Having completed yet another increasingly reluctant trip to the UK for Ultimate Fight Night 30, it’s time to once again examine the UFC’s commitment to establishing its brand in ol’ Blighty.
Let’s be clear before going any further: British MMA fans have it pretty good. While our American cousins are bankrupting themselves to purchase every PPV, we get to watch every single event for free—besides the cost of BT Sport, that is.
This generally means having to stay up until 6 a.m., at which point we are usually so adrenalized that we end up shadowboxing with the coat rack and putting our slumbering loved ones in an armbar.
But pushing back bed time is a small price to pay for the privilege. Bearing that in mind, do we really have anything to complain about?
Back when UFC events were being aired on ESPN UK, Dana White took every opportunity to assure British fans that “everything is going to be golden over there” once the right television deal comes along.
The recent deal with BT Sport was supposed to be the one. It not only meant the creation of original content for the UK audience, but it also offered the UFC an opportunity to better market its product on this side of the pond.
Prior to the current television deal, MMA didn’t have much of a presence in the UK. Sure, the sport was always likely to maintain what little presence it did enjoy due to the Internet and the loyalty of its hardcore fans.
There was no potential for growth, however. ESPN UK would air the live events, with little or no promotion to complement the events. The broadcast deal was as vanilla as possible, designed to keep the promotion in the UK consciousness until something better came along.
So, has the situation improved since the launch of BT Sport in August? Not really, to be brutally honest.
In place of UFC Tonight, we get UFC: Beyond The Octagon. Unfortunately, the shows are not of comparable quality.
While the former frequently breaks the biggest stories and boasts appearances from the organisation’s top stars, the latter continues the tradition of feeding the UK audience a mixture of local and prelim-level talent.
The quality of BT Sport’s coverage plummeted further still during UFN 30 on Saturday night. Compared to the professional production offered on Fox Sports 1, UK fans were treated to a show that looked like it was put together by some high school students with a camcorder.
I half-expected Caroline Pearce, the show’s anchor, to exclaim, “And boom goes the dynamite” during the replay of Lyoto Machida’s headkick knockout of Mark Munoz. Either the UFC is oblivious to the wants of the British fans, or it is effectively helpless to address them.
The problem has never been the absence of original content. We don’t want UK versions of superior US shows. What we want is for our live events to be headlined by bona fide main-eventers.
Packing the rest of the card full of local talent is fine, but when it comes time for the main event, we want to know that the fight we are watching has consequences beyond the present.
We want title implications, big stars and all the bells and whistles of a Las Vegas PPV. Our expectations are unrealistic, though. No television deal is equipped to address the biggest issue faced by the UK market: the prohibitive time difference between the US and the UK.
For the UFC to meet our lofty expectations, the organisation would be forced to consistently take a massive hit on PPV. Putting the likes of Jon Jones, Georges St-Pierre or Anderson Silva on a PPV in Europe at 2 p.m. EST would cost the UFC millions of dollars in lost revenue.
To borrow a phrase from Luke Thomas, it would be promotional malpractice for Dana White and Co. to furnish a UK event—and arguably any European event—with its most bankable stars. Until something unforeseen happens that would allow the UFC to stage a star-studded event in the UK, we need to recalibrate our expectations.
No amount of complaining is going to make a difference, and nor should it. Some fans may be loath to hear it, but the future of the sport is tied to the UFC’s success. What is good for the UFC is currently what is best for MMA.
If the UK has to put up with a few events headlined by mid-carders, we should be willing to take it on the chin for the sake of sport’s continued growth.
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