I was as excited as anyone when the UFC announced their blockbuster deal with FOX. It not only meant that our beloved sport took a major step toward mainstream acceptance, but it meant more fights on network television…for free.
That’s a big deal. Being a MMA fan is expensive. In 2011, the UFC put on 17 pay-per-view events. At about $50 a pop, that comes to $850 a year. Plus there’s that necessary Showtime subscription to watch all the Strikeforce action. So we’re talking upwards of $1,000 a year.
The FOX deal meant that there would be more fights on free TV, and that’s never a bad thing.
But what’s up with FUEL TV?
I don’t know about you, but I don’t get it. Very few people I know get it. Obviously that makes watching the events on the channel problematic.
The UFC has done a marvelous job of presenting every fight to the fans. They started off using Facebook, which was ingenious. Then they started airing the undercard action on FX and FUEL. Now they’re doing main cards on FUEL with the undercards on Facebook.
I’ve got to hand it to Dana White, he made good on a promise of a few years ago to make every single fight the UFC puts on available to the fans.
But hardly anyone has access to FUEL. It’s available in only 36 million homes in America. Compare that to Spike and FX, which are available in nearly 100 million homes, and you can see the problem.
I understand that it was just part of the deal. Fox wanted to shore up the lagging FUEL network, and what better way to do that then to put the UFC on there? After all, the UFC made Spike TV what it is today.
But MMA fans are missing out on some very quality matchups due to the limited reach of the channel. Presumably they’re working on deals with more cable providers to remedy this. And that’s great, but in the meantime we’re missing fights like Diego Sanchez vs. Jake Ellenberger, and the upcoming Alexander Gustafsson vs. Thiago Silva fight at the UFC on FUEL 2 event taking place this Saturday.
These are important fights that should be widely available.
I propose an uncomplicated solution: put the FUEL fights on Facebook as well. It wouldn’t affect ratings; it’s hard to imagine anyone who has FUEL opting to watch a fight on some low quality, tiny Facebook feed when they can watch it on the big screen. And the undercard is already going to be on Facebook, so it’s not like they’d have to jump through hoops to make this happen. The system is already in place.
It’s a simple fix to a simple problem, at least until the execs at FUEL can get their product out to a much larger audience.
MMA fans are fanatical. We need our fights, and we get very irritated when we cannot watch them.
So let us join in solidarity and begin a Twitter campaign to Dana White with this simple request. If it’s simply not doable, then fine. But if it is, then it’s worth a shot.
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