UFC has to be the most ridiculously run professional sports organization in the world, right?

[Tuf_guy]

That jiu-jitsu shirt is hilariously bad lmao

Ah, what do you know about fashion or clothing design if you don't run a business that was sold for 4 billion dollars?

guys who havent realised yet that they ought to become potato farmers instead.

Somehow this almost seems like it could be a reference to going ghey

"I noticed he shapes his eyebrows and has a slight lisp, but I didn't know be was a potato farmer."

 

[phantomlord]

Son I'm
From England where we play real sports

Football, besides the money differences any team can win the leagues
500/1 Leicester city won a season ago with their poverty squad

Cricket
Best team wins it is what it is

Rugby
Best team wins, it is what it is


Sorry for you're rigged sports entertainment if that's what you're tellin me, I feel for you bro

You sound like you’re 17. If you’re not, well then God help you.

 

[DarkneT]

You sound like you’re 17. If you’re not, well then God help you.

America bless

 

[clivers]

dunno dude have you heard of RIZIN?

 

[FrankieNYC]

I mean all sports pretty much are entertainment.

UFC is the exact definition of SPORT

sport
spôrt/
noun
plural noun: sports
1.
an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.

 

[bufetadanacara]

The unprofessionalism with how they run a multi-billion dollar organization is absurd. Dana White is the perfect embodiment of that.

They often need to cater to their idiot fans.

Their goal is to make money, nothing more.

 

[FrankieNYC]

You do realize other sports have done all kinds of things to change the balance of the sport. Things like the height of the baseball mound, changing rules to benefit offenses so we see more scoring, etc. etc.

You have baseball fields that outside the distance of the bases and the mound every single field is different. How is that fair??

I could go on and on about changes that have occurred in other sports that have changed the sport for a better experience for the fan.

We all watch the major sports for entertainment. It doesn't change it from not being a sport.

This, plus major sports change rules & fairness purely for money
IMO, the biggest example is the top sports changing the amount of teams that make it in the playoffs in order to make more money.
They basically bastardized the regular season so a 50/50 team that came in third can possibly be the "champ"

 

[FrankieNYC]

Also any talk of how WME & co. are mismanaging the future of UFC is extremely premature
If people did their homework, they would know that WME cannot implement most of what they want to do until existing deals that are in place expire.
Nobody knows if they will be good for the sport
What has been proven is they are better at making money (so far), since they have turned huge profits in a year that had a down-turn in interest.

 

[MikeMcMann]

Mismangement comes in different forms and may not really be appearent to the bottom line is. The short term. Popularity isn't really a good way to determine whether management is doing a good job or not. Management should be judged on what the UFC is set up to do in the future.

Right.

So growing the sport and the fan base as the UFC has been at the forefront of over the last couple decades is just popularity and should not be counted or are you just discounting it greatly?

And who can forecast the future for us???

For the UFC, it's is pretty clear that their mismangement has been who they've tried to push, the matchups, they've made etc.

It's really the reason why they only have one Conor instead of multiple Conor's.

The UFC should be far bigger than it is and the UFC sucks at creating new talent.

I love the assumptions. Can you back them up? How many multiple Conors would they have had and how do you know that for sure?
How do you know it should be far bigger when it is has been on a massive growth curve as it is?

Look I could say any successful company could be better and bigger if they only followed my blueprint. But it is meaningless without some proof. Ya that Amazon has done well but replace those dunces with me and it would be far bigger and more successful. <45>

They've watered down PPVs and tv events,

and yet 2016 went into the can as the most successful year in UFC history.

UFC had biggest pay-per-view year in 2016

We will soon see how 2017 shakes out with all the changes as you usually expect some volatility in such a big transition.

fucked over fighters with shit deals through reebok , etc

No one likes the reebok deal so I won't defend it. I do however think the UFC had the right idea with it and I think Jon Jones screwed them over. I think Reebok was supposed to be the first major sponsor of many (one in each category) and eventually with enough major sponsors the money would be bigger than most fighters could get on their own outside the top guys. And since the top guys make good paycheques, oh well. It would have been better for the masses.

GSP was a leader in gaining big sponsor confidence and Reebok came on side and almost instantly Jones started his slide into his first of many troubles which IMO scared off any other major sponsors.

Anyway I am speculating on the above so it means nothing other than my opinion.

No one likes the Reebok deal as it is, yes.

But on the other fronts the UFC has lead in pushing up fighter pay and global expansion. MMA was a sport where only the very top guys could make a living and almost everyone else had to have a day job and now all sorts of fighters, coaches, gym owners, etc have had no career but MMA. And that is in LARGE PART due to the UFC.

That someone like Conor or Bisping came out of the UK is because of the UFC and what they fostered in those communities.

This may be stuff that isn't really rearing it's head at this point, but it will catch up to them in the long run. It will probably lead to a stagnation in their popularity or even cause it to slide from where it is.

None of us know the future. So pretending we do with any certainty is just not sensible imo. There are a whole lot of smart people behind the UFC and while they are pivoting the company more towards the entertainment side than the sport side (and I don't like that BTW) we will have to wait and see if it produces a good return for them.

