The UFC has partnered with Chinese web portal Sohu.com, as mentioned in yesterday’s MMAterial Facts, to provide viewing of UFC events online starting with UFC 109: Relentless.
Sohu.com, Inc., (SOHU), is a leading online brand in China. Services provided by the company include news, search, e-mail, games and wireless messaging. Sohu.com was the official web partner for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and is also the official partner of the NBA, ESPN, Adidas and Sports Illustrated in China.
UFC programming debuted in China last summer on Inner Mongolia Television (NMTV), a network broadcast station available in 60 million households, with the potential to reach 240 million viewers throughout all the provinces.
Payout Perspective:
The deal is another stepping stone towards getting the UFC on a major network in China. They started with Inner Mongolia Television last year and will now look to increase their exposure to a wider audience online. It’s really going to be a game of patience for the UFC in many of these foreign markets; slowly pushing the product and increasing its visibility so that the consumer can grow comfortable and isn’t bombarded (that’s especially important in a nation where government censorship is notoriously strong).
The use of the internet as a medium does two things: it targets a naturally younger, tech savvy audience (which fits more closely with the traditional UFC audience) and it serves as a trial for the online streaming business model that is being bandied about in the sports world (and covered by us to a fair extent).
It’s difficult to speculate as to whether this deal was helped along by Flash Entertainment, but they’ve been working with the UFC since the end of October so it’s quite plausible they had a hand in the deal. Certainly, the connections that Abu Dhabi and Flash have in China didn’t hurt.
Leave a Reply