BJJ popular but not mainstream?

[Matthew Goldberg]

This is an observation I guess more than a question but how is BJJ not more mainstream than it appears to be? We live in the Southeast, like middle of nowhere Alabama, but within 3 hours we can be at maybe 12 bjj tournaments a year. Most of those tournaments have hundreds of competitors, thousands of spectators and last all day. I can’t imagine what tournaments look like in more populated areas where BJJ has been more popular for a much longer time. I don’t know of any other martial art or competitive anything that draws the crowds and competitors like BJJ does. Travel softball or sport cheerleading draw huge crowds but fewer and far between, not near the number of events of BJJ. With that being said,it seems no one outside of those in attendance of a bjj tournament / gym know of its existence. How is something so popular but so non existent on the national radar? Water polo and shuttle board get for ESPN or Fox Sports coverage than BJJ does. I have my theories. Is it the absence of a unified voice? Is it so many factions playing the tribal warfare game of “my Brazilian lineage is better than yours”? There’s the IBJJF but that’s like the Free Masons, you have to be in the club to know about the club.

This is just a curiosity of mine, an observation that’s become an itch I just can’t seem to scratch.

 

[ZemoKicks]

It seems like the sport everyone feels like a star when they do it but noone wants to watch them do it like it's more fun to do then to watch

 

[Coconutwater]

Lots of boring matches.

 

[EGDM]

Chess is extremely popular, but also essentially non-existent as a real-time spectator sport.

Grappling takes a good amount of education to appreciate, and even then is often boring. I've stopped watching tournaments live in favor of replays where I can skip to the portions of technical interest.

 

[TheGZA]

Neck and neck with soccer.

 

[2008]

BJJ is more popular than ever but it's still a niche 'sport'. Unless it's ufc or mma related, grappling is not really watchable to the untrained eye because it's hard to understand what is happening. That being said unless you train it's boring to watch.

 

[Thrawn33]

Even HS wrestling, the biggest grappling art in the US is not spectator friendly.

Any grappling is just not a spectator sport.

They tried to make Judo moreso and fucked up bad.

 

[vcmmafan]

Relatively small community... Niche sport.

Honestly if it was super popular and more people trained it you'd most likely have different people at the top of the sport because of the much larger sample size

 

[trustdoesntrust]

This is an observation I guess more than a question but how is BJJ not more mainstream than it appears to be? We live in the Southeast, like middle of nowhere Alabama, but within 3 hours we can be at maybe 12 bjj tournaments a year. Most of those tournaments have hundreds of competitors, thousands of spectators and last all day. I can’t imagine what tournaments look like in more populated areas where BJJ has been more popular for a much longer time. I don’t know of any other martial art or competitive anything that draws the crowds and competitors like BJJ does. Travel softball or sport cheerleading draw huge crowds but fewer and far between, not near the number of events of BJJ. With that being said,it seems no one outside of those in attendance of a bjj tournament / gym know of its existence. How is something so popular but so non existent on the national radar? Water polo and shuttle board get for ESPN or Fox Sports coverage than BJJ does. I have my theories. Is it the absence of a unified voice? Is it so many factions playing the tribal warfare game of “my Brazilian lineage is better than yours”? There’s the IBJJF but that’s like the Free Masons, you have to be in the club to know about the club.

This is just a curiosity of mine, an observation that’s become an itch I just can’t seem to scratch.

One thing I really appreciate about sports in the internet age is that you can build a big enough community of fans/spectators/amateurs that a niche sport can thrive professionally without sacrificing its integrity (I.e. selling out to ESPN, fox, or the IOC).

 

[MadSquabbles500]

This is an observation I guess more than a question but how is BJJ not more mainstream than it appears to be? We live in the Southeast, like middle of nowhere Alabama, but within 3 hours we can be at maybe 12 bjj tournaments a year. Most of those tournaments have hundreds of competitors, thousands of spectators and last all day. I can’t imagine what tournaments look like in more populated areas where BJJ has been more popular for a much longer time. I don’t know of any other martial art or competitive anything that draws the crowds and competitors like BJJ does. Travel softball or sport cheerleading draw huge crowds but fewer and far between, not near the number of events of BJJ. With that being said,it seems no one outside of those in attendance of a bjj tournament / gym know of its existence. How is something so popular but so non existent on the national radar? Water polo and shuttle board get for ESPN or Fox Sports coverage than BJJ does. I have my theories. Is it the absence of a unified voice? Is it so many factions playing the tribal warfare game of “my Brazilian lineage is better than yours”? There’s the IBJJF but that’s like the Free Masons, you have to be in the club to know about the club.

This is just a curiosity of mine, an observation that’s become an itch I just can’t seem to scratch.

Is it mostly kids, and their parents, and they appear at multiple events?

 

[Fla graplr]

Yea I was guna say the majority of people competing are children and all the spectrators are family. It is deceiving considering it is just a Saturday activity parents can take their kids to.

Makes me wonder in 10 years when all these kids are adults.

 

[Crotalis]

MadSquabbles500 and Fla graplr pretty much nailed it. @Matthew Goldberg -

Most of the people who would be interested in seeing grappling, are already AT the tournaments. All those people in the stands? That's it. It's pretty much limited to Team members, family and friends. I'd even wager a bet that a lot of the family and friends would prefer not to be there. lol

It's just not a spectator sport. I remember watching a documentary on professional wrestling a while ago. They actually showed very very old matches where there was a lot of really cool, technical wrestling. The problem is, they found that the crowds were getting bored. That's when they started switching to styles more similar to what you see today. Even the "fake" grapplers couldn't keep spectators interested.

 

[2008]

Besides competitors and gym members who train it's really family members, gf, bf, and friends hanging out for support. It's a few hundred people at most. And it's probably the same people from event to event.

Like I said before, unless you train, no one cares about BJJ on any general level, let alone want to watch it, if you don't train. It's not like pro basketball or pro football where you don't have to play it to understand or appreciate what is going on.