Dana: Corruption and Local Mafia Roadblocks to UFC Int'l Expansion
October 20, 2008
John Joe O’Regan of Fighter’s Only did his usual excellent job when the UFC brass came over to the UK for UFC 89. O’ Regan was able to speak with Dana White and get him to open up for the first time on some of the problems they have faced in trying to open up foreign markets for the UFC. One of the biggest problems has been corruption and oranized crime, according to Mr. White:
He cited Japan’s yakuza mafia as an example and blamed it for the demise of PRIDE FC following last year’s Zuffa takeover.
We had plans for Pride, we were going to do Japanese shows, but the mafia runs that place and it is very hard to do business over there,” he said. “That basically killed the brand.”
However, what he terms “The Mexican initiative” is taking “a lot longer than we though it would, basically because five families control all of Mexico”.
Corruption and organized crime have been mentioned earlier by MMAPayout.com as being hinderances in certain markets that the UFC may wish to go into. Kelsy Philpott noted corruption as a possible pothole when trying to make inroads into a country like India. Robert Joyner mentioned the prevalence of organized crime as a factor in places like Macao and Japan in earlier discussions on International expansion.
Corruption and organized crime are both a problem when dealing with the Mexico market. The short term goals for Mexico have been influenced by this, as the UFC looks to be more focused on using Mexican fighters and those fighters of Mexican heritage as leverage in appealing to US-based Latinos as opposed to making a full force entrance into Mexico.
