FOX Deal Puts UFC on Mainstream Radar

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For the longest time MMA fans have been waiting for the day the sport they love takes that final step from being a pay-per-view attraction and niche sport to the mainstream acceptance it has long lacked. And now, with the UFC about to step into the spotlight with FOX and broadcast television, the sport of MMA is at the point where mainstream acceptance is right around the corner.

Everything UFC president Dana White and the UFC itself has done up to this point has led to this moment in time, the singular biggest moment in MMA so far. Why? Because the biggest company in its industry is now on broadcast television.

The one thing that always held back MMA from finding an audience above and beyond the hardcore followers is that of perception. No company could get on television and not feel inferior because the UFC has successfully branded itself much stronger than any other MMA organization in the US. The sheer majority of elite fighters in the sport were there, as well as a production team that made everyone else look like rank amateurs.

It was a stark contrast to see a UFC event in comparison to what Elite XC and, to a lesser extent, Strikeforce were showing. Both Strikeforce and Elite XC’s attempts at becoming a national player without the years of build to it failed miserably and sunk both companies as a result. They were thinking that a massive cash startup, older stars and some fresh young faces not in the UFC would bring in viewers and ignore the years of going from smaller venues to large ones. They gambled that the sport would appeal and not be concerned with the brand recognition from years of hard work and small payoffs, of losing money for years before turning that first profit.

They both gambled big and lost.

Elite XC died the minute Kimbo Slice was dominated and then knocked out by a last-minute replacement, its only drawing card humiliated by a fighter who’d washed out of the UFC’s reality show. Strikeforce ceased to be a power once the monetary losses became too great and the sale to UFC’s parent company Zuffa happened. Zuffa’s competition have either tried to start out big and had no idea how to stay there or expanded faster than they could handle and suffered accordingly.

White and company, through years of work, figured out the workings of the sport to the point where mainstream audiences via MMA as the UFC in the same way professional football is the NFL, etc. And for all the talk of fighters being on the same level as professional athletes in other organizations, being a company focused on PPV put them along the same lines as pro wrestling in that regard. Every major sporting organization had a television deal on broadcast television, including Major League Soccer, and yet the UFC was PPV only. You can’t get a seat at the table with grown-ups of sports with David Stern and Roger Goodell when you’re still running your company like Vince McMahon.

Not now.

With the UFC having up to four events per year on broadcast television, the sport of MMA is now on the verge of being on the same level as the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB. Dana White has, for years, been waiting for that one perfect moment to take his product beyond the PPV only market, and this is it. All the years of talk and bluster about the sport of mixed martial arts being the next big thing, and the UFC being the next big sports league, all have lead to this particular moment in time.

If MMA is to truly arrive in the mainstream, and the UFC to follow suit, then the UFC’s deal with FOX is the last step on the path to acceptability.

Originally featured on Fox Sports