Steve Cofield of Yahoo! Sports and Dana White go head-to-head in a discussion over the role of MMA blogs and websites in the MMA landscape.
Payout Perspective:
This interview begs the question: should the MMA media act as unabashed cheerleaders and advocates of the sport?
The consumer — or in this case, MMA fan — isn’t stupid. The idea of all-positive, all the time media coverage isn’t going to work. Nobody is interested or going to believe coverage that is 100% positive, and this is truly a statement supported by academic theory and data (i.e., fact).
Moreover, things aren’t all-positive with the UFC: not with Dana White, not with any of the events, or with the organization as a whole. How is the media supposed to cover Dana White’s tirade towards Loretta Hunt in a positive manner? It wasn’t as if it was a behind-the-scenes incident. It was a very public vlog, published for an obvious – if not misguided – purpose. Likewise, how can the media ignore or omit the countless injuries from the coverage of this weekend’s “cursed” event.
There is a real danger to believing in all-positive media coverage: the absence of contradiction – or the existence of overwhelming consensus – breeds complacency, which is ultimately the death knell of growth in business.
Does it matter if Jake Rossen has ever been involved in an MMA organization? No. In business you can never know enough or learn enough, and anybody that tells you they’ve got it all figured out is full of shit. Rossen’s opinion counts because he’s probably not only one out there with similar thoughts, and at the very least his is a point of view the UFC ought to consider.
Furthermore, Rossen’s blog has helped the UFC (regardless of its “negative” skew), because it has generated a discussion point for countless websites, blogs, message boards, and water coolers around the world. That discussion will motivate many people – some of whom have never thought about the UFC in this light before – to check the facts, investigate the UFC more closely, and become more interested in the potential climb or demise of the sporting world’s next big thing.
That’s why I don’t believe that Dana White is being sincere with his comments towards the media; he, as well as anyone, understands the role in which blogs and websites play, and he understands that just about any coverage is good coverage.
Right now Dana White sees a UFC 108 card with very little appeal, and he’s doing everything in his power to promote the show virally (through the very blogs and websites that he claims to despise). His twitter account has been going crazy this week, he’s heavily pushing his vlogs, and he’s deliberately being controversial in order to draw further attention to his next event.
Most people weren’t even aware of Jake Rossen’s blog until it appeared on Dana’s vlog. Dana has effectively pushed more users towards UFC-themed content, which ultimately pushes them closer to an interest level that illicits purchase behavior. After fans are finished listening to the vlog, checking Rossen’s article, and reading or watching the countless other related follow-up pieces, they may click over to the latest coverage of UFC 108 and find something that interests them enough to buy the event.
That’s valuable.
So then, what is the role of the media? To publish information. But it’s the role of the promoter to gracefully navigate and manipulate the media in order to drive interest in the product. Both Jake Rossen and Dana White have done their jobs.
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I suppose there may be a question as to the long-term viability of such controversial PR methods – again the discussion of whether the strategy that got the UFC to where it is will be the one that gets it to the next level – but we’ll save that for another day.
Here’s the link to the actual piece that Cofield did, since Kelsey forgot to include it.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/The-role-of-the-media-in-2010-and-beyond-White-?urn=mma,211378
Positive coverage all the time wouldn’t be good for the sport but neither is the overly negative stuff coming from alot of mma sites these days. Sherdog has been biased against the UFC for years it’s disgracefull that they have ESPN’s ear when basically the have the worst coverage of any as far as the UFC goes. I think Dana is simply tired of sites like that making a living off the UFC while at the same time bashing it all the time.
While the hardcore fans can see through biased coverage the mainstream one’s alot of times can’t and that only hurts the sport with them. Balance is what we need from these sites but sadly it’s getting harder to find one that isn’t overly negative and filled with writers wanting to make some sort of stand against the UFC because they are the powerhouse of mma it’s a shame really and i’m glad for one that Dana isn’t having none of it I say keep it up.
Maggie,
I’ve added the link at the top. My bad!
EJ,
I don’t see the bias, myself. I don’t always agree with the things that are said on Sherdog, but I think they provide a good balance of UFC coverage.
Fact: Sherdog is the number one MMA-only website in the world (check their Alexa rank). They wouldn’t get that kind of traffic if they didn’t cover the UFC, and cover them well.
I simply think this is a case of Dana doing what a promoter does best – drawing attention to his fights this weekend.
I agree with EJ. I dont think there is a lack of coverage but more so the bias is in the articles that are written. Sherdog has partnered up with other mma promotions to stream fights on their site. These promotions are dumping money into Sherdog and they know which side their bread is buttered. This conscious or subconsciously if felt in their opinions. The start of the bias however was the UFCs MMA media credential ban. From that point on it was a “us vs them” mentality. You can blame the UFC for not utilizing Sherdog as others are but i believe they are making the best decision in the situation. You cant give Sherdog exclusive stuff and have anything left to offer larger more important sites and tv programs. Even the mma media ban that started the hostility was needed. “LA times” writers (for example) are not going to give the UFC the time of day when they share press row with Joe Blow who invested a few hundred bucks to start a MMA website. So instead of picking favorites then just banned them all. Which is the same approach they are using to deal with Fighter sponsors. You are not going to get high quality and high paying companys sponsors putting their name on a fighter or product and sharing it with Bobs BBQ pit. So the UFC just weeds out the small mom and pop sponsors for the betterment of the sport and fighters down the road by raising the class of the sport and sponsorships together.
MMAWeekly is another than has shown a little bias. When Ryan Bennet was alive he ran the site with a slight Pro UFC bias which was understandable since he was once employeed by the UFC and had a relationship to get content from them afterward. After his death the guys who took over had a slight anti UFC perspective. But they arent nearly as bad as they used to be.
The argument Dana makes seems reasonable. You can say whatever you want about the UFC but at least cover the facts while doing so. UFC 108 is this weekend in Las Vegas. I do not think it is a great card. He seemed to be pissed that they were ignoring the fight and yet had time to write negatively about the sport.
At least the UFC does indeed make money off of the promotion (goo or bad) but the fighters are the real ones suffering. They are not making money from the stories being ran featuring them. Very few (Fight! comes to mind) of these website blogs or ezines sponsor fighters. They actually rarely cover fighters unless they have a fight coming up.
The great thing about twitter, social media and the connectivity that is available to readers today is that it evens the playing fields. In fact the barrier of entry to become a MMA journalist is extremely low.
The key is to get these sites supporting fighters in and out of the UFC. Paying homage to the sport of MMA not just UFC 1XX.