What stage do you believe UFC is at?

[whocares]

Sporting integrity is mostly dead in every major (American) sport. They've all become watered down versions of their optimal form. And yet they are all drawing record profits. It's because their organizational business decisions are based off of algorithms and decided on spreadsheets, not the wants and desires of avid sports fans. And you have to face the fact that younger demographics which will always be the target ages for growth in the entertainment realm are full of people who don't particularly care about the sport so much as the tabloid aspect of the sport. The storylines pull in the interest more than the on court/on field/in cage part of it.

Go to a certain NBA board that has devolved into a reddit shitfest and take note of which topics get the standard 8-10 pages of discussion and which topics pull 60 pages. They're just waiting for a player to inappropriately use the word "gay" so they can incessantly masturbate, sjw and feign their gay ass social outrage hobby over it. The NBA gets more views from their youtube highlights then they do from games. Adam Silver has all but directly stated that the regular season, which consists of approximately 93% of the total games played, is essentially a pointless endeavor not meant to be taken seriously. And yet they have their die hard brand stans, their slew of casuals and their record profits.

So The UFC will do just fine so long as they continue to follow the contemporary rules of building a sports brand, which again has precious little to do with the sporting product they deliver. It's also why us begging for more continuity from the product is a waste of time because that's not actually the company's botton line. Look at Jones/Stipe. Do the majority of regular established fans want this fight? Not really. Is it going to be a marketing success? Absolutely. They sell the narrative and their target audience sucks it up. We're not the target, we're the junkies. And we're taken for granted because they already know we'll be here for our next fix no matter what.

 

[HHJ]

After Mokaev everyone is watching their backs, can't blame em lol.

So only southern states, or can he fight in Vegas?

He didnt say. Prob ongoing sitch.

 

[TriangleMonkey]

yeah in many ways i dont think us sherdoggers would like.

fighters would all have to be careful about what they say and all that, too much money is involved, a lot of money gets involved, sponsors get involved..... things would change quite a bit into a homogenized product meant to churn out profits with merch and subscritions incredibly quickly

I didn’t say I was for it by no means

Just saying you’ll get those huge leaps in changes

 

[StonedLemur]

He didnt say. Prob ongoing sitch.

I see...thanks man.

 

[jeskola]

Gen Z doesn't care about sports. That's part of a bigger problem.

Generation Z doesn't seem to care about sports. It's part of an overall problem of us choosing isolation over communal experiences.

www.usatoday.com

 

[Khaosan]

Stage 4.

 

[Rationality]

It's not the end, it's not even the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning.

 

[Substance Abuse]

Sherdog is a very vocal, yet miniscule contingent of the UFC's fanbase - if you could call it that, as the boards mostly hate everything about it - which usually pays for none of it and is the antithesis of the common, casual fan who digests the sport differently and actually spends money on it.

In reality, the UFC has never been more profitable and likely never as popular even as they cling to the antiquated PPV model that other forms of entertainment have left behind.

The UFC had a live gate total of $119 million in 2023, up from $84 million in 2022. The UFC made $1.3 billion last year, up from $1.1 billion in 2022. 363K people attended live events last year. The UFC had six of its top ten gates ever in the last 20 months.

I'll be shocked if media rights fees don't jump at least 40% on their next deal to $500+ million a year.

It's online growth is substantial month to month.


It's more popular than boxing.


And 51% of 18-34 year old men in a recent study are fans.


But yes, the UFC is dying, and began to die on November 12th, 1993. In before shill quotes, lol.

 

[Jinx_AA]

It’s peaked … isn’t getting bigger … but also isn’t going anywhere … it’s just fine and here to stay

The hardcores will watch it all

The casuals will watch all the big cards

It’s here to stay

 

[Iroh]

Comparing fighting with team sports... Often doesn't work.

 

[orca]

UFC is on the downward stage. It’s losing popularity, losing fans, and losing fighters with any appeal. It’s actually become even more of a fringe sport with watered down cards and unlikeable athletes. It’s the sports version of disco. I enjoy disco music but most people hate it with a passion just like the UFC.

