Our generation loves action. Our parents may have loved the ‘thinking man’s games’ but we want more action. Two of the most popular sports for your parents were boxing and baseball. Both are considered thinking men’s games but both considered too slow by many in the new generation. We are more into the UFC and football.
The UFC is a bloody alternative to boxing. It encompasses fighters with mixed martial arts backgrounds in fights that almost look like street fights. There are rules in the UFC but they do not stop the two fighters from beating each other senseless with fists, kicks, slams, and submission moves. The sport aims their product at 18-35 year olds and they have a lot of young men who love to watch. Boxer Floyd Mayweather recently called the UFC a fad.
I would have to disagree 100% with Floyd’s assessment. The biggest money grossing boxing fight in 2006 was the fight between De la Hoya and Mayorga. It drew 925,000 pay-per-view buys in the United States at $49.95 per buy, which generated gross PPV revenue of $46.20 million. The UFC has publicly and repeatedly predicted that UFC 66 will draw 1.2 million PPV buys, and with a price of $39.95, the gross PPV revenue would be $47.94 million. This would mean that the UFC is making more money than boxing. Now that UFC just bought its biggest rival (Pride) they can now have super fights between the two organizations that will draw even more attention.
The claim that the UFC is a fad is just absurd. I guarantee more people watch UFC’s Ultimate Fighter on Spike TV than people watch Friday Night Fights on ESPN. This combined with the PPV numbers listed above show that more people are watching the UFC. Not to mention that I used the current most popular fighter (De La Hoya) to compare the 2 sports. There is little star power is the sport of boxing today outside of a few names, and they only fight once a year. A UFC fighter fights several times per year.
Football is now America’s #1 sport. The 2007 AFC Championship game was watched by more than twice as many people as the 2006 World Series. I am not even comparing the World Series to the Superbowl, which would yield even a greater disparity.
More people go to college these days more than ever, but that doesn’t mean we always want to think. Our generation grew up on Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Steven Segal. This should show you that we don’t care to think at all. We just want action.
The UFC is a bloody alternative to boxing. It encompasses fighters with mixed martial arts backgrounds in fights that almost look like street fights. There are rules in the UFC but they do not stop the two fighters from beating each other senseless with fists, kicks, slams, and submission moves. The sport aims their product at 18-35 year olds and they have a lot of young men who love to watch. Boxer Floyd Mayweather recently called the UFC a fad.
I would have to disagree 100% with Floyd’s assessment. The biggest money grossing boxing fight in 2006 was the fight between De la Hoya and Mayorga. It drew 925,000 pay-per-view buys in the United States at $49.95 per buy, which generated gross PPV revenue of $46.20 million. The UFC has publicly and repeatedly predicted that UFC 66 will draw 1.2 million PPV buys, and with a price of $39.95, the gross PPV revenue would be $47.94 million. This would mean that the UFC is making more money than boxing. Now that UFC just bought its biggest rival (Pride) they can now have super fights between the two organizations that will draw even more attention.
The claim that the UFC is a fad is just absurd. I guarantee more people watch UFC’s Ultimate Fighter on Spike TV than people watch Friday Night Fights on ESPN. This combined with the PPV numbers listed above show that more people are watching the UFC. Not to mention that I used the current most popular fighter (De La Hoya) to compare the 2 sports. There is little star power is the sport of boxing today outside of a few names, and they only fight once a year. A UFC fighter fights several times per year.
Football is now America’s #1 sport. The 2007 AFC Championship game was watched by more than twice as many people as the 2006 World Series. I am not even comparing the World Series to the Superbowl, which would yield even a greater disparity.
More people go to college these days more than ever, but that doesn’t mean we always want to think. Our generation grew up on Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Steven Segal. This should show you that we don’t care to think at all. We just want action.
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