Are MMA and combat sports in general still growing sports?

[RedDevilFan]

MMA is a niche sport, it is too barbaric for some people and it is kind of a circus. I feel it has grown in people getting into martial arts but it is what it is. The matches are too short, the fighters are not interesting, not enough showman’s, and it can be a boring slumber fest of grappling and hugging all throughout the fight. Like someone else said, it can feel like fighters hugging in panties.

Outside of the losers and cuckolds who frequent this site and similar ones, you will rarely see the public that intrigued in mma outside of a casual look. Heck, most people don’t even know when the fights are on, let alone who is fighting. The UFC does a poor piss job properly advertising it’s fights to the public.

MMA has become kind of boring

 

[Daelh]

Even in the US it’s still growing but there is huge opportunities for growth in Europe, Asia, Africa. Mma still has a long way to go

Dont quote me on this but I think in general Europeans are less interested in hard hitting fast paced sports (Combat sports, American Football etc). I dont think there is as big of a market to grow in in Europe. We dont really have the "just bleed" mentality over here. I myself like American Football and MMA, but I pretty much know no one else who likes it. Its all football and lesser sports like Swimming, Golf, Track and Field, Winter sports etc.

Russia, Poland and most of eastern europe might be an exception. But they're still dominated by the same sports as the rest of Europe.

Some people know who Alexander Gustafsson is, but most of them couldn't name the sport or organisation he fights for. Because there is not much of a interest in MMA the newpapers dont write shit about it because it doesn't generate ad revenue. The company that has MMA broadcasting rights in Scandinavia basically pays peanuts for it and the people using it dont pay anything for the actual MMA.

Also consider, most major mma promotions are on in the middle of the night. No one is gonna stay up and watch UFC in Europe if they're not die hard fans.

 

[NicholasJBasile]

I feel like 4 or 5 years ago, MMA was growing super fast in terms of number of practitionners. Same thing goes for bjj.
Conor and Honda had that huge impact so that there were dozens of noobs who were trying combat sports. There always were some new guys coming to the gyms I was training at. I was genuinely thinking MMA would become bigger than basketball in the US and eventually bigger than soccer in Europe.
Nowadays, I don't feel this enthusiasm among the population anymore (and I talk about pre-Covid, in a post6covid world, it can only become worse). The fact that the UFC has lost a lot of its superstars over the past years doesn't help too I guess.
What's your take on that?

Tough question and I have been pondering this myself -- I tend to agree, more or less. I don't view this as a bad thing, but it seems that the UFC has found its ceiling among the niche crowd it attracts. I will say though, that there is an outside chance that the quarantine may have had a positive effect on the UFC. The UFC made MMA the first major sport to return to major broadcasts which presumably attracted many people that wouldn't regularly watch and has since had some major PPV sales. I would venture to guess that it is not something that will have much of a permanent effect, but who knows? Maybe when the dust settles some new fans will stick?

 

[Local Plata]

I don't get why Americans think 'Soccer' is only popular in Europe, i think every country geographically under the USA would have something to say about that, not to mention the Africans, its by far the most popular sport in the world, as for American sports, nobody gives a shit about them outside of America except the odd strange person wearing a basket ball shirt as a fashion item with no clue on who any of the players are and probably never played or watched basketball in their life, kinda akin to a European having a Chinese tattoo.

What are you talking about? MLB, NBA, and NHL are huge internationally as well.

 

[TempleoftheDog]

In the uk it peaked around 2007, kept going until about 2010, now only die hard fans really mention it or know what it is, it is very much a American/Brazilian/Japanese sport.

'Soccer' as you guys call it is the most popular sport in the world.

The OP refers to people taking up the sport. Not fans watching the sport. And even then the UFC has become way more popular post 2010 than it ever was pre 2010. Ronda, and Conor brought millions of mainstream fans to the sport. The skyrocketing value of the company is the only proof required to make that statement.

As for the OP. Yes, it continues to grow, I believe. Especially with the number of top level fighters in relatively new markets. Young boys and girls see an Adesanya, or Weili reach the top of the mountain and they take up the sport. Having a champ from the places those people come from can only help grow the interest in young people to participate.

