Friday, April 14, 2006

The UFC is Not for You!!

O.K., so think of this as an open letter to hardcore fans of mixed marial arts. I have some startling news for you. The UFC is not for you. I know this may be hard to accept but it's a fact. You are not the typical person that watches the UFC on PPV or tunes in to Spike TV to see Ultimate Fight Night Live or Ultimate Fighter episodes.

Please understand, I'm on your side. I'm a huge MMA fan and rarely miss a UFC or Pride event. I train in the sport and have followed it since it's early beginnings when I saw a tape of UFC 1 back in 1994. I had to suffer through the cable tv blackouts with the rest of you. I'll never forget the anger I felt when I couldn't order UFC 14 because Time-Warner pulled it at the last minute. I had to read about the Mark Coleman vs. Maurice Smith fight in a live chat room as a result. I hung in there with the sport becuased I believed in it. I continued to read and keep up with the goings on in the UFC throughout the years that followed until its triumphant return to PPV. I'm as much a hardcore fan as you. Still, I know that the UFC is not in business to get my attention and money.

The fact is, the majority of the people who watch the UFC are general sports fans that are looking to enjoy some competition. They have no idea why Matt Hughes' armbar off of a kimura reversal against GSP was so pretty to watch. You won't see them screaming at the T.V. when Mario Yamasake puts yet another fighters life at risk by ingnoring his rolled back eyes. These people just like to watch fights. Most appreciate the skill and athleticism of the fighters. They understand to some degree what's happening. However, when the broadcast ends, so does their attention to it. They don't go to message boards to post their thoughts and opinions. They don't take the time to write long-winded blogs on the subject. They simply go about the rest of their day and try to remember to tune into the next event.

The reason I'm telling you this is to help you with your issues with how Dana White runs the UFC as well as how the Ultimate Fighter and other Spike shows are edited and aired. Message boards are littered with arguments about how TUF is too much fluff. There should be more focus on the fighting and training aspects. I read about how the Tito vs. Ken angle is cheap and too WWE for your tastes. What the die hard fans forget is that Spike TV is looking for new viewers. They know you're going to watch. It doesn't matter what they put on, as long as there is a fight at the end. The problem for us is that the sport is in the midst of enormous growth and when you build the kind of momentum that the UFC is building, it means you do what ever it takes to continue the growth.

This problem is not exclusive to our sport. It happens in many things and in just about every other sport. For example, I'm a very casual baseball fan, I keep up with my team sparingly throughout the year and start to pay closer attention in August when playoff time approaches. I play a March Madness bracket every year after having watched at the most 1 or 2 college basketball games during the season. I am a rabid college football fan though. I've been arguing for a division 1 playoff system for over a decade and when I bring it up at a party, know one really cares as much as I do. Similarly, when MMA comes up in a group discussion I spend most of my time explaining away false statements by my friends and acquaintances who think Tyson would kill everyone in the UFC or how dangerous a sport MMA is. This is who the UFC is going after right now. They have a massive amount of educating to do but the drama has to be there to attract them in the first place. So don't be so critical of the way the UFC is being marketed right now. UFC growth is MMA growth. MMA growth is what ultimately will get the sport to the point where being a hardcore fan will be much more common. Ultimately that's what we all want.

Will

1 comment:

Luke said...

Nice job. I agree with most of what was said.

 
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