Every week I do a mailbag column, but some weeks, I go off on such a tangent answering one question that I don't really have the space to answer any other ones. This is one of those weeks.
MMA
Opinion | A modest proposal to reinvigorate the UFC fanbase: MMA Majors
Jed, I was a huge fan of your pitch to designate certain UFC cards as “Majors,†with hopefully the death of the PPV for UFC and the rise of Paramount+. Along those lines: how is the UFC doing on the ‘husband,' ‘boyfriend,' or ‘my dad' test these days? Is the influx of cards every weekend, often at new time slots, plus a full dose of TUF and DWCS truly diluting the product? Or am I just old and tired with less time to pay attention to it? Could be both. Probably both.
This is an idea I've pitched for years on our various shows, but one I became CONVINCED is the correct path forward for the UFC in the advent of the Paramount+ deal and the semi-death of PPVs (some countries still have to do it). That being said, I'm not sure I've ever written about it, at least not at length, so here it goes.
First, let's acknowledge that the UFC has a problem with oversaturation. At least once a week I get a question from someone new asking why the product seems watered down, why this weekend's event isn't that good, and why the sport seems to be contracting. This is not a good thing. Sure, right now business is booming for the UFC, and their broadcast rights deals keep them raking in cash, but eventually this sort of thing does catch up with you. People will simply watch less of the UFC if it's always on and the fights are just fights. It's human nature.
The problem is, the UFC only has three arrows in its promotional quiver: These Are The Best Guys In The World, THESE TWO GUYS HATE EACH OTHER, and It's The Cards You Don't See Coming That Are The Most Fun. Two of these are age-old fight promotion tactics that never go out of style, but also aren't true all that often, and the third is the sort of lie a used car salesman might pitch you to get you into a beater with huge financing. By putting 13 fights on just about every week and telling people to constantly watch, the UFC has essentially branded every one of their shows as important; and if everything is important, then nothing is important.
Golf has something similar. There are hundreds of golf tournaments every year, and real sickos watch most of them. That's us. We are the sickos. If you're reading this right now, you probably haven't touched enough grass lately because you were waking up at 3 a.m. to watch Cam Nelson fight Ding Meng. But you don't sell to sickos. They're a captive audience. You're never losing us. Instead, you market to the common man. And marketing UFC Vegas 213 just doesn't have the juice to get swaths of casual people to tune in. But you know what does? Majors.
I'm not saying the UFC should hold fewer events (though they should; 36 events a year, 3 a month — 1 PPV, 1 Fight Night, 1 APEX — is a perfect system). By all means, keep churning out 42-45 events a year plus Contender Series and Road to UFC. But instead, throw the casual fans a bone by taking a page from the golf playbook and making one event per quarter a Major, where the card is bigger, the fights are better, and everybody wants to compete on it. Not only does that add cachet for casual viewers, but it's also aspirational for the fighters.
Think of how many fighters wanted to fight on the UFC White House card, or at Madison Square Garden? It's cool when fighters are excited about things!
And the thing is, there's already sort of a rubric out there. The UFC goes to New York City every November. There's your Open Championship, closing out the year. And every summer there's International Fight Week; that's the Masters. Now you just need two more Majors (MMAjors? Coining it) to round out the schedule. My proposal looks something like this, Dana White.
- MMAjor 1 — Three of the last four years, the UFC has gone to Australia in the first quarter of the year. Just make that an official trip and start the Major Season there. If it's good enough for tennis, it's good enough for the UFC.
- MMAjor 2 — In golf, the PGA Championship and the U.S. Open alternate between locations every year. Rotate between Miami, Los Angeles, or wherever else. But pick big, fun cities that aren't Las Vegas or New York.
- MMAjor 3 — International Fight Week. The crown jewel.
- MMAjor 4 — MSG.
Looking at this list, some of you are no doubt thinking, ‘Why not make Noche UFC a MMAjor?' Because the creation of MMAjors doesn't preclude other cool events from happening. Golf and tennis both have plenty of other tournaments that aren't quite at the Major tier but are nonetheless prestigious, and part of the fun is the unique vibes those events can bring, and discussing which one is the “Fifth Major.â€
Noche UFC should be its own thing, like the Waste Management Open. It's rowdy and fun, and separate from the MMAjors. Same for the yearly trips to London or Paris or China. Or one-off events like UFC 300 or UFC White House. Those can co-exist with the MMAjors, not take away from them.
Imagine how great it would be if the UFC did this. From a practical standpoint, it's not a huge amount of lift for them, just a re-prioritization of some resources, and it would give the production team something cool and new to try to create for. Plus, from a business perspective, it would mean that every year the promotion has four events that should draw broader casual interest, instead of only doing so on one-off White House-esque occasions. And, in theory, winning in the main event of a MMAjor would also be a star-making kind of thing, the way winning the Masters makes you an overnight star.
And from the fan perspective, this rules. Instead of one or two events a year to get excited about or look forward to on a one-off basis, you get one every three months. Remember how pumped we were for UFC White House or UFC 300? Now we get a smaller version of that semi-constantly. And let me tell you, it's easier to stomach a trash APEX card when I know The UFC MMAsters is right around the corner.
Also, it adds silly new gimmicks to enjoy, and that's always a plus. They gave specialty belts for fighting at UFC White House — give gold bomber jackets to fighters for winning at the MMAsters, and fighters can only wear them until the next year. Award specialty trophies or do any number of other things to make the events feel special and big. And, of course, bump the bonuses at these events so fighters are even more interested in competing at them.
Plus, think of the other schticks! Jim Miller fighting at UFC 300 (and eventually fighting at UFC 400) is one of those things that doesn't really mean anything at all, but is still cool. Now we'd have fighters trying to complete the UFC Grand Slam (sponsored by Denny's) by winning at each MMAjor, and Merab would try to do it all in one year. That's very silly and very fun, and the UFC is in desperate need of both of those things right now.
So, in conclusion, call me, Dana.
Thanks for reading, and thank you to everyone who sent in questions! Do you have any burning questions about things at least somewhat related to combat sports? Then you're in luck, because every week I put a prompt into The Feed for your questions. Fire them there, and I'll answer the best ones in the Mailbag and try to get to the rest in the responses.
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