It has been a big couple of weeks for the UFC in Australia with a blockbuster card in Brisbane and the impressive economic impact numbers for UFC 193 just released.
With a growing interest in mixed martial arts nation wide, Tom Wright is confident that the UFC will continue it’s meteoric rise down under.
FNA’s Emma Challands sat down with the Executive Vice President and General Manager for UFC Operations in Canada, Australia and New Zealand to get the latest.
Perth.
“Nothing has really changed. I honestly don’t think anything will change until the government has an epiphany and decides to actually go out and do some more due diligence and listen to their own athletic commission. I don’t think there will be any changes until they decide to take an enlightened view towards that or if there is a change in government. I invited Sports Minister, Mia Davies, out to Melbourne for UFC 193 and I invited her to come to this event (Brisbane). Her predecessor was invited to events as well and I think Premier Barnett is entrenched in his position and is not going to allow fact to get in the way of his emotions. It took a government change in Victoria to provide a more enlightened perspective, perhaps that happens in WA.”
The next event.
“We’re committed to bringing at least two live events here every year here. We brought two live events last year, Adelaide and Melbourne, and the year before that it was Sydney and Auckland. We will be back in your spring, around November.”
As previously reported by Fight News Australia the two front running cities are currently Sydney and Melbourne.
Promoting MMA and the UFC locally.
“We’re doing quite a bit. We have our own employee here now, so we have boots on the ground. We’ve made commitments to bring large global events here, like we did last year with UFC 193. We’ve worked very hard to develop some of our brand extensions like UFC gym for instance – we have our flagship gym in Alexandria, and it’s been announced that we will be opening up new franchise gyms around Australia as well. We’re looking at Brisbane, we’re looking at Melbourne and Sydney and even Perth.
“Our EA Sports game has done tremendously well, the version number two is being launched this month and I can tell you that our partnership with Reebok has been excellent, we’ve got a good relationship with the Reebok Australia distributors.
“We’re trying to continue to provide opportunities for the athletes to grow and bring our brand across the country. It’s always been our objective at the beginning when we (the Canada/Australia/New Zealand team) started becoming more involved we really only held events in NSW and since then we’ve been to Queensland, South Australia and Victoria. Our goal is to take our sport, our brand and our athletes to every part of this great country and we’re very committed to doing that. We’ve got a great relationship with FOX Sports Australia. Our commercial business through FOX Sports Venues and Foxtel has been terrific. We’ve set consecutive records for the number of locations that are viewing our events, so we’ve put a lot of investment into this country and we have great fans and great fighters. We’ve got 11 Kiwis/Aussies on this card (Brisbane) and you take a look at Robbie Whittaker, he’s a guest fighter here, but he’s got a big fight coming up and he’s a ranked middleweight. Mark Hunt is a ranked heavyweight. There’s a lot of exciting things going on here.”
Changing public and mainstream media perception.
“Things take time. People forget we are literally still a teenager when it comes to our sport and like many teenagers, sometimes they are misunderstood. What we can do is continue to stay the course. We are not going to change who we are to make everyone happy. I think there’s some lessons in this for companies and brands and sports – you need to be proud of who you are and really champion what the brand stands for. The minute you try to be that which you are not you’re destined to fail. Now are we going to make everybody happy? No. We don’t expect everyone to love us. All we want to do is allow people to view us objectively and have a fact based opinion for us.
“What your finding is that mainstream media, and traditional print media, they tend to oftentimes have a perspective that isn’t in synch with the next generation of sport, or news, or individuals who consume content. The truth of the matter is, that for our fans, and the next generation, are they more likely to get their perspective and news and view of the world from new media or old media? And so, we can try our best to convince traditional sports journalist to look at our sport the way contemporary individuals do but in the end you just can’t change City Hall.”
The impact of social media.
“The numbers are staggering. The social engagement, the number of twitters followers that we (UFC) have – and I’ll read this off my stat sheet so I don’t get it wrong is – 2.8M twitter followers, 3.9M instagram followers and 18.5M likes on Facebook. Growth rates are up 27% on twitter, 159% on instagram and 11% up on Facebook over a 12 month period.
“You take a look at those numbers and they are staggering. The records that we set at UFC 193 from social media engagement were off the charts and people were talking about it. What you’re finding is individuals have all sorts of ways to consume content and choices and in a free economy people will go to where they trust, where it’s easy and comfortable and that is what we are seeing.”
Broadcasting and TUF.
“It’s going to continue to be the hybrid that it is. It’s important for sport brands and leagues, like ourselves, to make sure we provide opportunity for our fans to engage and consume our content in the way they like to consume it. We try to be agnostic – we don’t say you can can only watch content on YouTube or FOX, we try to make sure that we are fan friendly. In the end, who really owns the sport? The fans. If you don’t listen to them, talk to them, relate to them and allow them to engage with us in a manner that they enjoy…well you’ve just got to do it. You have to listen to your fans and try to accomodate and engage with them. It doesn’t mean we do everything for everyone, but we’re fortunate in the business of sport that live content still rules.
“There’s no word on TUF Nations Australia v New Zealand as yet.”
The economic impact of UFC 193.
The UFC put a major feather in its cap this week when the promotion announced the economic impact of UFC 193. The event which was headlined by Ronda Rousey and Holly Holm delivered a whopping $102m boost to the Victorian economy and smashed attendance and pay-per-view records in Australia and the United States.
