Lorenzo Fertitta on Fighting Words With Mike Straka

Lorenzo has a love for the sports and we cannot deny what he has done to globalize MMA.

I am a huge fan of the sport but I am also a fan of the UFC itself. I look forward to seeing the company break into new markets. Asia is very exciting as is the return to Brazil. Those are two markets I have always wanted to see the UFC conquer.

Lorenzo lets us in a big secret of the UFC’s current business model: Everything revolves around selling PPV broadcasts. They make money off merchandise and live gates, but the lion’s share comes from PPV sales. I don’t know how big the UFC can get without a network deal at some point down the line. There is limited room for growth in getting the same base of fans to keep forking over money for PPV indefinitely.

His point about boxing making billions of dollars over it’s existence and not having any brand really associated with it and having real value today makes a lot of sense. At least it makes sense to me now why the UFC brand is so important in their grand scheme of things. It makes sense that with other sports they all have a brand that is closely associated with being that sport.

Football as a sport is known as the NFL. Baseball as a sport is know as MLB. Basketball as a sport is known as the NBA. All those brands associated with those sports have value and that value is there not only benefiting the owners but it also benefits all the players that come and go in those sports. People don’t seem to take this into consideration when talking about how the UFC’s brand is more popular than any of it’s fighters. Especially in relation to how boxing not having a brand seems to be a detriment to that sport.