparison. Nobody cared how much money anyone was making. Nobody seemed interested in the economics of the sport.
Sean Shelby, a long-term Zuffa employee who is now the matchmaker for the WEC, told me that back in the early 2000s, shortly after Zuffa bought the UFC, the promotion was operated much like a start-up company. As such, the numbers just weren’t of any interest to reporters. Why would they want to know about the worth of a fledgling company that hosted maybe four or five shows a year?
As appeal and acceptance of the sport grew, MMA started to attract the attention of journalists less interested in pushing stories full of tired clichés and more interested in the financial aspects of a sport with real potential. The bigger the sport became, the more was asked about the numbers. ‘How much?’ became a familiar question posed to Dana White in interviews and press conferences.
Ten years later and the numbers are no longer a mystery. In fact, to some they’re not just interesting, they’re intriguing. Let me give you a taste.
Zuffa bought the UFC in 2001 for a paltry $2 million. With coffers filled by the Fertitta brothers and their main business of Station Casinos, White sank over $40 million into the ailing business before striking lucky with the self-financed hit TV show The Ultimate Fighter.
Live gates and pay-per-view audience numbers skyrocketed. Lucrative deals and sponsorships flooded in. As a result (and only five years on from the first series of TUF) the UFC is now worth over $2 billion. The UFC is distributed in 132 countries to over 430 million homes and in 20 different languages. It has over 100 employees in offices on two continents and maintains a roster of almost 200 contracted fighters.
To some people the numbers mean nothing. They’re simply abstract concepts that have no effect on the aspect that truly matters: The fighting.
But to others, the latest business deals, hirings and firings and revenue figures go hand in hand with the latest fight results. The news of what’s been happening in the boardroom is as meaningful as that of events in the Octagon.
It’s no wonder that people are becoming more and more interested in the business side of MMA. While some fans only want to see fights (and that’s absolutely fine), others want to keep an eye on the deals Dana and co are doing in order to see what effect it will have on the events. For example, when Flash Entertainment (the Abu Dhabi government-owned promotions company) bought a 10% share of the UFC, it opened the door for a UFC event to take place in the Middle East. Also, White has been talking of hosting a series of TUF there, the first to take place outside of the US. Knowledge of business news makes understanding these events easier. The reasons for the UFC entering a market as unexpected as the Middle East become a lot clearer.
Dana said that he has a very clear idea of his plans and what he wants to accomplish in the next ten years. He’s taken the UFC from a sideshow attraction to global enterprise in the last nine years, making it almost impossible to predict how big it could get over the next decade.
As the business side of the sport continues to grow, so does the media coverage relating to it. Fans are now demanding that the media report on the business aspects of MMA. A few dedicated websites have sprung up providing nothing but news and analysis of MMA business matters.
We here at Fighters Only like to include business stories in our Movers and Shakers pages. Sometimes, if what’s going on in the business world is big enough to warrant it, we’ll even feature an article or two. So far we’ve covered topics such as international expansion of promotions such as the UFC and Strikeforce, sponsorships and endorsements, the expansion of MMA into associated entertainment industries such as the movie business, and much more.
In a time where the prevailing talk is of recessions, downturns and disaster, the UFC is also giving a breath of fresh air to a subject that many find stale and depressing. Can the UFC do for business what it did for combat sports? Don’t be surprised if it does.
As the business side of the sport continues to grow, it is increasingly difficult to disregard the monumental dealings that are taking place. But what do you think? Do you want to see ‘pink’ pages in this magazine devoted to industry news and business dealings, or should the focus remain on the fights?
...
