Will the UFC ever be able to build big markets outside of the Americas?

[KawhiDoh]

The UFC caters to the American market by holding events during North/South American time zones, no duh.

Not knocking it, but when 80% of your events start 10pm on the east coast it limits your exposure across the pond to Eurasia for obvious reasons.

I had a thought that they should hold two events on saturdays on occassion, one for the Eurasian crowd and one for North America but realized it probably wouldnt solve much.

How do they solve this? How do you see them breaking big into China, UK, mainland Europe etc?

 

[Only Here for Attachments]

Not with the shit cards they keep throwing overseas

 

[Kvothe_the_kingkiller]

10 of the next 15 events are not in the US, just an FYI

Scheduled events
Event Date Venue Location Ref.
UFC on ESPN+ 23 Dec 21, 2019 Sajik Arena Busan, South Korea [9]

UFC 245 Dec 14, 2019 T-Mobile Arena Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. [9]

UFC on ESPN: Overeem vs. Harris Dec 7, 2019 Capital One Arena Washington, D.C., U.S. [9] [10]

UFC on ESPN+ 22 Nov 16, 2019 Ginásio do Ibirapuera São Paulo, Brazil [9]

UFC on ESPN+ 21 Nov 9, 2019 CSKA Arena Moscow, Russia [9]

UFC 244 Nov 2, 2019 Madison Square Garden New York City, New York, U.S. [9]

UFC Fight Night: Maia vs. Askren Oct 26, 2019 Singapore Indoor Stadium Kallang, Singapore [9]

UFC on ESPN: Reyes vs. Weidman Oct 18, 2019 TD Garden Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. [11]

UFC Fight Night: Jędrzejczyk vs. Waterson Oct 12, 2019 Amalie Arena Tampa, Florida, U.S. [12]

UFC 243: Whittaker vs. Adesanya Oct 6, 2019 Marvel Stadium Melbourne, Australia [13]

UFC Fight Night: Hermansson vs. Cannonier Sep 28, 2019 Royal Arena Copenhagen, Denmark [9]

UFC Fight Night: Rodríguez vs. Stephens Sep 21, 2019 Arena Ciudad de México Mexico City, Mexico [9]

UFC Fight Night: Cerrone vs. Gaethje Sep 14, 2019 Rogers Arena Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada [9]

UFC 242: Khabib vs. Poirier Sep 7, 2019 The Arena, Yas Island Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates [14]

UFC Fight Night: Andrade vs. Zhang Aug 31, 2019 Shenzhen Universiade Sports Centre Shenzhen, China [15]

 

[Ackmed]

Not with the shit cards they keep throwing overseas

They might seem like shit cards on this part of the world, but having middle-eastern fighters in an event in the middle east, Chinese fighters in an event in China etc are NOT considered shit cards in the time-zones where their fans are!

 

[drbolony]

Not with their ethics and business model. It's not a big deal here, but it's frowned upon in the east. That's why ONE has to pretend to be all about honor and respect. They should settle with N.AM., S. AM., Europe, Africa, and Australia imo. 5 out of 7 continents ain't bad.

 

[KawhiDoh]

10 of the next 15 events are not in the US, just an FYI

Scheduled events
Event Date Venue Location Ref.
UFC on ESPN+ 23 Dec 21, 2019 Sajik Arena Busan, South Korea [9]

UFC 245 Dec 14, 2019 T-Mobile Arena Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. [9]

UFC on ESPN: Overeem vs. Harris Dec 7, 2019 Capital One Arena Washington, D.C., U.S. [9] [10]

UFC on ESPN+ 22 Nov 16, 2019 Ginásio do Ibirapuera São Paulo, Brazil [9]

UFC on ESPN+ 21 Nov 9, 2019 CSKA Arena Moscow, Russia [9]

UFC 244 Nov 2, 2019 Madison Square Garden New York City, New York, U.S. [9]

UFC Fight Night: Maia vs. Askren Oct 26, 2019 Singapore Indoor Stadium Kallang, Singapore [9]

UFC on ESPN: Reyes vs. Weidman Oct 18, 2019 TD Garden Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. [11]

UFC Fight Night: Jędrzejczyk vs. Waterson Oct 12, 2019 Amalie Arena Tampa, Florida, U.S. [12]

UFC 243: Whittaker vs. Adesanya Oct 6, 2019 Marvel Stadium Melbourne, Australia [13]

UFC Fight Night: Hermansson vs. Cannonier Sep 28, 2019 Royal Arena Copenhagen, Denmark [9]

UFC Fight Night: Rodríguez vs. Stephens Sep 21, 2019 Arena Ciudad de México Mexico City, Mexico [9]

UFC Fight Night: Cerrone vs. Gaethje Sep 14, 2019 Rogers Arena Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada [9]

UFC 242: Khabib vs. Poirier Sep 7, 2019 The Arena, Yas Island Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates [14]

UFC Fight Night: Andrade vs. Zhang Aug 31, 2019 Shenzhen Universiade Sports Centre Shenzhen, China [15]

Im well aware, but 3 of those 10 are still within North/South America, Canada, Brazil, Mexico... but Im thinking, they need to hold multiple events a year in the various countries they hope to build markets in, not just 2 or 3 every year. Really focus on say, the UK, China, Russia.

Arent they spreading themselves thin by going to dozens of random countries, as opposed to focusing on a handful of big ones, like China?

Maybe theyre testing the waters to see what pans out.

