Competition naturally brings out the best in the competing participants. Remember when sports video games had more than one company (Electronic Arts) producing the majority of the games? There was innovation, and price wars between the competitors.
The competition amongst professional sports organizations doesn’t always result in a better experience for the consumer. Who can forget when Vince McMahon promoted the XFL as a serious competitor to the NFL?
The XFL had some good ideas (no fair catches on punts) to go along with a few really bad ones (scramble for the ball instead of a coin flip). The league did help begin a new standard of camera angles for the viewer.
I suppose the XFL did help in one way. The wire cam that we are all accustomed to now wasn’t mainstream until it was used for the XFL.
What would happen if another MMA organization gained traction and started to catch up to the popularity of the UFC? Well, eventually ZUFFA would purchase the competing promotion and then completely neglect to improve it (cough, Strikeforce, cough).
For the sake of argument, let’s assume a UFC competitor wouldn’t be purchased by ZUFFA. That would do nothing but good for the exposure of MMA and the UFC would reap those benefits, right?
No, not in this case.
Dana White believes one of the major reasons boxing has lost fans over the years is because there are so many promotions with numerous championships that fans never know who the true title holder is. He believes MMA should be like other professional sports with regard to there being one true champion.
In the NFL, the Super Bowl winner is assumed to be the best team in the world. Same thing goes for the NBA and Major League Baseball. That’s why the teams in their respective leagues are crowned “World Champions.”
A competing brand to the UFC would not help Dana and Co. on any level. There is a reason they purchase the competition. Imagine if an up and coming MMA promotion allowed it’s fighters to form a fighters union, recruited UFC stars who are nearing the end of their contract, and only charge the consumer $29.99 for a pay-per-view event.
If that same promotion was able to get a SpikeTV/NBC Sports (formerly Versus) contract, it might be something fans start to pay attention to.
Is there even a need for something to compete with the UFC? I don’t think so. Sure, it would be nice to see the pay-per-views drop in price. Although it looks like nearly 70% of you are stealing the fights anyways.
The UFC produces the highest quality MMA cards on a regular basis. A competing organization would not help the UFC, but rather frustrate fans with the potential of seeing another belt that could not be unified between two separate organizations.
Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com