 

[Mesos]

Dont quote me on this but I think in general Europeans are less interested in hard hitting fast paced sports (Combat sports, American Football etc). I dont think there is as big of a market to grow in in Europe. We dont really have the "just bleed" mentality over here. I myself like American Football and MMA, but I pretty much know no one else who likes it. Its all football and lesser sports like Swimming, Golf, Track and Field, Winter sports etc.

Isnt boxing huge in the Uk though? Could easily see UFC really building up there and overtaking there spot. Think the problem is they dont cater enough to Europe. The late night cards are holding them back but I am guessing they are waiting for the right guy.

They need a Mcgregor type from england once they get that it will change everything. Same as what GSP did for Canada and Anderson did for Brazil.

Also mma is popular in Poland, and can really see it taking hold in scandanavian countries, France. Not sure on Germany though.

 

[Daelh]

What are you talking about? MLB, NBA, and NHL are huge internationally as well.

Hockey, Baseball and Basketball is not american sports though is it? They are played all over the world but have the best leagues. The European hockey leagues are as popular domestically as NHL for example, if not more.

 

[Daelh]

Isnt boxing huge in the Uk though? Could easily see UFC really building up there and overtaking there spot. Think the problem is they dont cater enough to Europe. The late night cards are holding them back but I am guessing they are waiting for the right guy.

They need a Mcgregor type from england once they get that it will change everything. Same as what GSP did for Canada and Anderson did for Brazil.

Also mma is popular in Poland, and can really see it taking hold in scandanavian countries, France. Not sure on Germany though.

Im not sure about Scandinavia tbh. I know its huge in Poland and Russia, but the MMA peak in Scandinavia was around Gus vs Jones 1. Now its basically non existent outside of hardcore fans and independent news sites.

 

[Mondo Freaks]

MMA had peaked but it’s not dying either. It’s on the same level as golf and NASCAR.

 

[TRT Champion]

MMA is a small niche sport. The UFC is the largest MMA organization and it got sold for 4,5 Billion dollars. When the sale happened, a lot of gullible people were like: "Wow! This is big!".
I have news for you: Real Madrid FC alone is worth more than that. Manchester United, Barcelona, Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Milan, Liverpool... every large European city has at least one of these Billion dollar football clubs.
Getting the picture now? MMA will never get even remotely close to football.

 

[560ti]

I don't get why Americans think 'Soccer' is only popular in Europe, i think every country geographically under the USA would have something to say about that, not to mention the Africans, its by far the most popular sport in the world, as for American sports

Even in the USA it's still bigger than MMA. My local pro soccer team consistently sells 15k seats per game and there's more people in my area doing legitimate soccer competition (club or college) then MMA.

 

[BoTyson]

The OP refers to people taking up the sport. Not fans watching the sport. And even then the UFC has become way more popular post 2010 than it ever was pre 2010. Ronda, and Conor brought millions of mainstream fans to the sport. The skyrocketing value of the company is the only proof required to make that statement.

As for the OP. Yes, it continues to grow, I believe. Especially with the number of top level fighters in relatively new markets. Young boys and girls see an Adesanya, or Weili reach the top of the mountain and they take up the sport. Having a champ from the places those people come from can only help grow the interest in young people to participate.

The 3 names that really got the interest of English and other British fans were Randy Couture, Anderson Silva & Chuck Liddell, after this when Brock Lesnar debuted it absolutely blew up in the UK (because WWF guys where household names in the UK), it was on tv all the time, everyone tuned in for the ultimate fighter etc, then it started to die off, especially when Brock retired, Conor & Ronda did cause a resurgence after, but nobody is interested anymore, Bisping has gone, Till is mediocre, its mainly because they don't have any decent British fighters who are in title contention, and there wont be many because its not a British sport.

Conor was popular because from this end of the world and had that British kind of trash talking which was fun, but now hes sorta gone, the interest has died with casuals.

