Is MMA one of the most popular sports in USA?

SammyG420 said:
This was a couple years ago but baseball still #2
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It's probably changed. 5-10 years ago Baseball was a clear number 2. Basketball took off in the 2010s. Though I feel like baseball becoming the most localized sport where all the local media love to cover it, but the national media just stopped at least stopped the way it was being covered before.
 
Josh Koshercheck said:
It’s behind basketball, football, and soccer. Definitely ahead of baseball , I have never met a single person who watches baseball in my entire life but know thousands of MMA fans
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No one d about soccer in the US. Baseball is way head of soccer. Only things above baseball are football and basketball. You have absolutely met people who watch baseball.
 
There's the 'Big 4' with all of it's various forms (e.g. NFL, College Football, Arena League, CFL, semi-pro, etc). Then soccer is probably #5. UFC is far, far below mens AND women's soccer.

It's above rugby and certainly above cricket.
 
ferrisjso said:
I think it's peers are more the individual sports. In which case it's prolly beating Tennis, golf and boxing(as a whole). NASCAR I know at a time was the number 2 sport behind the NFL but I don't think that's the case anymore. Not sure UFC is as popular as NASCAR but wouldn't surprise me if that's the place the UFC ends up occupying in the US sports landscape.

Right now NBA is either number 1 or about to be. NBA and NFL are clearly top 2. MLB and NHL are a very distant second tier but it being number one in Canada gives Hockey a boost. MLB used to be number one a very long time ago. Soccer might not be as big as MLB and NHL yet but it probably is going to surpass them at some point.
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Tennis and golf are definitely beating it, and motor sports as a whole too. How many people have heard of Conor (MMA's biggest name) compared to Tiger Woods or Serena Williams? Golf has whole channels devoted to it. Tennis gets coverage from the major networks.

Not sure why hockey's numbers in Canada effect its popularity in the United States -- though even the US alone hockey is way bigger than MMA. There are about 20 American NHL teams, all of which play 40 home games a year (not including play-offs), and they average well over 10,000 spectators a game -- and then there's the NHL on TV. Compare the numbers to MMA, its not even remotely close. The NHL has about 600 guys a year being paid over a million dollars a year -- how's that compare to the UFC pay schedule?
 
The UFC is maybe the 10th most watched sports organization in North America. Maybe.
The NFL and NBA are the gold standard.
 
beastman said:
How big is it in Brazil, Canada, UK, Russia, China, India?
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In Canada its niche, behind hockey (of course), baseball, football, basketball, soccer, tennis, golf, curling -- its about level with things like figure skating.
 
Nah, MMA is popular in the US, but no where near Football, Baseball, Basketball or Hockey.

Hell, I think Soccer is more popular since MLS games can sell out a fairly large stadium.
 
Football and basketball are way up there in there own class. Baseball has fallen behind and is probably not far above mma. I don't think hockey is even that popular either, nobody gives a shit about it where I live and even when I was in the military I never heard anybody else talking about it. Its almost like the wnba, its just there but not really there. Boxing is just a little bit more popular than mma as well
 
AnotherOldGuy said:
Tennis and golf are definitely beating it, and motor sports as a whole too. How many people have heard of Conor (MMA's biggest name) compared to Tiger Woods or Serena Williams? Golf has whole channels devoted to it. Tennis gets coverage from the major networks.

Not sure why hockey's numbers in Canada effect its popularity in the United States -- though even the US alone hockey is way bigger than MMA. There are about 20 American NHL teams, all of which play 40 home games a year (not including play-offs), and they average well over 10,000 spectators a game -- and then there's the NHL on TV. Compare the numbers to MMA, its not even remotely close. The NHL has about 600 guys a year being paid over a million dollars a year -- how's that compare to the UFC pay schedule?
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You aren't wrong. I just don't think that determines a sports popularity if anything it shows the sports popularity is dependent on stars. Look at boxing and the weak skeleton once you peeled away the sports biggest stars? Look at the UFC's numbers when you take away Conor's numbers? Was the sport really more popular in 2015 when him and Ronda were breaking records and everyone else couldn't draw flies or 2012 or 2013 when every champ above 145 could draw good numbers though records weren't falling. I have the sense tennis used to be more popular than it was now, that's just my anecdotal experience though it's in good shape but tennis was never based on one star, you've always had about a half dozen. With golf though it's success was heavily dependent on Tiger Woods(at least recently), that's why it was the first sport where the video game was named after an athlete(Madden's named after Madden but Madden ain't some superstar that's just bizzare). Tennis is probably a bigger long term rival though cause I see golf as a really tough sell for future generations, even to rich kids.

Well Canada is a fundamentally regional sport. With the "NHL" "national" actually refers to Canada not the US and the sport's most popular in the Northern United States. Was at a school with a big time hockey program and you notice unlike football and basketball the big schools are all located in the Northern United States(like North as in geography not Civil War North, places that are freezing) and the kids who play tend to be be predominantly Canadian. NHL is only relevant for part of the country but it's very relevant to that part. It doesn't need to die everywhere else, it's already dead and it doesn't matter cause it's a niche thing. NHL has expanded south but they've tended to focus on cities that don't have other sports teams if you're in Nashville and San Jose you might not give a fuck about hockey but if it's the only game in time you might. The UFC though can spread so much further.

Hockey tends to be popular on the least densely populated parts of the planet(Scandanavia, Canada, Northern US, Russia) so it's healthy cause those people love it but there just ain't that many of them. UFC appeals to the whole US. Hockey is a team sport and is direct competition for basketball, football and baseball, UFC it really isn't an either or thing, MMA fans aren't going to ditch other sports, but being a team sport fan is pretty time intensive, people usually are only into one maybe two at a time. And appealing to more places globally matters in the US too because then immigrant communities spread it.
 
Biggest sport in the USA. Daniel Cormier is USA's biggest sports star.
 
Upon further thought, I would suggest that MMA is no higher than 8th.

First off, how one defines "popular" will change the finer points of the answer (TV ratings? revenue? general name recognition?) And much debate comes from regional differences: in Alabama car racing is huge and soccer isn't; in Atlanta they're both huge, and in Seattle soccer is huge and car racing isn't.

Top 2 are not debatable:
1. American Football. NFL and NCAAF
2. Basketball. No question. NBA and NCAA, including March Madness​

After that there's a huge gap. The next two aren't really debatable either:
3. Baseball
4. Hockey​

Then a small gap, and:
5-7. Soccer, Golf, Tennis (in any particular order)​

Another small gap, and then:
8-10. MMA, Boxing, car racing, also in any particular order.​

My guess is that most people would agree with most of this list. Which is about as good as one can hope for, considering folks will bicker over this just like they would a P4P or GOAT list.
 
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This is slightly off-topic, but UFC has failed to create celebrities. By celebrity, I mean someone non-fans have heard of. The average person has never heard of Jon Jones, but can rattle off Tyson, Hearns, Hagler, Bowe, etc.

Why is that?
 
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