Could some Russian Oligarch or Saudi Billionnaire steal UCC's thunder?

[Judge Lance Ito]

Just thinking, these sorts of guys are throwing money at English and European soccer clubs and we're talking billions. Guys like Roman Abromoivch don't even care about the 100s of millions he pumps into Chelsea.

I'm wondering why one of them hasn't gotten a serious interest in MMA yet. We all know how popular Fedor is in Russia, while there's sheikhs who are ju-jitsu nuts in the middle east.

It would be interesting if they started offering crazy money to fighters to leave the UFC.

i think it can/will happen.

 

[Abezal]

People don't give a shit about mma, billionaires mostly don't either then. Getting the right to host a HW title fight sure, but mma is a sport for scrubs.

They fund euro football cause its the most prestigious sport they can buy into, some play in F1 for a bit but get owned by the big boys and bail sooner or later.

 

[eseseses681]

Ramzan Kadyrov's already doing it with Akhmat FC. Dat corrupted government spending towards making fights.
He's not an Oligarch, but the situation's close enough.

 

[Zanmato]

Just thinking, these sorts of guys are throwing money at English and European soccer clubs and we're talking billions. Guys like Roman Abromoivch don't even care about the 100s of millions he pumps into Chelsea.

I'm wondering why one of them hasn't gotten a serious interest in MMA yet. We all know how popular Fedor is in Russia, while there's sheikhs who are ju-jitsu nuts in the middle east.

It would be interesting if they started offering crazy money to fighters to leave the UFC.

i think it can/will happen.

abramovich taking on chelsea is a: a status thing (there's not the same prestige in owning a fight league) and b: because he can pump the club full of hundreds of millions of pounds worth of debt through his various subsidiary companies and then pay the interest back to himself in order to write off his tax bill

he came to the uk because he has special status in which he doesn't have to pay any tax on his earnings here... he just loans the club the money and then writes the interest off against his tax which is very easy for foreign investors in the uk to do, the real reason why most of the companies are so "successful" and yet so awash with debt

i don't think there is the same opportunity to do something like that in europe for a mma business

 

[SeoulRome]

It probably won't happen, but it would be a lot of fun if it did. Certainly shake things up. This whole free agency business would be on another level!

 

[mjfan23]

A sheikh already owns a stake in UFC