How does everyone feel about the current state of the sport? Is it on an incline, decline, or has it leveled off? How much are the Overreem's and Diaz's or even the Dana White's of the world hurting or hindering the mainstream advancement? Inquiring minds want to know.
The sport will never be mainstream, but that doesn't mean that some fights/fighters can't achieve mainstream appeal.
I think the brass at the UFC feel differently. Why make the Fox/FX deal if they didn't think they could go mainstream?
The sport has leveled off in North America, but there is still plenty of room for growth in other markets.
Just in the last couple of years, Zuffa has discovered lucrative markets in Australia, Brazil, & Sweden, M-1 has had some good success in Russia and it's former satellite countries, KSW has been a big ratings hit in Poland, Supa Fite League is making a go of it in India, and a whole slew of promotions have popped up in the Pacific Rim and China (OneFC, LegendFC, RUFF,etc.).
I'm sure they think they can, and it's a possibility, but I don't think that the UFC, let alone MMA, will ever have mainstream appeal. It's becoming a sport in which many of the techniques are too nuanced and subtle to really appeal to people who have never trained or who haven't been interested in martial arts for a while. I've noticed this with my casual-fan friends, who seem even less interested since the Fox deal- I really believe the oversaturation and the ensuing watering down of cards is going to cause a decline. I feel that the UFC's popularity plateaued a while ago.
Steve4192 - The sport has leveled off in North America, but there is still plenty of room for growth in other markets.
Just in the last couple of years, Zuffa has discovered lucrative markets in Australia, Brazil, & Sweden, M-1 has had some good success in Russia and it's former satellite countries, KSW has been a big ratings hit in Poland, Supa Fite League is making a go of it in India, and a whole slew of promotions have popped up in the Pacific Rim and China (OneFC, LegendFC, RUFF,etc.).
This is a good point. It will be interesting to see where it goes from here.
Globally it is exploding...
Domestically (USA) it's in an interesting spot. even if it leveled off and doesnt make any more inroands further in the market demos it will still be twice the size it is today domestically (as the boxing generation dies and is replaced by the UFC generation... in 30 years everyone over 45 will be the 18to34 year olds who are watching UFC today);
UFC is in a very good spot... however I think it could do better in the states. The overexposure of dana white is a problem... he's the only major aspect of the production which is "fad" like... people get tired of him they get tired of the sport... whereas the sport by itself is evergreen. you can never get tired of the same fighters as they come and go.
tuf live has been a failure... it needs to go back to being taped and moved to another night and FX needs to get what it originally wanted on friday nights which is a live fight night series.
other than that everything just keeps getting better.
The jones vs evans fight pulled over 800k buys which means Jones could potentially become the "GSP" of the USA.
each division keeps getting better and deeper...
Only going up from here.