 

[cevo]

People are sick of generic sports conferences and interviews, and actually like the UFC's "unprofessionalism" and how Dana markets the sport.

Fighters being treated like shit is not good though, but that doesn't really affect your average viewer.

 

[Fedor>Cain]

Right.

So growing the sport and the fan base as the UFC has been at the forefront of over the last couple decades is just popularity and should not be counted or are you just discounting it greatly?

And who can forecast the future for us???



I love the assumptions. Can you back them up? How many multiple Conors would they have had and how do you know that for sure?
How do you know it should be far bigger when it is has been on a massive growth curve as it is?

Look I could say any successful company could be better and bigger if they only followed my blueprint. But it is meaningless without some proof. Ya that Amazon has done well but replace those dunces with me and it would be far bigger and more successful. <45>


and yet 2016 went into the can as the most successful year in UFC history.

UFC had biggest pay-per-view year in 2016

We will soon see how 2017 shakes out with all the changes as you usually expect some volatility in such a big transition.


No one likes the reebok deal so I won't defend it. I do however think the UFC had the right idea with it and I think Jon Jones screwed them over. I think Reebok was supposed to be the first major sponsor of many (one in each category) and eventually with enough major sponsors the money would be bigger than most fighters could get on their own outside the top guys. And since the top guys make good paycheques, oh well. It would have been better for the masses.

GSP was a leader in gaining big sponsor confidence and Reebok came on side and almost instantly Jones started his slide into his first of many troubles which IMO scared off any other major sponsors.

Anyway I am speculating on the above so it means nothing other than my opinion.

No one likes the Reebok deal as it is, yes.

But on the other fronts the UFC has lead in pushing up fighter pay and global expansion. MMA was a sport where only the very top guys could make a living and almost everyone else had to have a day job and now all sorts of fighters, coaches, gym owners, etc have had no career but MMA. And that is in LARGE PART due to the UFC.

That someone like Conor or Bisping came out of the UK is because of the UFC and what they fostered in those communities.


None of us know the future. So pretending we do with any certainty is just not sensible imo. There are a whole lot of smart people behind the UFC and while they are pivoting the company more towards the entertainment side than the sport side (and I don't like that BTW) we will have to wait and see if it produces a good return for them.

I'm not pretending to see the future.

My entire original point is that selling the UFC for the price of one pro sports team isn't very impressive in the grand scheme of sports and is basically peanuts.

Somehow that got warped into somebody acting like zuffa/wme could do no wrong and couldn't possibly make management mistakes because they grew and got more popular.

I'm not pretending to know the future. At all. That's why I listed apple as an example of a billion dollar company that was making shit management decisions. They turned it around when they came out with an iPhone.

Wme is quite clearly going in a different direction than zuffa was, or at least they are taking the director zuffa was headed and quadrupling down it. I view that as a mistake in the long run, I view it as mismangement. That is my opinion...not a fact.

All I'm saying is that popularity and growth over a short term is not something that you can point to in order to say that management is doing a good job. It's a small piece of the puzzle and they could really be fucking themselves over in the long term.

Stuff like the Reebok deal and shit like lesnar/hunt is probably going to end up getting them sued in the long term too. It's also probably going to lead to something like the Ali Act in boxing. While the UFC is doing fine at the moment, I wouldn't be surprised at all if their greedy actions towards fighters ends up costing them more money in the long run than the short term cash grabs they are making.

Whether the UFC ends up being around 20 years from now is hard to predict. The UFC wasn't even the biggest MMA promotion 15 short years ago. Whether the decisions they are making right now are the right ones is yet to be seen.

 

[FrankieNYC]

Wme is quite clearly going in a different direction than zuffa was, or at least they are taking the director zuffa was headed and quadrupling down it. I view that as a mistake in the long run, I view it as mismangement. That is my opinion...not a fact.

WME bought Zuffa
Zuffa owns UFC
That is why every event is still "Zuffa"
Weird you would miss that

I think you meant The Fertitta's

 

[skylolow]

As a former fan of American football, I’m fully aware of the sketchiness from the 70s and 80s. But the thing is, they’ve had that deal in place for 6 years. Last year was the best year in revenue in the company’s history. Bloody Elbow has done reports on profits and it doesn’t add up to why fighter pay is so low. I’m not one of these guys either that claims that every fighter should get $1 m even at entry level like your kickers and special teams in the NFL. But anyone in the top 15, should be making much more than 40 and 40.

Unfortunately though, only a small fraction of fighters, maybe 10 if you include most champs, are making really good money. TBH a guy like Conor has been great for the sport in that sense because fighters are more aware of their worth now more than ever. But unfortunately you have corruption in the president’s seat and even Tony, the GD interim champ who has been a true role model for the sport this year, is being told he has no room to talk. That’s part of the problem. That’s like the #1 overall pick of the most recent draft being told that he’s nothing compared to Tom Brady. Why would Roger do that? He wouldn’t.

