Issue 179

June 2019

The US might still dominate, but others are catching up

Mixed martial arts brands continue to grow, grow, grow in the UK and Europe. Still a long way behind the USA, mind you. Yet recent events in the UK have shown that the fight league brand awareness is growing. And not just those three letters: U, F and C.

We will perhaps have to accept that the land of MMA is the United States, and is arguably a decade more developed on a continent which offers a landscape rich with attention-grabbing alternatives from sport, to music, to entertainment.

The FOX era, worth $700 million to the UFC, has ended. Now comes the juggernaut period with ESPN having picked up the UFC baton for the next leg, with its myriad outlets and ambitions.

Years ago, before the FOX era, I worked with an MMA show on ESPN called MMA Live, with Jon Anik, Kenny Florian, Rashad Evans, Stephan Bonnar and Randy Couture. It was a team running the show which had a pioneering zeal. It was so popular online, indeed, that it became the first MMA internet TV show in the US to be moved onto mainstream television. A seminal breakthrough at the time.

Thirteen years on, MMA is a staple in the mainstream. Now, Bellator MMA appears to be constantly expanding, the war coffers replete given the ambition of burgeoning DAZN, wanting a buy-in to the scene, and the ownership of Bellator by VIACOM. It has meant that the gap between the two biggest MMA fight organizations is narrowing.

Back across the Pond, the robustness of the MMA industry is not in doubt, either in the UK or Europe, with the growing presence and ambition of Bellator, and the tenacious Polish fight league KSW.

At the UFC London card this year at the O2 Arena, in London's Docklands, there appeared barely a free seat, the mood and triumphalism of a British crowd matching the kind of noise and feverish atmosphere enjoyed at Michael Bisping's nights in London against Jason Day, Yoshihiro 'Sexyama' Akiyama, 'Spider' Anderson Silva and Matt Hamill. Darren Till might have been beaten by Jorge Masvidal a few weeks back on that latest London card, but the support for the sport is flourishing.

It is in its third three-year contract with BT Sport, too, who have recently invested in the drawing power of heavyweight boxer Tyson Fury. Bellator are on the march here too, with the brand having a growing presence with Channel 5 showing its Saturday night European series in Saturday prime time – with plans to increase it from six events to twelve events into 2020 – and on Sky Sports through the night airing events in the USA For Bellator, it's boom time.

Indeed, its numbered 222 event at Wembley Arena, will jump channels from Sky to Channel 5 from 9pm to midnight, with two heavily stacked cards. There will be cross promotion, of course.

We certainly haven't seen this before nor have we seen Sky Sports so invested. Bellator may be considering an event at the Royal Albert Hall, too. Remember, it was the UFC that ambitiously put its first event in Europe on there, UFC 38 The Brawl at the Hall, in July 2002.

We will soon be two decades into the sport in the UK, and the presence of KSW, with several notable UK fighters, including its heavyweight champion Phil De Fries, is drawing very good crowds. Huge ones in Poland, of course. KSW built a card in October last year at Wembley around De Fries and half a dozen other Brits.

Bottom line is that fans are voting with their feet by supporting events in numbers; and the broadcasters recognize that MMA is a valuable commodity. They say that all young people need, in order to grow and thrive, is opportunity and recognition. MMA has both of those things right now.

Build it and they will come, we have heard so many times. Well, that applies to fans as well as fighters. The fighters will continue to come, some stars, some shooting stars, some early fallers. But there is little doubt that MMA in the UK and Europe, once a toddler, has had its major growth spurt, and is into its adolescent years and on the way to graduation.