How realistic is Dana White's claim that UFC will eventually be the biggest sport in the world?

KOPPE

KOPPE

Banned
Banned
Joined
Oct 4, 2020
Messages
8,953
Reaction score
19,887
I am genuinely curious about this



this video got me thinking about the old question, is mma still a niche sport?
i mean even table tennis is still more respected than mma!
take for example NHL it's still considered to be a niche sport but it has the aura of
legitimacy. and not to mention they made $4.4 billion last year.
hell even NFL still gets real national media coverage despite its slow decline!
when are we going to get the respect we deserve...
 
Was MMA the sport you played when you were a kid? Talked about at school? Bought apparel of and was it a MMA fighter you admired? MMA has no chance. It's just adult entertainment..er... entertainment. It isn't a relatable sport to the vast majority in the sense the current major leagues are.
 
If one of the mma-goats can't watch the end of an armbar because of the potential horrific ending, what about the casual viewer? This sport isn't for everyone and that's why it will never become as popular as football, basketball etc.
 
It's optimistic for sure

I think even boxing during the era of Muhammad Ali's peak was still nothing compared to some of the bigger sports worldwide. The issue with combat sports is that it all depends on who the biggest names of that era are. Compare the heavyweight scene in the 1970s / 1990s to the heavyweight scene of the early 2000s. The popularity of the division died so hard. It has picked up again recently with Fury Joshua and Wilder.

The UFC is the biggest it has ever been and it's a relatively young brand. So if it continues at its current rate, it'll probably surpass boxing (consistently, it has surpassed boxing in some years, but not over a decade +). In terms of American Football, Soccer, Basketball, ect, I don't think in this lifetime.
 
With Dana at the helm the UFC will always struggle with legitimacy and respect. Trying to control the media that covers your sport, acting like a clown, trashing your own fighters etc. sets an upper limit on how far the UFC will go. The MMA demographic is also much more limited than most of the well-established sports.
 
The sport is still young compared to the other sports. Give it time and it will be huge globally as the number 1 combat sport. Because all styles and martial arts can join in. It's not like the specialist martial arts that are big in certain countries only. MMA is expanding globally. ONE FC is basing their whole events on fighters representing their country/nation. This will help build future talent in those places and soon everyone will know and understand what mma is and it won't just be considered a niche sport.

Martial arts has been around forever, it will never go away. Mixed martial arts is just the evolution of martial arts that people are finally starting to understand and it is being more readily available to other countries/nations when before it wasn't. Like UFC centers that UFC is building, gyms Khabib and Ngannou is building, etc. Places that never had access to mma are starting to receive it now and it will just continue to spread.

UFC is one of the main promotions of MMA and is considered the elite level so as mma gains popularity so will UFC. ONE FC has a good stake in the Asian market compared to UFC so they rival them in that sense.
 
KOPPE said:
I am genuinely curious about this



this video got me thinking about the old question, is mma still a niche sport?
i mean even table tennis is still more respected than mma!
take for example NHL it's still considered to be a niche sport but it has the aura of
legitimacy. and not to mention they made $4.4 billion last year.
hell even NFL still gets real national media coverage despite its slow decline!
when are we going to get the respect we deserve...
Click to expand...

I visibly cringed when he said Conor could move up to fight Adesanya and couldn't make it any further
 
MMA keeps growing... still hasn't reached it's potential world wide.

Will it become bigger than soccer? Doubt it. This is not a sport you can watch with your whole family.
 
Combat sport fans tend overrated the popularity of their fav combat sport hard. The talent pool of combat sports alone is a joke. Muay Thais talent pool dwarfs mma but it's still utter shit compared to the talent pool in the states alone.

Combat sports are like this: they are popular for a few years in a country and then thy are ded or lost 90% of popularity in said country. For example MMA in Japan was the number 1 cb sport, but it's petty much ded right now and kickboxing, judo and boxing are n1 cb sports right now in Japan.

And CTE will be on of the reasons why the talent pool of cb sports will get smaller which means less superstars and this means ess viewers.

Also, 99% of the mma/boxing etc gyms are just fitness gyms, lol.

Tl:Dr combat sports are niche.
 
Last edited:
Just looking at football - We watch and play it growing up, high school stadiums around the country are packed (pre-covid) every Friday night, we are loyal to our college teams and many of those stadiums are packed every Saturday, and NFL fans have withdrawal symptoms at the end of the season. In 2019 more people attended college football games in person each week than ever watched the most popular UFC events on PPV. The worst NFL game last week pulled over 12 million viewers. If the UFC can surpass that, then they can figure out what to do about soccer, which reportedly has about 4 billion fans.
 
Last edited:
Reb said:
If one of the mma-goats can't watch the end of an armbar because of the potential horrific ending, what about the casual viewer? This sport isn't for everyone and that's why it will never become as popular as football, basketball etc.
Click to expand...
This pretty much sums it up. There isn't a big market for mma (or better, not nearly as big as for soccer, for instance). Also, how many young athletes will choose mma over a football, soccer, basketball etc career. It's bad for your health, it pays crap and training is rough. No way mma will ever be bigger than soccer, literally 0% chance.
 
Never. Regular peeps dont like getting hit or slammed. It takes a special person to want to fight. The drafting pool is small.
 
FIghtxIQ said:
The sport is still young compared to the other sports. Give it time and it will be huge globally as the number 1 combat sport. Because all styles and martial arts can join in. It's not like the specialist martial arts that are big in certain countries only. MMA is expanding globally. ONE FC is basing their whole events on fighters representing their country/nation. This will help build future talent in those places and soon everyone will know and understand what mma is and it won't just be considered a niche sport.

Martial arts has been around forever, it will never go away. Mixed martial arts is just the evolution of martial arts that people are finally starting to understand and it is being more readily available to other countries/nations when before it wasn't. Like UFC centers that UFC is building, gyms Khabib and Ngannou is building, etc. Places that never had access to mma are starting to receive it now and it will just continue to spread.

UFC is one of the main promotions of MMA and is considered the elite level so as mma gains popularity so will UFC. ONE FC has a good stake in the Asian market compared to UFC so they rival them in that sense.
Click to expand...
Things take time. Even with a juggernaut like football. The NFL was founded in 1920 but it took 4 decades until the 1960s that it really started to win over America and then another decade into the 70’s with AFL merger and cementing the Super Bowl as a national holiday that they firmly overtook baseball as America’s favorite. 50 years.
 
Prize fighting will never be the top sport in the world. Especially when you start catering to WWE style antics instead of the fighters who are actually top fighters. It would be like the new expansion team getting automatically put into the playoffs and then if they won playing for a championship.

I really like the bellator tournament model. I think the UFC should adopt it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

AndrewGolota48
How crazy is it that the best MMA fighter in the world literally CAN'T fight in the UFC
6 7 8
Replies
141
Views
4K
bigfootsbreath
B

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
1,266,183
Messages
57,384,646
Members
175,688
Latest member
classicalthunder

Share this page

Back
Top