Bob Arum Has a Point About the UFC's Demographics and the UFC Knows It

Boxing promoter Bob Arum did a round of press with superstar Manny Pacquiao in Washington, D.C. this week. They were promoting Pacquiao's upcoming Showtime PPV bout with Shane Mosley in May but really they were just pushing Pacquiao as a superstar. Of course the UFC came up during the course of Arum's discussions with the press and Arum again claimed boxing has better demographics than the UFC. 

Arum concedes young white males to the UFC. Boxing has inarguably lost ground with that demographic since the fall of Mike Tyson. But he insists that boxing is way ahead with Hispanics and African-Americans and he's likely right.

In fact the UFC knows it's way behind with those demographics and that's why the UFC made a major three-pronged attack on boxing fans in 2010 as I wrote at the time:

It's no secret that the UFC has been aggressively going after boxing fans and the demographic groups who follow the sweet science most loyally, i.e. African-Americans and Hispanics. The signing of Kimbo Slice and his Ultimate Fighter reality show career was designed to bring in African-American fans who followed the YouTube sensation. The casting of two of the UFC's top African-American fighters, both former light heavyweight champs, Quinton Jackson aka Rampage and Rashad Evans as the coaches of Kimbo's TUF season was designed to lock in those curiosity seekers as fans. UFC 114 which featured Rashad vs Rampage owed much of its success to that gambit.

They took a second stab at boxing fans with the signing of James Toney vs Randy Couture at UFC 118. This was aimed more at the middle aged white guys who still follow boxing but disdain MMA. It had some success in drawing mainstream media attention, but largely fell flat as a marketing effort. Toney was shot as a fighter. The boxer vs wrestler angle had been done so many times everyone, even old boxing fans, knew that the wrestler usually wins that one. If the UFC had managed to sign a David Haye or Kermit Cintron -- an athlete in his prime who had some other skills -- it might have been a different matter.

UFC 121 was the UFC's third bite at the boxing apple this year. This time they were aiming straight at the sweetest, fattest and most lucrative slice of that boxing pie -- the Hispanic audience. Cain Velasquez was largely unknown to casual fans going into the fight. He'd only headlined one UFC and that was in Australia where the U.S. media coverage was limited by distance. 

But none of that really mattered because they aggressively pushed a very very simple meme -- "The First Mexican Heavyweight Champ". This was designed to aim directly at the burgeoning Mexican-American demographic, some of the most loyal fight fans on Earth. We won't know until the UFC 121 PPV numbers come out if that effort succeeded, and it will be hard to tell how many of the buys were for Brock and how many were for Cain, but there is some anecdotal evidence that the marketing worked. More importantly they now have an easy follow up plan to market Cain's first title defense, a fight against the even less heralded Junior dos Santos. 

It's interesting to note that they haven't followed up on any of these angles so far in 2011, despite doing banner business. Cain Velasquez's rotator cuff injury will keep him out of action for most of this year. There are no signs of a second Mexican-American superstar emerging in the near term. 

On the African-American front, Kimbo Slice was cut after an undistinguished run in the UFC and a possible Quinton Jackson vs Rashad Evans rematch won't be happening at UFC 130. It's possible that they want to save that rematch for a later event when they can promote it more extensively as headliner rather than a co-headliner. 

The UFC is focused on international expansion in 2011 with the UFC 129 mega event in Toronto, the UFC's return to Brazil in August, a possible The Ultimate Fighter series shot in the Philippines and a possible return to Japan as well as continuing their expansion into Europe and Australia. 

That's a very smart strategy, but the UFC would be well-advised to pay heed to Arum and continue to work to make inroads into boxing's strongest demographics in the U.S. market.