 

[H.H. Howard]

Considering a UFC hall of famer just had his head bounced off concrete by a fat guy with chicken legs and a 70 yr old man ate Conors best left sucker punch like it was a bug landing on him I'd say the whole manlet , WMMA jig is up.

 

[Kvothe_the_kingkiller]

Im well aware, but 3 of those 10 are still within North/South America, Canada, Brazil, Mexico... but Im thinking, they need to hold multiple events a year in the various countries they hope to build markets in, not just 2 or 3 every year. Really focus on say, the UK, China, Russia.

Arent they spreading themselves thin by going to dozens of random countries, as opposed to focusing on a handful of big ones, like China?

Maybe theyre testing the waters to see what pans out.

Remember, the real money is not ticket sales or PPV sales; it's TV.

I read somewhere that UFC had 127 or so TV deals around the world. Now, that was before getting into bed with Disney & ESPN+, but the result is the same; they're getting interest everywhere they can to get the steady income of TV deals. The ticket sales themselves are a secondary (or even tertiary) revenue source.

At least that's how I read these tea leaves

 

[bigconan]

Considering a UFC hall of famer just had his head bounced off concrete by a fat guy with chicken legs and a 70 yr old man ate Conors best left sucker punch like it was a bug landing on him I'd say the whole manlet , WMMA jig is up.

oh comeon now...exaggerate much?? first, bj let a guy that was like 3x his size hit him...what do you expect to happen...bj got up and proceeded to beat the hell out of the guy...but I guess you missed that...and not defending conor hitting the guy, but you really think conor went all out with that punch? stop being a hater and troll for a second...before conor even got the punch off completely, a guy was pulling conor away...and conor probably connected with 20% of his power...stop being rediculous...

 

[LastingEffect]

Problem is illegal streaming. It's not so popular in USA, but it's really popular in russia and other countries.

It will stall the progress, they will be forced to cut on ppv prices.

 

[jsbx45]

Khabib, Conor...c'mon TS.

 

[Kvothe_the_kingkiller]

Problem is illegal streaming. It's not so popular in USA, but it's really popular in russia and other countries.

It will stall the progress, they will be forced to cut on ppv prices.

It's a problem. And they could have continued to try to solve it with the court battles, suing streamers, fighting youtube, etc...

...or they could solve it by selling PPV rights to ESPN, and make money on their PPV's whether people stream it or not (hell, whether people buy them or not). Sell the problem to Disney.

 

[KawhiDoh]

Remember, the real money is not ticket sales or PPV sales; it's TV.

I read somewhere that UFC had 127 or so TV deals around the world. Now, that was before getting into bed with Disney & ESPN+, but the result is the same; they're getting interest everywhere they can to get the steady income of TV deals. The ticket sales themselves are a secondary (or even tertiary) revenue source.

At least that's how I read these tea leaves

Oooh ok, I see I see. Wasnt aware of that. Thats really informative.

Solid post my man.

 

[Kvothe_the_kingkiller]

Oooh ok, I see I see. Wasnt aware of that. Thats really informative.

Solid post my man.

Thanks. I'll try to find a source for that claim I made. But it was years ago, back when Fox, BT and Globo (Brazil) made up most of the TV revenue....but there were still smaller deal everywhere from the Philippines to Romania to Argentina.

 

[KawhiDoh]

Khabib, Conor...c'mon TS.

Yeah, but Im not talking about stars from different countries, they have them.

The logistics of how to build foreign markets when its an American company that naturally focuses on this side of the pond.

 

[leto1776]

Not having regular events outside N. America definitely hurts their growth overseas, yes. For example, an event in Korea in 2015, then not returning until 2019 is just dumb, considering how many Koreans they have on the roster. Or China, a market that big with that much potential definitely needs more attention paid to it than one event per year. Same with Russia. Granted some f those markets come with political difficulties.

Overall, though, the UFC’s biggest problem is that their model is too damn generic, and they don’t care to change that. For example, this Saturday’s event. What are the chances they they have both and English speaking and Chinese speaking ring announcer? Probably zero, same as every other country they visit. That’s a slap in the face to the non English speaking audience that they’re trying to reach.
Another example, take the upcoming Abu Crappy and Singapore cards. No fighters with any connection to those countries.

 

[jsbx45]

Yeah, but Im not talking about stars from different countries, they have them.

The logistics of how to build foreign markets when its an American company that naturally focuses on this side of the pond.

They do have tape delayed broadcasting and some events are broadcast on local time when events are held outside the US. I think the answer TS is yes. Look at the number of international posters we have right here in SD's UFC forum.

 

[GarytheGreat]

The UFC caters to the American market by holding events during North/South American time zones, no duh.

Not knocking it, but when 80% of your events start 10pm on the east coast it limits your exposure across the pond to Eurasia for obvious reasons.

I had a thought that they should hold two events on saturdays on occassion, one for the Eurasian crowd and one for North America but realized it probably wouldnt solve much.

How do they solve this? How do you see them breaking big into China, UK, mainland Europe etc?

 

[GarytheGreat]

When Pride had an event I would stay up and watch it because I enjoyed the fights and I had fighters I would watch win or lose. If the UFC can start to create fighter that are larger than life, or can create a greater fan following this will be a non issue. One other thing to add is that if you look at most of the cards that are in countries other than the US, they are pretty weak for the most part. Fans in other countries are going to the events because they want to see the guys they see on tv. Not because they want to see local talent.

 

[0verlord]

Couldn't care less and what's the point?

The cards these days are watered down enough.