The UFC unveiled the latest overhaul to its website on Thursday immediately prior to streaming the UFC 117 press conference from Oakland, California.
Payout Perspective:
I’m a fan of the new website design: it’s less cluttered, seems to provide more substance, and does a good job of putting the focus on the fighters. However, it remains to be seen how the UFC will continue to develop its content creation and distribution.
The one criticism I’ve always had of UFC.com is the timeliness and relevance of its information. UFC.com may receive more traffic than any other MMA website or blog, but it’s rarely the destination of avid MMA fans because it’s consistently beaten to the punch in the breaking news department.
I’d love to see the company use this as an opportunity to overhaul the way it distributes information and content. It’s unlikely that the website will ever become a leading, up-to-the-minute news source – it can’t in many ways – but it can take back a little bit of what it loses to MMA Fighting or MMA Junkie or Sherdog in the form of content exclusives and behind-the-scenes stuff.
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The new website design also coincides with an update to the UFC’s mobile application for the iPhone and iPad. Unfortunately, the app still doesn’t seem to provide anything that a user can’t get by visiting the website from his/her phone: streaming video of events (without any discount in price), fighter information, and news. It’s still a very basic offering.
Doesn’t work in Denmark!
I agree the UFC website needs to be a source for MMA or at very least UFC news. For example future fights. Its going to get leaked and rumored by all the sites anyway. The UFC needs to use the site as the official release of bouts and in a super fast manner. Even if you have to announce fights that are pending signatures. Im sure what happens is the UFC sends a fight agreement and in the weeks it takes their management to look over the contracts the fighters out telling everyone who he was offered to fight.
Its strange that i have been a hardcore follower of MMA online since the mid 90’s and i bet i haven’t been to the UFC site more than 15 times. Thats bad considering everything i do online is MMA related.
Will be interesting to see if this is an upgrade, because for an organization that has boomed in popularity with a young demo I was shocked how poor their website has been. It’s tough to navigate and usually not very up to date.