UFC is dying since day 1 bro
haha

 

[LostMyBlackBelt]

UFC is milking less and less fans, for more and more money.

 

[Nizam al-Mulk]

UFC is milking less and less fans, for more and more money.

Team sports are losing younglings. One dude beating another dude sounds simple enough. I could see them becoming casual UFC fans instead casual baseball / NBA whatever fans.

 

[Harlekin]

Not yet world wide UFC.
Interesting is still lacking in many countries and the UFC is slowly catching them one by one.
Many european, asian and african countries are still missing on their map.

 

[Lee Danger]

the stage that made me a casual.

 

[mixmastermo]

I made another thread two or three days ago that quickly became lol'ed because of bad takes, so...

The thing is: NBA, NFL, football (I'm from Spain, so I mean soccer I guess)... have evolved a huge leap once advanced stats/data analysis set in.

NBA is 75+ years old, most popular sports competition in the world from the early 90s (I was a Jordan's witness, man I'm old...) and still, no coach back then could foresee a team playing like the Warriors or the current Celtics.
No coach could ask for a player like Curry, Jokic or Luka. They would never "happened", the game just wasn't there yet.

"MMA on a cage" is very, very young and still niche even if the martial arts involved stand for centuries: they were not crafted or teached for this means.

Do you believe UFC will evolve as it keeps growing, producing not "better" athletes per se, but athletes that will approach fights in ways we may feel counterintuitive but will prove effective?

TL;DR Will the UFC undergo some pivotal landmark due to advanced stats, like D'Antoni's Suns or GSW? Will it guide fighters towards a whole different fight game, as if we compared the way Kareem and Jokic play?

UFC is on the downward stage. It’s losing popularity, losing fans, and losing fighters with any appeal. It’s actually become even more of a fringe sport with watered down cards and unlikeable athletes. It’s the sports version of disco. I enjoy disco music but most people hate it with a passion just like the UFC.

I do think MMA has 2 big things going against it

• The violent nature of the sport- for this it'll NEVER be as big as something like NBA or soccer
• It's a bit hard to follow if you aren't hardcore

On that 2nd point- during basketball season you can have a favorite team or player, and you can watch them multiple times a week during the season. If you have a favorite fighter you *might* get to see him or her fight 3x a year. Some of the biggest stars in UFC (McGregor, Jones, Izzy) haven't fought in a really long time. If you're not hardcore about it, tuning in to watch events a few times a month isn't very appealing as you are constantly having to learn about new fighters. It becomes difficult to know who to root for.

 

[Lars6]

UFC is dying but it doesn’t mean that MMA is bad/easy. MMA stretches back millennia. It has its origins in the Ancient Greek Olympic sport of pankration. Pankration combined boxing, kicking and wrestling. The basic rules were similar to MMA.

 

[Rubios]

I'm talking about analyzing huge amounts of data and bringing tracking into the game.
If Jordan, arguably the greatest BB player ever, time traveled to play today, his HC would be like:

"Mike, you know that mid range step back you've mastered? Ok, you're not doing that anymore. You're going for a floater instead".

Or

"These entries to the rim from the corner you excel at? Forget them. You're going to catch and shot a 3".

I'm guessing what kind of tactics/techniques/approaches will emerge once the nerds will apply actual science based on advanced stats.

The fight game is still relying on intuition and experience.
Leon's noticing a flaw in the way Usman leans his head to defend a jab to set up that high kick is the same tape review people like Bird or Jordan would study to find weaknesses in their guards.

Light years behind a game plan based on deep stats to squeeze the maximum efficiency of any fighter.
A lot of money is on the line, so I expect it to happen sooner than later.

 

[Mike]

We're at the beginning of the end.

I feel like we've seen the best the sport has to offer already. These new guys got nothing on GSP, Fedor, Anderson, etc. etc. It was better back then.

 

[Nizam al-Mulk]

• The violent nature of the sport- for this it'll NEVER be as big as something like NBA or soccer

You must have high opinion of the NBA...
Silver is really mismanaging it.