UFC Marketing and Sponsorships in 2022

The UFC does not particularly have any competition within the MMA sphere, as they have a monopoly over the market as Bellator and Cage Warriors are seen to either have lesser-known or up and coming fighters that get scouted by the UFC anyway on their roster. So, their main competition comes from boxing, specifically Matchroom boxing, spearheaded by promotional genius Eddie Hearn, along with other promoters like Frank Warren and Bob Arum having high-level fighters to promote.

Interestingly, the rise in the notability and global popularity of the company and sport is more down to the stardom of a certain generation of fighters. With fighters like most notoriously, Conor McGregor, Jon Jones and more recently Israel Adesanya, have elevated their own brand immensely through being outgoing and bold on social media, electric displays and most crucially, brash trash-talking in pre-fight press conferences. They did this much better than a different breed of no question, exceptional fighters like Georges St-Pierre, Khabib Nurmagomedov and Anderson Silva.

This is evident as McGregor holds the top three spots in Nevada live MMA gates in terms of sales, both pay-per-view (PPV) and tickets, as his last fight against Dustin Poirier generated over £11 million for the company, more staggeringly, he holds seven of the top nine UFC PPV events, showing the draw certain fighters can have.

Obviously, stars like McGregor are worth their weight in gold for the company, however, there is an argument leaning towards the idea that fighters in the UFC are not paid a fair rate in terms of what they bring, especially in comparison to Boxing. As stars like Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury earn upward of £50 million for a world championship fight, in comparison to the UFC pound-for-pound king, Kamaru Usman earned around £1 million for his latest title defence.

This is not a good look for the UFC as their viewing figures are obviously not as much as boxing, however the UFC’s most viewed event ever, UFC 229 headlined by Khabib and obviously, Conor McGregor garnered 2.2 million official PPV buys. Whereas Floyd Mayweather vs Conor McGregor received over 4 million PPV buys, there should not be such a difference between the pay-outs for fighters.

Another staggering fact in terms of the UFC is that their fighters are not allowed their own sponsors during fight week, during a time where they will have the most eyes on them for possible endorsements, but instead, the focus is turned to the official sponsors of the UFC. Such as their recent partnership with Reebok, which pays fighters a measly sum in comparison to what they could be earning. Some would call this unfair, as, during fight weeks of famous boxers like Anthony Joshua, you see him covered in promotions and his sponsored ‘Beats by Dre’ headphones around his neck during the face-off.

UFC boss Dana White has come under a fair amount of criticism from various people due to the ‘unfair’ purses and payments for his fighters, former light heavyweight champion Jon Jones has been refusing to fight in recent times (not because of his arrests and drug use) due to the fact he feels he is undervalued, causing him to not fight current heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou, which would most certainly be a PPV hit. Also, controversial YouTuber turned ‘boxer’ Jake Paul has been extremely vocal in calling out Dana over this, making outlandish claims that could end up tarnishing the reputation of the UFC if more people begin to agree with him, as some fighters might take a similar stance to Jones and cost the UFC millions in lost revenue from fights that never happened, which could cause fan unrest, possibly leading them to not buy fights in the future.

The UFC does not particularly have any competition within the MMA sphere, as they have a monopoly over the market as Bellator and Cage Warriors are seen to either have lesser-known or up-and-coming fighters that get scouted by the UFC anyway on their roster. So, their main competition comes from boxing, specifically Matchroom boxing, spearheaded by promotional genius Eddie Hearn, along with other promoters like Frank Warren and Bob Arum having high-level fighters to promote.

The reputations of both companies are strikingly different, with boxers such as Tony Bellew and Anthony Joshua having had nothing but compliments for Hearn and Matchroom’s handling of payments, which might be helped thanks to their recent partnership with streaming service DAZN worth £100 million. This shows their intention to move into the online world by adopting a more digital strategy, going against the grain of what usually happens in boxing, more traditional methods.

Digital marketing strategies are one thing that the UFC have over boxing, even Matchroom. It is much easier for the UFC to promote their product on social media as all their fighters are in one place to promote which is a great way to cultivate a large and tribal following. Whereas in boxing, Eddie Hearn has pound-for-pound king Canelo Alvarez and heavyweight royalty Anthony Joshua, but other star fighters like Deontay Wilder, Tyson Fury, Oleksandr Usyk and Joe Joyce are all under different promoters, so it is harder to create a social media presence with a global following.

The UFC like Football and Formula 1 has gone through the process of gamification as they have released four different video games where players can create their own fighter or any on the roster, which is a great tool for increasing revenue streams for the company and getting a new audience involved with the sport, as it faces no competition of combat sports video games as there hasn’t been a notifiable game since 2011 for boxing. These along with social followings are largely star based and that is why the customers buy into the product.

It would be foolish for most larger companies and businesses to not be beginning to transition into the web 3 world, and the UFC is most certainly doing so, as they have created their own NFT’s called ‘UFC Strike’ which has its own website and social channels, selling packs of historic moments of certain knockouts, fights, and finishes. This ties into the point of fighter pay and sponsorships as the fighters will hardly get a crumb of these enormous profits if any.

The question is, are UFC fighters paid their worth or is Dana White harnessing all of their pay to build his ever-growing empire?