Look no further than 5-2 (UFC) Chris Wade getting cut after a win. Yes, on one hand it is the most stacked division but you look at people still in the division who are from Ecuador or Australia, and absolute cans, like Jake Matthews for example, and still have a job with the UFC. UFC is no longer about the best fighting the best, it’s about what attractive person can fight another attractive person from a country not in North America that can put dollars in their pocket.

I rejoice for the day Dana White leaves his post and we see things rapidly improve under better management.

All very true. Though I don't think Dana is the only problem. I agree at times he comes of like a complete moron in the public eye and it isn't called for most of the time. The Ferts. made large majority of the major business decisions for the UFC and Dana was the public puppet that got to take it on the chin for the company. They left and things haven't changed. When ever Dana rides off no one is coming in on the part of the owners and start shoveling out money to the fighters either. At some point the fighters are going have too take a stand to get their due.

I don't harp to much on fighter pay. As a business owner of a business that has been in business for over 40 years I understand things don't just happen over night. The business has to be strong with long term commitments in place to secure the future growth of the company. The UFC is really very green when it comes to that. They aren't far removed from fighting tooth and nail to just get the sport legitimatized by the general public. Perfect example is the State of New York just coming in line with MMA. People just see what the UFC takes in and fighters make nothing in comparison. But the one thing none of us know and this includes the brightest minds on the outside looking in is we don't know what they spend every year to keep this sport going. Until we know that its very hard to argue how greedy ownership has been(I think with all due fairness they made out quite well). I do agree that fighters should get some pay increase and I think the UFC could do that and be fine at this point. Fans would still bitch I'm sure since other sports they bitch about how much they make, so fans will never be happy.

Over the next decade or two I think we will see major change in favor of the fighters, its just going to take the UFC continuing to grow and securing more lucrative long term media deals(shocker to many keyboard warriors who are saying the UFC is dying on one hand and asking for more money to go to the fighters, however that add up in their minds I have no ideal).

 

[Megalodon]

The UFC isn't a sports organisation. It's an entertainment company that happens to broadcast sports contests, but until a legitimate system is set up where the UFC cannot manipulate matchmaking + title contenders, it's not a sports organisation.

 

[FrankieNYC]

Over the next decade or two I think we will see major change in favor of the fighters, its just going to take the UFC continuing to grow and securing more lucrative long term media deals(shocker to many keyboard warriors who are saying the UFC is dying on one hand and asking for more money to go to the fighters, however that add up in their minds I have no ideal).

 

[The Best JG]

In the world lmfao. Where u from bro? Kadyrov, a russian warlord, has his own children compete full contact in his own MMA organization against other children. Guess who wins the fights. This thread is a joke

 

[MikeMcMann]

I'm not pretending to see the future.

My entire original point is that selling the UFC for the price of one pro sports team isn't very impressive in the grand scheme of sports and is basically peanuts.

...

well that is just a dumb thing to say. Sorry it is.

is an NHL team not good investments in the grand scheme of things because an NF team is worth more or neither of them because Amazon is worth so much more?

The way you look at the success is based on the growth of that entity and its return on investment to its owners and not relative to some 'pick em comparison' that did better.

When the Fertitta' bro's bought the UFC it was a worthless piece of nothing that no one knew if it could be turned into a real sports league.

If you really know how to run numbers go and take the purchase price they paid for it and then calculate their ROE over the years they owned based on what they sold it for. You will find there Return on Equity is massive. Probably amongst some of the biggest returns in a similar time frame in any sport and up there in general with all business.

If I start a new sport and league tomorrow and build it from nothing and sell it for a Billion in a few years it is really dumb to suggest that is not good because a single NFL team is worth more.

 

[Fedor>Cain]

well that is just a dumb thing to say. Sorry it is.

is an NHL team not good investments in the grand scheme of things because an NF team is worth more or neither of them because Amazon is worth so much more?

The way you look at the success is based on the growth of that entity and its return on investment to its owners and not relative to some 'pick em comparison' that did better.

When the Fertitta' bro's bought the UFC it was a worthless piece of nothing that no one knew if it could be turned into a real sports league.

If you really know how to run numbers go and take the purchase price they paid for it and then calculate their ROE over the years they owned based on what they sold it for. You will find there Return on Equity is massive. Probably amongst some of the biggest returns in a similar time frame in any sport and up there in general with all business.

If I start a new sport and league tomorrow and build it from nothing and sell it for a Billion in a few years it is really dumb to suggest that is not good because a single NFL team is worth more.

When did I say that the UFC wasn't a good investment? I didn't. I said that I believe they are being mismanged. That would seem to indicate that I believe that it is a good investment and that it could be a lot better...

ROI for WME hasn't been very good since they took over from everything we have read tbh

You act like MMA got big BECAUSE of the Fertitas and their management. I'm stating the Fertitas stumbled on to something at the right time that happened to catch on. The UFC got big in spite of them, not because of them.

They've also made some good decisions over the years. Have also made some shitty ones.

 

[fightfan70]

its sports entertainment. been that way for at least 10 years. nothing to see here.

 

[Oliver Clothesoff]

They've got a long way to go to catch up to the NFL.