For quite a long time now, one of the biggest questions in relation to the UFC’s efforts to elevate MMA into the mainstream is the question of whether the UFC will ever reach the NFL’s level.
The question is a broad one, as various criteria exist in defining what it means for the UFC to reach the NFL’s level, though in all honesty, the “MMA has gone global and football hasn’t” argument is null and void when one finds out that other countries actually serve as the home of associations who regulate the sport of American Football, and if you know where to look, it’s easy to see where those American Football associations are.
Now, the UFC is getting closer and closer to where most envisioned it’d be, now that they have the FOX deal in place and now that they’re expanding all over the world, but are they really on the NFL’s level?
In terms of excitement and conversation-worthy news events, as well as consistently memorable action from start to finish, yes.
If a Tim Tebow doesn’t get traded to a New York Jets-type franchise or if a free agent doesn’t make some noise or post Peyton Manning’s numbers, it’s no real area of concern because a day without news of trades, contract extensions or anything similar is not much different from a day with a 1,000 people talking about a fight that hasn’t yet come to any sort of fruition simply because the day has no real news to talk about.
Every sport will always have their slow news days, but the bottom line in any sport is the action.
For over four decades, however, statistics have shown that the NFL has been the most watched spectator sport in the world, even despite Super Bowl games that left a little to be desired for most fans apart from the sizzle of the half-time shows and the commercials.
If that’s what is referred to in asking whether the UFC will be on the NFL’s level, then it’s tough to say if it will ever hit that level, and it’s definitely tough to see how the UFC is on that level right now, especially considering how some still conservatively react to the sport.
Nonetheless, an optimistic mind must remain when it comes to the progression of MMA as a mainstream sport, because even if it never hits the NFL’s level, fans will watch it grow and evolve into a sport that hits a level all its own, and the level at which it reaches could be anywhere either near or above where the NFL’s level is before anyone ever realizes it.
A long shot is that notion, but an impossibility it is not at all.
Don’t believe it?
Watch that UFC product, watch what they do in 2012 for the sport of MMA, and then prove me wrong.
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