ESPN doesn't think MMA is better than Women Soccer. They award MMA fighters @ Red Carpet LMFAO!!!!!!

[MMA4Life]

I tried to talk about UFC with a friend yesterday and he said, "Is that still around?!"

Probably not a close friend? If your on sherdog and he doesn't know if MMA is still around. It's been awhile but Conor even if he was really more of a flash in the pan star/fighter and never defended either belt. Conor attracted more casuals than I have seen before and now a solid portion of those people are still watching....

 

[StayCranked]

Hide yo kids, hide yo wife


Role models

oh no so bad, murica should lock them up now for the bad behavior lol
piss off

 

[USAwrestling532]

I thought WME-IMG was supposed to deal with this kinda shit and make the UFC big?

Didn’t Ronda Rousey win an ESPY and accept the award on stage? And that was under the Fertitas’ ownership.

 

[Only Here for Attachments]

Probably not a close friend? If your on sherdog and he doesn't know if MMA is still around.

Used to have a group of friends that would watch the PPVs at the local pub. They stopped about 5 years ago and they all genuinely thought UFC had gone under in that time!

 

[ShadowRun]

ESPN is the tmz with sports and feelings

 

[TidWell]

Are you kidding me?






Awarding MMA fighters @ the fucking red carpet instead of the normal way.


WTF, seriously.....This is a horrible way to promote the UFC.


I guess UFC isn't even neck and neck with women soccer lol.

The womens soccer team was in the biggest event of the summer and also they are promoting the Lesbian who hates trump Rapinoe and yes tht is messed up giving the award on the red carpet???? wtf thats lame

 

[AnotherOldGuy]

How is women's soccer a niche sport when girls start playing in preschool?
There is millions of girls playing soccer, MMA not so much.

That sums it up. And those girls have parents, grandparents and uncles and aunts who watch their kids play, and have a lot of disposable income. Anything which a lot of kids play becomes financially important.

 

[AnotherOldGuy]

Literally, no one, and i mean no one besides de US gives 2 fucks about woman soccer. Mma is way bigger globally than woman’s soccer.

Actually parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts of girls who play soccer (and there are far more of them than the number of people who fight or even watch MMA) care about female soccer. I'm in that category -- a grand daughter who plays. She knows the names of some women's soccer stars, so I know their names too now. And I've even watched some women's soccer games with her.

Don't underestimate the power of children to get their parents and grandparents interested in what they're doing -- there's huge money in spending on children's interest ... and more, anything that gets your kids / grand kids off their butts and active is looked at very fondly by most parents/grandparents.

Which is why ESPN shows women's soccer. The disposal income of MMA fans is minuscule compared to the disposable income of parents around the world who have girls playing soccer.

 

[AnotherOldGuy]

The UFC deserves treatment in accordance with its visibility as a sport.

Actually it got that -- its the main organization of a niche sport.

Women's soccer is also a niche sport, but the WC was a major event and that was reflected by ESPN.

Girl's soccer though is a very big sport (as I said above, tens of millions of parents and grand parents have huge disposable income and are happy to spend it on things that keep their daughters active and out of trouble), and its because those girls watched the WC that it became important to advertisers and ESPN. The UFC simply can't match that.

Most of the people I know who watched the women's world cup (or parts of it) did so because they have a girl who plays in some school league. For all the talk of politics and all the virtue signalling going on (and you're right there is quite a lot), its mainly about supporting daughters and granddaughter's interests.

 

[BJJ_Rage]

Actually parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts of girls who play soccer (and there are far more of them than the number of people who fight or even watch MMA) care about female soccer. I'm in that category -- a grand daughter who plays. She knows the names of some women's soccer stars, so I know their names too now. And I've even watched some women's soccer games with her.

Don't underestimate the power of children to get their parents and grandparents interested in what they're doing -- there's huge money in spending on children's interest ... and more, anything that gets your kids / grand kids off their butts and active is looked at very fondly by most parents/grandparents.

Which is why ESPN shows women's soccer. The disposal income of MMA fans is minuscule compared to the disposable income of parents around the world who have girls playing soccer.

