That the Ultimate Fighting Championship has many followers is an understatement. Millions of fans of this competition watch the fights live and at home. There are several reasons for this: it’s the largest mixed martial arts organisation in the world and features the best fighters worldwide.
The most appealing quality of the UFC is that it’s based on Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). This means that fighters can employ various techniques, unlike other fighting sports like boxing, where fighters can only use their fists.
Fans continue to grow each year for this competition, but some upcoming changes in 2023 bring some questions. Since the UFC is no stranger to controversy and needing to change to survive, let’s look at some key moments first.
The 1990s Reform
The problem with the UFC and MMA, in general, is that this sport is particularly violent and has attracted many critics. One of them was John McCain, who compared this sport to human cockfighting in the 1990s.
This provoked a chain reaction, where 36 states enacted laws banning this type of event altogether. The bad publicity also dwindled viewer numbers since it was removed from pay-per-view platforms.
The UFC organisation needed to do something about it. They cooperated with several athletic commissions to strike a balance between what they offered and what was tolerable. As such, they removed many elements, added weight classes, and banned fish hooking.
They also performed marketing actions to rebrand the fights as a sport rather than a spectacle and campaigned to clean MMA’s image of being bloodthirsty and inhuman. Finally, they managed athletic commissions to deem the activity a “sport”, and California was the first state to sign MMA-governing rules.
Casino Venues And Surviving
After commissions sanctioned the sport, the UFC still struggled to make ends meet. This was when Station Casino executives partnered with UFC owner Dana White in 2000. With this move, the UFC managed to get a sanction in Nevada in 2001, returning to pay-per-view cable.
This also meant that the fights could be performed in top casino venues like the Trump Taj Mahal and MGM Grand Garden Arena. It also linked the sport to the betting world, a link still active. Even today, you can visit the best sports betting casinos and place bets on UFC fights.
Since then, many other reforms have been made. These include merging the UFC with the World Extreme Cagefighting, creating new TV shows about the discipline and more.
The Major 2023 Change In UFC
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According to Dana White, the most crucial change in 2023 is the idea of making the UFC events 100% on the road. This was a significant promotional feature of the UFC, which allowed the organisation to break into new territory, including countries.
In the past few years, competitions have mostly been centred on the USA, and the Fight Night events were mainly performed at the Las Vegas Apex. This is a bit contradictory since the UFC presents fighters from all over the world, and the events are international.
Is It A Good Idea?
The interest in making the UFC road-worthy again is a meaningful change that would benefit both the organisers and fans.
If the UFC is entirely on the road, it’ll allow more people to experience the fights live, boosting ticket sales. There are also many associated benefits, such as more local retail sales, hotel bookings and anything that caters for visitors.
It would also add to the promotional efforts of any town where the fights are hosted, significantly smaller, lesser-known towns. It will also bolster UFC’s reputation in these places, increasing the future audience size.
Aside from that, more international events will make the UFC famous worldwide instead of being a USA-mostly event. This is already happening since the UFC has secured major pay-per-view events in Brazil, Australia and the UK for the first months of 2023.
These essential changes make 100% of fights on the road more likely. For instance, the UFC pay-per-view event will be the first one since 2019. Dana White mentioned that Brazil is one of the biggest growing markets, which is no surprise with the country having a long tradition in Mixed Martial Arts.
For now, there’s no definite word on whether UFC fights for 2023 will be entirely on the road, but it certainly looks like they’re going in that direction; sooner or later, it may become a reality for fans everywhere.
