Germany Bans the UFC on Television

Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports breaks down the report released yesterday that the Bavarian Regulatory Authority in Germany has banned the UFC from airing on television in the country.

The German equivalent of the Federal Communications Commission on Friday issued a preliminary order that would bar Ultimate Fighting Championship programming from the Munich-based network German Sports Television (DSF).

 

Zuffa, the UFC’s parent company, plans to appeal the order of the Bavarian Regulatory Authority for Commercial Broadcasting (BLM) and, if unsuccessful there, file a lawsuit in a German court, said Lawrence Epstein, Zuffa’s executive vice president and general counsel.

Payout Perspective:

The ruling highlights one of the major obstacles that the UFC will encounter as it moves forward with its international expansion: overcoming differing cultural norms relating to violence in its many international markets.

In the US, violence is far more socially acceptable than in a great majority of other countries. The term fighting also tends to mean different things to different people depending on where you are. Thus, even if people are fine with the occasional good scrap, it’s more than likely that boxing’s pervasive 300 year history has influenced their perception of what a “fight” is.

The UFC must continue to tailor its approach to each new market entry in order to take into account the preferences of not only the target consumer, but also the cultural norms of the greater public. All of this with the realization, and expectation, that things will not come easy and not every market will be open to the idea of MMA in the immediate future.

Still, there looms an even greater challenge for the UFC in the long term: pursuing international growth without compromising the core MMA product and UFC experience. Expansion is important for many reasons – revenue growth and diversity, talent pool generation, etc. – but the UFC must be careful that it does not dilute or change its current product, and alienate its existing fan base, for the sake of new and uncertain potential markets.

Largely, I think they’ve done a pretty good job of this so far.  The key is likely to be patience. Sometimes people just need time to adjust; the message might not take until the 3rd or 4th time.

But I’m also inclined to think customized market content is the way of the future for a large scale UFC: things like individual market websites and individual PPV market broadcasts (like they’ll start for 111). This is probably a good few years away from coming to fruition, because it’s so resource intensive. However, if the UFC continues to grow, it’s something they’re going to want to do just because of the potential for it to leverage nationalism to identify new customers and deepen that relationship.

Note: Wrestling Observer columnist Dave Meltzer commented yesterday that the situation also appeared to be a political move; a decision that was made to win a portion of the German public, without really alienating any strong opposition (or lobbyist movement). This serves as yet another example of the entry obstacles the UFC faces.