The UFC expects additional excrescence to come from sales tied to digital media, video on demand, and merchandising. There will be two firsts next year: a yarn of encounter figures and a video game. There are also plans for a U.S. Bank relationship accept comedian and a branded clothing breadth at nationwide JCPenney stores. Some crossover attainment has followed.
Chuck Liddell, the UFC's most generally known star, was prominently featured in an incident of HBO's "Entourage," and Rachelle Leah, a UFC video personality, appears on the include of Playboy this month. The UFC, without any stiff involvement, is also weaved into the plot word of the upcoming time off haziness "The Four Christmases." Are sponsors buying? White, pointing to creative sponsorships with Anheuser-Busch and Harley-Davidson, said corporate concerns about the sport's strength are beginning to ease.
A 2006 go into by Johns Hopkins University found wound rates in MMA were no worse than boxing. "Putting Bud Light in the mid of the pen says what we reason about the sport," said Tony Ponturo, Anheuser-Busch's transgression president of pandemic media and sports marketing. "I'm very contented with what the UFC is doing." Increased communication of MMA on box and other media is expected to unselfish more mainstream sponsorship categories.
Meanwhile, deals in the video-game, silent and extension categories maintain to stream in as companies drag upon the UFC's undeviating capability to deliver the 18- to 34-year-old demographic. Contractual sponsorships with other spar promoters are almost nonexistent, and the identify confusion created by the thousand of promoters and their various television arrangements could be impeding efforts. "A lot of companies are saying, 'I get that MMA is big and all the rage and you can powwow to me all broad daylight long about 18- to 34-year-old demos, but it's so confusing to me and I don't understand where to go,'" said Tom Fox, a departed Gatorade marketer and the MMA wizard at Wasserman Media Group.
Top fighters adulate Liddell have pocketed millions from endorsements and paid appearances, but the bazaar for fighters has not reached the complexity levels of other sports. With the peculiarity of stars derive Georges St. Pierre and CAA, and FedorEmelianenko and Blue Entertainment Sports Television, MMA fighters have not exhausted the curiosity of dominant sports bust agencies. MMADHOUSE and Zinkin Entertainment combined stand for around 70 fighters, the largest concentration in the business.
Most of their corporate arrangements are deals that take over groups of fighters, or a series of one-offs done for sole brawl cards. Nick Swinmurn, president and CEO of MMADHOUSE, said a UFC fighter can depose in $100,000 in a individual year over three or four bouts, and estimates that fewer than 10 percent of all fighters are making in the favourable six figures annually in endorsements. "For the best part of guys, it's not that lucrative yet," he said. "But as yearn as you're in the UFC there's no suspect the opportunities are coming.
" Mounting a object to The edition of competitors in the room has decreased in 2008, but there are at least two companies other than UFC making a jingoistic MMA play: Affliction Entertainment and Strikeforce. San Jose-based Strikeforce has existed as a military arts promoter since 1994 but launched its MMA faction in 2006 with four fights. Its plans for controlled extension included eight events this year, with plans to exhibit 10 in 2009.
"There are a lot of companies that have tried this and had a very unfavourable time," said Scott Coker, president of Strikeforce. "Companies that have tried to expand too big too briskly have all failed." NBC struck a deal with Strikeforce earlier this year to reveal a taped late-night highlight show on Saturdays, and is discussing a further deal that could allow for a prime-time melee show on Friday or Saturday, Coker said. Events also ventilate complete on HDNet.
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