It dont help that UFC moved from free tv and put their events behind a paywall, that was the final nail in the coffin with casual fans, thats a bad move by the UFC to put their events behind a paywall in a country that don't give much of a shit about MMA and prefers boxing in general. (i'm the opposite)

 

[Steve-French]

I don't get why Americans think 'Soccer' is only popular in Europe, i think every country geographically under the USA would have something to say about that, not to mention the Africans, its by far the most popular sport in the world, as for American sports, nobody gives a shit about them outside of America except the odd strange person wearing a basket ball shirt as a fashion item with no clue on who any of the players are and probably never played or watched basketball in their life, kinda akin to a European having a Chinese tattoo.

American sports is where the money is at though. The NFL, MLB, and NBA are the top 3 most lucrative leagues on the planet.

 

[BoTyson]

American sports is where the money is at though. The NFL, MLB, and NBA are the top 3 most lucrative leagues on the planet.

But only from Americans, there is like 1000000 to 1 Football teams compared to how many American Football teams for example, its more spread out.

Alot of it is also down to billionaire american oil tycoons like Stan Kronke etc throwing money about to his American franchises but ignoring his European franchises, such as his Premier League team, Arsenal FC.

If you amounted all of the rest of the worlds football teams in to one league, ie Barcelona, Real madrid, Manchester City, Liverpool, Bayern Munich etc etc it would destroy any American franchise, the US only has the upper hand on the UK because the population size difference so its a unfair comparison.

I mean the English Premier League is 4th, not far behind those 3 and pretty level with the NBA and we only have a population of 56m compared to USA's nearly 400m

 

[John of Arc]

Yeah I'd say so based on my day to day interactions. Most of the young lads I come across these days are aware of who is fighting on any given weekend and tend to have an opinion on who they think will win. I work as a doorman and come across many late teenage to early twenties lads and they seem way more clued up in comparison to the thirty plus crowd.

 

[Steve-French]

But only from Americans, there is like 1000000 to 1 Football teams compared to how many American Football teams for example, its more spread out.

Alot of it is also down to billionaire american oil tycoons like Stan Kronke etc throwing money about to his American franchises but ignoring his European franchises, such as his Premier League team, Arsenal FC.

I'm saying when compared to the rest of the sports leagues in the world the American sports leagues are the most successful. Isn't the Premier League a club of billionaires in which the richest person has the best team, because there's no salary cap? Also the Premier League is in the top 5 just a a head of the NHL.

 

[BoTyson]

I'm saying when compared to the rest of the sports leagues in the world the American sports leagues are the most successful. Isn't the Premier League a club of billionaires in which the richest person has the best team, because there's no salary cap? Also the Premier League is in the top 5 just a a head of the NHL.

The English Premier League is watched by some of a population of 56m people

The 3 American sports league you posted is watched by some of the population of 400m people.

Give the English Premier league the population of America and it obviously pisses all over the America sport leagues, i mean look at it lol, its pretty much level with the NBA yet we have 12% of the population.

The English settlers took football with them to America but they slowly changed the rules to what is now American football because they wanted to cut ties with being English.

 

[kflo]

Even in the USA it's still bigger than MMA. My local pro soccer team consistently sells 15k seats per game and there's more people in my area doing legitimate soccer competition (club or college) then MMA.

Their finals game drew less than half as much as a Jessica Eye headlined fight night card on ESPN.....

 

[Steve-French]

The English Premier League is watched by some of a population of 56m people

The 3 American sports league you posted is watched by some of the population of 400m people.

Give the English Premier league the population of America and it obviously pisses all over the America sport leagues, i mean look at it lol, its pretty much level with the NBA yet we have 12% of the population.

The English settlers took football with them to America but they slowly changed the rules to what is now American football because they wanted to cut ties with being English.

It looks like you made your whole argument moot. You're basically saying that the only reason American sports are more popular is because more people watch them On a side note it's not really fair to compare The U.S. to single European Countries like Germany or England. I think you almost have to compare all of Europe to get a fair comparison, as the US is a very big and diverse place.

 

[superpunch]

It's definitely still growing overseas. Some places I travel to have BJJ and MMA gyms popping up all over the place.

But in the US, no one under 21 can watch the UFC's main cards unless they illegally stream them. So, how are they supposed to get any new, younger fans to grow the sport? They don't, and so the sport hit its peak years ago, it's shrinking in America, and the average viewer is 49 years old.