Football is still The King

by Zak Woods on Oct 8, 2009 1:00 PM EDT in Analysis Comment 13 comments

It's good to be the king!

Dana White likes to say that the UFC will be the biggest sport in the world in the next ten years.

That grandiose statement occasionally garners the scorn from other sports writers, like Mike Florio who attacked White for his implicit claim that the UFC will be larger than the NFL in ten years.

To put Dana White's prediction into perspective let's examine two historic events that recently occurred on cable television: Kimbo Slice's fight against Roy Nelson on The Ultimate Fighter and the Vikings vs. the Packers on Monday Night Football.

The Favre-fest on Monday Night football was the most-watched program in cable history, drawing in 21.8 million viewers. That comes out to a national rating of 15.3, with a 49.7 rating in Green Bay and a 58.3 rating in Minneapolis.

The Kimbo Slice and Roy Nelson fight garnered 6.1 million viewers making it the most watched original program on Spike and the highest rated episode of TUF ever. It is also the fourth most watched MMA non-pay-per view fight.

It doesn't take a statistician to see the immense chasm between the two events. Can the UFC really cover that gap in a ten-year period? Is there any fighter that could draw a +10, let alone a +40 rating in their hometown?

Of course this isn't an apple-to-apple comparison. There are serious differences between a Monday Night Football game and an episode of The Ultimate Fighter. Yet the fact that Kimbo Slice is one of, if not the biggest draw in MMA --Kimbo fights are the #1, 3 and 4 most watched fights in MMA history-- it makes the comparison between the two not so far out of left field.

Realistically the UFC has a an Everest-like mountain to climb in order to surpass both types of football. The question is whether Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta can channel their inner Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.

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Too be fair

White meant worldwide and I have to agree.

The context was that as he said something like the NFL has spent billions trying to get into europe and hasn’t gotten anything, like trying to sell cricket in the US. Whereas, he can throw 2 guys into a cage who are allowed to use any martial art and people anywhere “get it”.

I guess you could make the argument that all that matters is the United States though, that sentiment is hardly controversial amongst a certain strain of jingos.

by 2wrongs on Oct 8, 2009 1:23 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I wrote about this before, there is no way that the UFC will pass soccer (or football) in terms of world wide popularity.

I wrote about this before about the UFC vs. American football in terms of global popularity. Back when Florio initially went after White.

When it comes to Dana’s statement he doesn’t say the UFC will be bigger than football (American) in the world in the next 10 years. He says the UFC will be the biggest sport in the next ten years.

watchkalibrun.com

by Zak Woods on Oct 8, 2009 1:28 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Still

Yea you are right about Soccer, I forgot. But I thought the original comparison was against American Football as you were using dollar values and viewership in the US as comparisons and you didn’t mention Soccer in the original post.

by 2wrongs on Oct 8, 2009 2:13 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

well I wrote this bc we had two historical events that occurred which no one had compared due to White’s earlier statements in which he made the implicit statement that the UFC will be bigger than the NFL. This post was meant to point out what kind of numbers they are going to have to achieve to reach that goal.

watchkalibrun.com

by Zak Woods on Oct 8, 2009 2:48 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Ok, not to beat a dead horse but then we come back to what we were discussing earlier that UFC world wide (at some point in the future < 10 years) will be greater in dollar value and popularity than NFL in the US which I don’t think is an unreasonable statement.

If on the other hand you are comparing UFC against NFL then I agree the ramp is huge especially back to back as there is a high overlap of audiences.

by 2wrongs on Oct 8, 2009 3:18 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Uh the posting software took out some formating

The last sentence should be “If on the other hand you are comparing UFC in the US against NFL in the US then I agree…….”

by 2wrongs on Oct 8, 2009 3:21 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

The UFC’s world status vs. the NFL’s world status in 10 years would be very interesting to see. While I believe there is strong possibility that the UFC will exceed the NFL in terms of international popularity I don’t believe that Zuffa will be able to surpass the NFL’s economic superiority even if more popular on a global level.

UNLESS

There is a horrible lockout which destroys the league fingers crossed

watchkalibrun.com

by Zak Woods on Oct 8, 2009 4:01 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I'm sorry....

I don’t mean to be rude but you have be huffing gasoline to think that NFL will be a draw to anywhere else in the world except Canada.

by 2wrongs on Oct 8, 2009 10:27 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

haha, I think this is superb bc Zach Arnold and Ivan Trembow went after me when I said that the UFC has been more successful internationally than the NFL.

What I meant to imply (though I see I did a poor job) in the above statement is that the NFL will also be making international moves over the next decade. The games in London for instance.

While the NFL will probably never achieve the international recognition of basketball they are making inroads. For instance the influx of Polynesian talent.

Or Hines Ward’s reception in South Korea.

watchkalibrun.com

by Zak Woods on Oct 8, 2009 11:00 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

IF

The UFC were on a major network…and IF the UFC put on mega cards like UFC 92, UFC 100, etc…with the way they promote their brand…I firmly believe they would do numbers comparable to this…however,

We also must remember that it’s Monday Night Football…I mean it’s been coming on for so long that you don’t even really have to know what teams are playing…you just know it’s coming on…lol…it takes a while to get to that point…I don’t take White’s comments literally…

However, I do believe that MMA could surpass the NFL in regards to worldwide popularity….I dunno if it’ll happen in ten years….but it’ll happen if he’s still doing what he’s doing now.

http://www.mmaforreal.com
Follow Me On Twitter@KelvinHunt

by Kelvin Hunt on Oct 8, 2009 2:14 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

very true,

but because of Kimbo’s status and ability to draw MAJOR RATINGS for an MMA fighter I thought that this was a fair comparison to put in context what numbers the UFC is actually going to have to reach to surpass the major sports

watchkalibrun.com

by Zak Woods on Oct 8, 2009 2:49 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Personally, I’d be curious to see how many viewers/fans at live events the NFL and Futbol we pulling a little more than 15 years after their inception. I would venture to say the UFC is WAY ahead of both those sports wiithin that time frame. Plus, you’ve got to factor in that the UFC is largely a PPV sport, whereas the others are on multiple networks, multiple nights of the week.

by Norm78 on Oct 8, 2009 6:31 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs