Damon Martin of MMAWeekly reports that the UFC recently hired the individual that will run the UFC’s office in China, which the organization expects to open in the very near future.
Just weeks after the UFC opened an office in Canada – with former CFL commissioner Tom Wright leading the charge – the company hired a leader for a new office in China, which should open in the next few weeks.
“I’ll make that announcement soon. We just hired somebody today, literally today,” White said on Saturday night.
The office will be on mainland China, but no other details were revealed.
The plan came together pretty quickly though according to White, and they plan on being aggressive expanding into the Chinese market.
“We’re working on China right now. We’re opening an office there immediately,” he stated. “We’re moving fast in China.”
Payout Perspective:
The UFC had previously announced an office in China was in the works, but I’m not sure anyone thought it would come this quickly. It’s good news.
I find myself torn between two ideas: 1.) the UFC continuing to build its domestic market, and 2.) the UFC expanding internationally. I tend to think there’s still a lot of room for growth in both the US and Canada. The two biggest regional markets in those countries, New York and Ontario, still haven’t regulated the sport, and MMA as a whole still hasn’t fully caught on the way it could. While there’s an equal, or arguably even greater potential for MMA in some international markets, I also see them as risky propositions. People are often quick to cite several of the cliches involving the tremendous growth and potential of BRIC nations, but rarely do they take the time to understand some of the downside.
Now, certainly, there’s no rule that states a company has to expand one market at a time or that domestic and foreign expansion cannot happen simultaneously. But I do worry that an organization that’s already been stretched too thin on the human capital side, might also become stretched too then from a financial capital perspective. If there’s a question of where the bulk of a very finite set of resources should be focused in order to grow the UFC, I think it should and will be invested in North America.
What does that mean exactly? The new UFC office in China is a great step forward, but I wouldn’t expect to see an event in China any time soon. It’s going to take time and money to build the Chinese market into a viable location for events .
The UFC first needs to educate an ultra-conservative Chinese public about the sport of MMA, which means it’s likely to begin its Chinese market expansion by enhancing its existing distribution channels for UFC content within the country. Next, I’d expect the UFC to begin working on the merchandise side to supplement whatever content it can put on television (or the internet, like Sohu.com).
Meanwhile, I suspect that the UFC will try to leverage its partnership with Flash Entertainment in order to begin building the relationsips within the Chinese political system that will be necessary for further (or accelerated) movement into the market.
I think its important that the UFC expands asap. When you look at things that have recently taken off would wide. TV shows like the Office, Americans got talent, Idol, etc. They were created in the UK but once they blew up here in seems to get big all over the world. Atleast in many countries. The UFC realizes that many countries follow suit with the US. Getting these markets set up while MMA is still at its peak in the states gives them a better chance of global acceptance. Waiting for the sport to level out in the UFC before going over seas will cause the sport to lose its momentium. The worst thing to do is wait to long. Pride put off coming to america. Even to the point of claiming an event was happening for over 6 years before it finally did. But they didnt get their product established in the states and when their lost their TV deal in japan they had nothing to fall back in. They simply waited to long to find out if they could have success here or not.
Kelsey, do you think its important to make a money while the sport is still hot here. Or would it make no difference internationally? I know they are spreading themselves a little thin but it might be a risk they have to take to have success.
Or maybe they just see the chinese market as a bigger market than that of the USA and Canada, combine!! Maybe oversimplyfiing the situation but just a though!!
well we all know how martial arts over in the asian world china is a ver over populated country and i see the ufc / mma doing well over there just get some more asain fighters on the roster for there events and its a seller
its going to be very hard to enter the chinese market for one google just got out of china…while china is now a global trading powerhouse it is still controlled by the government…and since it was a communist country for the longest time they still focus on sports that would be included in the Olympics like basketball,boxing,gymnasitcs,track and field in which all the countries compete in and whoever wins has the BRagging rights..with the rest of the world…remember germany and nazi time–olympics, cold war u.s. and russia competed on who has more gold medals…and now china…who wants to be number 1 country in the world…..they would not waste theyre time investing athtletes to compete in the ufc..where the compettition is set up by one company..the fertitas….its a private league
I agree investing in China can be risky for foreign companies. Foreign companies operate in China due to government decree and acquiesence, not because of rule of law.
The risk may be worth it for the UFC. Remember the UFC is a professional, modern, sucessful organization. If China plays the old Cold War game of using athletes to promote a broader political agenda, then China is not ready to join the 21st century in my opinion.
My take is the UFC already has a strong indication that professional MMA will be a “go” in the not too distant future in China and they aim to capitalize. Of course the danger is that the UFC will be “googled” in China at some point in the future and will be faced with a tough decision: sell their soul or walk away.
The UFC isn’t going to be like Google to Chinese Market. First the UFC doesn’t have a company like Baidu that can infrige upon itself. AOW isn’t nearly as big and powerful as the UFC is and it doesn’t have resources to compete. Second the way that Google went into China and wanted to change the way the government has been doing business is absurdly unrealistic. China surely doesn’t give up control of the press just so Google can be there. UFC is completely different. Unlike Google, there is no political agenda. Why compare Google to UFC anyways? There are plenty of foreign companies that do business in China. Google isn’t the first and won’t be the last one to go in.
I think UFC can strike it big in China. There is plenty of talents untapped there. Sanda would be the next big thing in MMA. Sanda fighters are strikers but only trained to take opponents down. Cung Le proves that Sanda works in MMA. Once enough Chinese fighters do well in the sport then the public will catch on.