I said outside the US, and I was using a hyperbole obviously.

 

[AnotherOldGuy]

I said outside the US, and I was using a hyperbole obviously.

Fair enough. Though girl's soccer is big in Canada, and I'm told its fairly popular in parts of Europe as well.

Soccer has the advantage (for parents) of being cheap and relatively safe compared to quite a few school sports.

 

[Meathead Jock]

Women's soccer team is fresh on people's minds and had a tv rating viewership USA vs. Netherlands (2019 World Cup final): 14.2 million (Fox)


They are a bigger deal than DC if you take your MMA fan blinders off.

 

[Meathead Jock]

To be fair far more people want to have sex with female soccer players then mma fighters. Sex sells. This was a business decision.

ESPN was right.

UFC women sell sexuality way more than the women's soccer team does, so don't try and hide behind that. MMA is simply not as big as soccer when played on the world stage.

 

[Meathead Jock]

....Most of the women in the world aren't playing ....

USA has invested so heavily in women's sports compared to the rest of the world, I can't picture the country losing as a whole in the Olympics anytime soon.

 

[seanb1979]

I only learned in this thread that american women's soccer won something. Their version of the world cup? Congrats I guess? Sort of amazed anyone pays attention. Probably mostly cover it to defend against political backlash for not giving it any attention.

 

[mortal]

I said outside the US, and I was using a hyperbole obviously.

You weren't that wrong really (european here).
As a matter of fact, when I first noticed how popular the women's football was in the US (I didn't know about Canada) I was surprised and confused. It kinda still surprises me seeing americans talk about the women's football instead of men's.

 

[Thai Domi]

MMA needs a purple haired loud mouth bull dyke to throw shade at the POTUS and besmirch straight folk.

 

[dissectingaorticaneurysm]

Actually it got that -- its the main organization of a niche sport.

Women's soccer is also a niche sport, but the WC was a major event and that was reflected by ESPN.

Girl's soccer though is a very big sport (as I said above, tens of millions of parents and grand parents have huge disposable income and are happy to spend it on things that keep their daughters active and out of trouble), and its because those girls watched the WC that it became important to advertisers and ESPN. The UFC simply can't match that.

Most of the people I know who watched the women's world cup (or parts of it) did so because they have a girl who plays in some school league. For all the talk of politics and all the virtue signalling going on (and you're right there is quite a lot), its mainly about supporting daughters and granddaughter's interests.

People are also overlooking the growth potential of female sports. Male sports are a mature industry with high saturation and limited future growth. Female sports are a tiny sliver of that, but if you encourage young girls to participate and watch then it can grow into a money making juggernaut. This is why ESPN is aggressively pursuing female audiences (and pushing UFC to do more wmma). The forecast for male audience growth is near maximum but the female audience can double or triple in the coming years.

People like to bring up the WNBA as a failure and they're right- it failed to captivate female viewers. Perhaps they couldnt relate to giant women the way men gravitate to large athletes. But the popularity of women's tennis and soccer shows us they do love watching sports.

Not to mention the huge growth of women's strength sports- " In 2012, there were 3,332 registered female USA Weightlifting members compared to an astonishing 8,600 female members today. "
For each of those registered members, there are dozens of recreational hobbyists participating. And Crossfit and powerlifting has even more.


What I find hilarious is all the dudes here who are so resistant to this. Do you want your daughter's role models to be THOTs?

 

[dissectingaorticaneurysm]

USA has invested so heavily in women's sports compared to the rest of the world, I can't picture the country losing as a whole in the Olympics anytime soon.

The US women actually got eliminated in Rio in a fairly big upset to Sweden. But even the Dream Team lost.

 

[Meathead Jock]

The womens soccer team was in the biggest event of the summer and also they are promoting the Lesbian who hates trump Rapinoe and yes tht is messed up giving the award on the red carpet???? wtf thats lame

Their ratings were even higher for previous years, so I don't think the AntiTrump news publicity gave them any boost in ratings if you are suggesting it played a big role in the ratings.