The success of the UFC is fascinating to me. I really disliked the culture of MMA back in the early 2000s, but nowadays I love the sport. The technical skill of these guys fighting is amazing, and the near monopoly of the UFC has actually created a situation where big fights are constantly happening, rather then the years of negotiation that some boxing matches have required.<p>As ownership now diversifies among several groups, so will the focus of the UFC, and I'm curious how that will affect things going forward.
Either the UFC $4B valuation is way too high, or Disney stole the Star Wars franchise from Lucas films. The disparity in revenue on a historical or annualized basis is huge.<p><a href="http://fortune.com/2015/12/24/star-wars-value-worth" rel="nofollow">http://fortune.com/2015/12/24/star-wars-value-worth</a>
I'm Brazilian. UFC is a big success here.<p>Sometimes we think that Humanity is evolving, but then we see that we are back to the gladiators era. This stuff makes me really sad:-(
I think the athletes in the UFC are kind of getting screwed. Floyd Mayweather made more money in one fight than every UFC athlete has made combined since the UFC started.
They bought it for $2 million. And then poured time and money into getting it considered a legitimate sport, spun off a reality show, promoted it's stars, and cranked out the merchandise. Branding 101, etc.
I'm an MMA fan who grew up watching Pride (Fedor, Shogun, etc.).<p>I never became a fan of the UFC. Little things like the lack of production value for the graphics, the commentators (Mike Goldberg makes me cringe), to the need to use ring girls bothered me. I couldn't get over how low class and over commercialized it felt.
I didn't know what UFC is, so looking it up I saw that there's a European version which has teams competing. I can't tell how legitimate it is, since it also has teams comprised of seemingly football(soccer) hooligans. If so, it sounds like a better stress relief than engaging at a football(soccer) match.<p><a href="https://teamsfight.com/" rel="nofollow">https://teamsfight.com/</a><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/teamsfight77/videos" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/c/teamsfight77/videos</a>
UFC is a bit like NFL except instead of just a 3-4 month season, it has a 12 month season and it has international appeal.<p>However, unlike NFL it doesn't have a league that can control expansion or prevent others to compete in its market. In other words, UFC is a brand and it's a brand that is not fully understood and it's hard to predict what the loyalty to this brand is. So the buyers are taking a big risk. They're buying into UFCs reach via FOX, etc. But the market is prime from other players to take away market share.
Mods: please consider expanding the acronym (Ultimate Fighting Championship, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Fighting_Championship" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Fighting_Championship</a>) for the title. I had to click just to find out what it was about. Thanks.