Co-Promotion in the UFC? A Noble Idea, Nothing More

I think this is a well written article that actually had some thought put into it unlike the 2 responses mentioned in your article which seemed more like fanboy rants.

Nice work Leland.

As the resident grammar nazi, I think you’ve made another mistake

I want to see Brock Lesnar vs. Fedor Emelianenko like the next guy, but do I think that one fight will ultimately change the way the UFC does business. Be realistic.

that should be don’t, I think

As things are there is no reason for the UFC to co-promote. To do so would be to introduce their fans, the vast majority of which who think nothing of calling the sport “ultimate fighting”, to their competitors. Zuffa owes 85% of the North American mma audience, so it makes no sense for them to turn the spotlight on another promotion and tell everyone “hey everyone, these fights are just as worthy of your attention as ours”. But that doesn’t mean that 2 or 3 years from now if Strikeforce or someone else can capture 30% of the increasing pie, that the UFC would’t feel compelled to co-promote. And my hope is that will be the case., that every two years the UFC champ would be forced to meet the StrikeForce/Dream Champ in a co-promoted match, until eventually the two merge into one monolithic organization – after they’ve come to an agreement with the Fighters’ Union.

Whoever thinks UFC should co promote is nuts.

WHy would the top org help out or give attention to SF or any other org?

Second, robbing fans of what fights?

There are only a handful of fighters outside the UFC anyone cares to see fight UFC guys, Fedor, Mousasi, Aoki, thats really it.

Fedor is a free agent after two fights, and could be UFC bound, UFC has what, 9 of the 10 best LHW in the world? SF has 1. Frankly, the UFC can make better and bigger fights in the LHW div without Mousasi. Shogun/Machida vs Rampage is huge, Shogun vs Spider is bigger.

LW Aoki is a fight with BJ that would be good, but how big? nobody in the US knows Aoki, and he cant fight for shit on his feet, so when BJ rocks him to sleep I mean, I dont know.

Sure there are 3 fights that co promo could offer the UFC, but the UFC doesnt need them, and nor should they help out any other orgs, would they do the same if reversed?

No.

UFC doesnt need co promo, you only co promote cause you have to. SF and DReam work together cause they have to, not cause Coker is so great and loves mma and the fans and all this, he needs there fighters cause his roster is weak, he needs to bring Aoki in to fight Melendez cause who else would anyone care about?

You think anyone wants to see Gurgel fight for the title? Even Shaolin most wouldnt know who that is, maybe Noons, but hes been away for a while, he needs Aoki cause he doesnt have anyone else that fans care about.

He needs Marius cause really, Jay or riggs is next in line to fight for a WW title, really?

He needs to co promote, UFC doesnt. UFC holds the best in the world, Zuffa has the best BW, FW, LW, WW, MW, LHW and number 2 HW in the world, not to mention the majority of top 10 fighters in every div. Every single div in the sport the UFC has either half or more of the top 10 fighters in most rankings.

UFC doesnt need to co promote.

and the too much mma, yeah maybe from other orgs, people may not care about Bellator when they have UFC or even SF, but the UFC can never have too many events.

When you have the #1 brand that is considered the pinnacle of the sport, why co-promote? Co-promotion will turn the UFC into the clusterf*#$ that boxing is today.
Oversaturation? As if 100’s of meaningless baseball and basketball games aren’t an example of oversaturation. Yet, millions of people still watch them. How; I have no idea. Mind-numbing boredom.
P.S. “F” Fedor and his M1 Global. Mousasi vs. Gary Goodridge. What a joke.

The matches that can come from co-promoting are really hardcore fans dream matches and that is why you really wont see the UFC co-promote.

What would make the UFC believe that the co-promoting a Fedor vs. Brock matchup would outsell Brock vs. Randy or Lesnar vs. Mir? Because to have that logic you would have to be able to sell the idea that there are a bunch of Fedor fans that didnt watch UFC 81, 87, 91 or 100 that will tune in to watch Fedor fight Brock. Are there that many Fedor fans that dont watch the UFC? I dont think so.

Same story with Penn vs. Aoki. Why would the UFC co-promote a Penn vs. Aoki match up when I’d bet it couldnt touch Penn vs. Florian, Penn vs. Sanchez, and I’d even question if it could outsell Penn vs. Sherk.

So that is the thing. By co-promoting these “dream matchups” the UFC would be really only appeasing the hardcore fan base who are dying to see these matchups.

I think if the UFC thought that they could really get a lot more eyes by co-promoting they would but the reality is the fans that are dying to see Lesnar vs. Fedor will still watch Lesnar vs. Couture, Mir, or Carwin and the fans that are dying to see Penn vs. Aoki will still watch Penn vs. Florian, Sanchez, and Edgar.

Incredible piece Leland. Thank you.

As usual, Leland does a bang-up job.

I will agree that some of the lackluster fights we saw this year made me feel like saturation but I agree with the article that it is far from having NFL Sunday Ticket. That being said, the question is quality over quantity as far as I am concerned. If the UFC is the only organization, I think that will harm quality. They are far and above the most well done show, but what needs to be focused on is an organic growth. Purists like us who sit on blogs all day rather than work, buy all the PPV’s, etc. Don’t go for the whole world yet, just the people who will obsess. This is really why the NFL is so strong. Fantasy Sports League, an entire Sunday spent drinking beer and ignoring the wife, and that leads the wife to watch too, because she has too. Now she is wearing a Jersey and swearing at Favre. MMA is so far from that. To prevent it from being a fad, they really need to make exciting events every time, and have some regularity.

Co-promotion … bah. That is just bad for the sport. It feels hokey. The UFC needs to go it alone and become the NFL. Otherwise, you are just Vadim and Coker. Two shady ass guys who are what you’d expect from a fight organization. Btw, Coker’s interview was very interesting today regarding Pride.

As It was suggested by Finklestien in the UFC/Fedor Talks. Made me think of an metaphoric analogy to something like this.

You go into a luxury car dealer. There is a special one of a kind, top of the line model. For whatever reason you want to buy it. They tell you that they will sell it to you, but it will be over market price of course, and in addition. The dealers Sales Manager and the Salesman that you buy it from get to drive it 50% of the time.

Now to you and me that sounds crazy. But to people from Russia believe it or not, this is a reasonable concept in a maverick economy that was once controlled entirely by government.

Of course this would not work in the UFC’s case for Fedor anymore than it would for one of you thinking about buying a new Luxury car.