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Amid a talent exodus and ratings decline, the world’s largest mixed martial arts organization turns to a familiar foe.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2018-02-14/instead-of-killing-boxing-the-ufc-plans-to-use-it-as-a-lifeline?
The newest cause of boxing’s death? The UFC. The mixed martial art’s exploding popularity, we hear, is hammering yet another nail into boxing’s coffin. Founded in 1993, the league has flourished since its inception, and in 2016 it was bought by WME-IMG (now Endeavor) for $4.2 billion.
Dana White, the company’s perpetually warring 48-year-old president, has boasted that the UFC’s popularity could eclipse not just boxing, but also the global popularity of the NFL. (The NFL stood to make $14 billion in 2017.) Thomas Gerbasi, the UFC’s editorial director since 2005, is optimistic. “We’re rolling long,” he says. “Look at Dana’s track record. He’s not a guy who says something and it doesn’t happen. He’s a man of his word, and the results speak for themselves.”
Contrary to public perception, boxing gets consistently higher ratings than the UFC and attracts more viewers in the 18- to 49-year-old demographic. Almost 2 million tuned in to watch boxing’s super featherweight championship broadcast on ESPN in December, headlined by Vasyl Lomachenko and Guillermo Rigondeaux, at Madison Square Garden. It was the second-highest audience for boxing on basic cable since 2012 and more than twice that of the UFC’s competing telecast on FS1, which drew 870,000 viewers.
After the championship, Bob Arum told reporters, “Boxing is not an old man’s sport. Our demographics are young. We’ve been up against [the UFC] three times on a level playing field, and when [boxing’s] free, we beat the pants off them, in the overall rating and the demographics everybody is looking into.” Lomachenko and Rigondeaux’s telecast made it four times boxing won.
The UFC had its best year in 2016, when the organization hosted five events that topped 1 million pay-per-view buys. “That’s unprecedented in all of combat sports,” says Emhoff, who’s advised both boxers and mixed martial arts fighters over the course of almost 20 years as a manager.
That type of success has not been sustainable. A Jan. 27 fight on Fox drew 1.593 million viewers and a 0.5 rating among the 18- to 49-year-olds, the lowest in series history and a 20 percent drop from 2017. The UFC event a month before that drew an 0.6 rating. “The UFC tend to kill their idols,” Emhoff says. “By having the best facing the best constantly, they are wearing out all of their top fighters.”
By 2017 the UFC had lost Ronda Rousey, a fighter who transcended combat sports and became one of the most famous faces in America. Anderson Silva and Jon Jones—arguably the two best MMA fighters in the history of the sport—have both tested positive for PEDs on multiple occasions. Brock Lesnar, another major attraction, has also tested positive more than once and joined Rousey in the WWE. George St-Pierre, one of the most popular MMA fighters, reemerged last year for one fight but is now out indefinitely with a case of colitis. (His pay-per-view numbers were south of 900,000 buys, well below projections.)
The audience, too, is getting older. A study published last June by Sports Business Journal analyzed how each sport’s demographics have changed in the last 10 years; it found that the median age of TV viewers who watch mixed martial arts increased the most, from 34 years old to 49 years old. The actual median age of its fans, says the UFC, is 39.
Dana White, the company’s perpetually warring 48-year-old president, has boasted that the UFC’s popularity could eclipse not just boxing, but also the global popularity of the NFL. (The NFL stood to make $14 billion in 2017.) Thomas Gerbasi, the UFC’s editorial director since 2005, is optimistic. “We’re rolling long,” he says. “Look at Dana’s track record. He’s not a guy who says something and it doesn’t happen. He’s a man of his word, and the results speak for themselves.”
Contrary to public perception, boxing gets consistently higher ratings than the UFC and attracts more viewers in the 18- to 49-year-old demographic. Almost 2 million tuned in to watch boxing’s super featherweight championship broadcast on ESPN in December, headlined by Vasyl Lomachenko and Guillermo Rigondeaux, at Madison Square Garden. It was the second-highest audience for boxing on basic cable since 2012 and more than twice that of the UFC’s competing telecast on FS1, which drew 870,000 viewers.
After the championship, Bob Arum told reporters, “Boxing is not an old man’s sport. Our demographics are young. We’ve been up against [the UFC] three times on a level playing field, and when [boxing’s] free, we beat the pants off them, in the overall rating and the demographics everybody is looking into.” Lomachenko and Rigondeaux’s telecast made it four times boxing won.
The UFC had its best year in 2016, when the organization hosted five events that topped 1 million pay-per-view buys. “That’s unprecedented in all of combat sports,” says Emhoff, who’s advised both boxers and mixed martial arts fighters over the course of almost 20 years as a manager.
That type of success has not been sustainable. A Jan. 27 fight on Fox drew 1.593 million viewers and a 0.5 rating among the 18- to 49-year-olds, the lowest in series history and a 20 percent drop from 2017. The UFC event a month before that drew an 0.6 rating. “The UFC tend to kill their idols,” Emhoff says. “By having the best facing the best constantly, they are wearing out all of their top fighters.”
By 2017 the UFC had lost Ronda Rousey, a fighter who transcended combat sports and became one of the most famous faces in America. Anderson Silva and Jon Jones—arguably the two best MMA fighters in the history of the sport—have both tested positive for PEDs on multiple occasions. Brock Lesnar, another major attraction, has also tested positive more than once and joined Rousey in the WWE. George St-Pierre, one of the most popular MMA fighters, reemerged last year for one fight but is now out indefinitely with a case of colitis. (His pay-per-view numbers were south of 900,000 buys, well below projections.)
The audience, too, is getting older. A study published last June by Sports Business Journal analyzed how each sport’s demographics have changed in the last 10 years; it found that the median age of TV viewers who watch mixed martial arts increased the most, from 34 years old to 49 years old. The actual median age of its fans, says the UFC, is 39.
https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2018-02-14/instead-of-killing-boxing-the-ufc-plans-to-use-it-as-a-lifeline?
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