The UFC has had quite the Latin influence on it since the very beginning and now is expanding further into that market. How so? By partnering up with Fox Sports’ Latin American division to bring UFC events to that part of the world starting with UFC 133: Ortiz vs. Evans 2.
“We felt the time was right to expand in Latin America,” Dana White said in a press release. “We launched with Globosat in Brazil in 2008 and saw the popularity for the sport to explode. We knew we had millions of fans in Latin America and wanted to give them access to content and programming developed exclusively for them.”
Fox Sports Latin America has also crafted an official UFC page as well.
FOX Sports VP of global marketing and business development, Patrick Ilabaca added in the same press release “We are excited to be able to bring our viewers a front row seat to the fastest growing sport in world. Through our agreement with UFC, mixed martial arts fans throughout Latin America will for the first time be able to watch live UFC events exclusively on FOX Sports, which were traditionally only available on Pay-Per-View.”
What does this mean? This is quite the coup for Dana White and company; with a number of high profile Hispanic fighters like Heavyweight Cain Velasquez and this weekend’s headliner Tito Ortiz, amongst others, this market is rabid for other combat sports like boxing and could fuel another big surge in growth for the UFC in specific and MMA in general.
