Last year proved to be a difficult transition for new UFC owners Endeavor (formerly WME-IMG), who bought the UFC for over $4 billion in 2016.
With superstars sidelined and hype trains’ stock crashing in a single night, it’s been a tough go for the UFC. Couple that with injuries, weight-cutting issues, rampant performance-enhancing drug use, and rapidly declining pay-per-view sales, and it would seem like things can’t get much worse.
There’s obviously still time for Endeavor to turn things around, but their margin for error is considerably smaller in 2018 than it was at the start of 2017.
With a new year ahead of them, the UFC must abide by six directives in order to succeed in 2018.
6. Spread The Hype More Evenly
UFC 220 was a perfect example of what the UFC cannot do in the coming year.
Title challengers Francis Ngannou and Volkan Oezdemir were hyped beyond belief, especially Ngannou.
The hype was so excessive that it actually came across as disrespect to champions Stipe Miocic and Daniel Cormier, to the point where Miocic refused to let Dana White put the belt around his waist after snuffing out Ngannou’s hype train.
The UFC had the right intentions but the wrong idea; they need to build up their champions, especially Miocic, instead of flavor-of-the-month prospects. They have an absolute killer as a heavyweight champion and they put more energy into Ngannou, who in reality had only knocked out two top fighters – both of whom Miocic dispatched before beforehand.
With so many new divisions and champions, it may seem hard to do, however, it’s the only way to avoid the pitfalls of last year.
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