The Las Vegas Journal Review reports on Zuffa’s international ambitions. In an interview with Lorenzo Fertitta, he indicated that the company projects to make more money overseas than domestically by 2015.
The interview details its global strategy which is based upon outreach to international markets via media agreements to show its content. Notably, its brokered deals in India and Latin America with the latter being a major accomplishment as it would introduce a UFC pay channel to the region.
Its interesting to note that in a 2012 Sports Business Journal interview, Lorenzo Fertitta indicated the same strategy it is currently implementing with the exception that it had yet to formulate a detailed strategy for China. Currently, it has announced a version of The Ultimate Fighter set for the Chinese region as a means to introduce it to the market.
Some notable info from the article:
– The UFC annual revenue is more than $500 million. The UFC currently generates 40% of its annual revenue outside of the United States.
– 2.5 billion people have access to watching UFC fights and programming.
– The UFC will expand to sub-Saharan Africa and will make its content available through smartphone apps in 18 languages. This strategy is meant to circumvent traditional broadcast TV stations as its research shows that 90 percent of the people in the region consume entertainment through mobile devices.
– The UFC is ready to launch The Ultimate Fighter: India to a potential audience of 1.2 billion people.
– Berlin, Instabul, Mexico City and Warsaw are all set to host UFC events in 2014.
Payout Perspective:
Appropriate growth strategy or risky expansion? One question to ask from this article is whether Zuffa expects its domestic revenue to decrease while its international revenue would increase. Or, are we to gather that the domestic revenue would continue to increase but international revenue would outpace it by 2015.
Zuffa has meticulously planned its expansion into populous regions in hopes of grabbing enough eyes to its product that it will receive a following. Its selling point is based on the primal sport of combat, the rules are easily interpreted in any language. We will see if Zuffa’s investment in expansion will catch on in the new markets and if that will mean more fans (and revenues) for the company.
Dam Ufc is building an empire. I can’t believe how much it’s grown. It reminds me of the WWF now WWE growth. Crazy.
Good analysis….I think the UFC knows it would decrease locally so they are trying to grow outside the u.s….ive said it before it has already “peaked”….now they are just scrambling how to source other revenues….
The big problem is they are just selling they’re u.s. product via media to other countries….and no local home based product(fighters from that country to promote and make stars of)….so it would just be like the wwe type expansion where they “tour” the world sell out shows.in different countries….but won’t do home grown fighters who fight regularly per country….
Some numbers come to mind. But one of the interesting aspects to me is that the Fox money is about 1/3 of their US-revenue p.a., right?
Wow, I assumed less than 40% would be international revenue. Good diversity of markets.
When discussing that 40% figure for international revenue it is important to remember that the UFC includes all revenue from outside the US, including Canada, for that number. .Since Canada does huge gate numbers and 1/4 all ppvs, the revenue from outside north America is probably closer to 20% right now.
It’s all about China and spanish-speaking Latin America for the next 5 years.
Reality is east asians aren’t going to embrace mma if all their stars keep getting their asses kicked.
Look a how mma in Japan collapsed once it became clear that the top Japanese fighters just couldn’t compete with top Brazilian and American fighters. Fan interest plummeted once the casual Japanese fan learned the truth about how weak the Japanese fighters were compared to elite talent.
Japanese mma died with PRIDE. Japanese fighters did very well against american fighters in Japan, but not in America. OneFC is trying to revive SE asian mma and is allegedly succeeding. http://www.sherdog.com/news/news/One-Fighting-Championship-CEO-Victor-Cui-Outlines-Bold-Plans-for-2014-54813
Japan fighters didn’t do well against Americans. I don’t know where you get that at. They lone exceptions were really Gomi and Mach Sakurai. Both of whom are suspected of never making weight for their fights and Pride not enforcing the weight class. Both guys were much bigger than everyone else. Of course until they left Japan. Sakurai had to use a catch weight when Pride come to the US because he couldn’t make the weight he was supposedly fighting at in Japan. The fight was at 164 rather than 160. Gomi should be a huge 155 fighter in the UFC. BUt he isn’t. HE is actually average size or smaller than than the guys he has faced. A lot easier to walk through peoples punches and KO people and stop takedowns when you are 10 lbs of muscle bigger than everyone you fight and they are drained from being forced to make weight. The Japanese fighters in the other divisions just got their ass kicked. The only ones off the top of my head that even had mixed results were Fujita, Sakuraba, Yoshida and Nakamura.
The reason why other countries are not that competitive in MMA because globally only the u.s. has regular MMA shows in other countries there are not enough grassroots level promotions that builds fighters….promotions come and go specially in Asia…
Ishida whipped gil melendez. inoue subbed couture, fujita whipped kerr, sakuraba subbed rampage, and takada subbed coleman(haha).
Misaki whipped hendo. Tk whipped maurice smith.
Fyi gomi should have been at 145 but pride didn’t have that division.
LOL he never made 160 and cant win unless he cheats and comes in heavier. Actually at the time I predicted Nick Diaz would beat him. Out of no where the match was set up. Weird coincidence. But we saw what happened. A gatekeeper from the UFC beat him when he was forced to make weight in Vegas.
As for the rest of the guys. Its not hard for avg guys to get a big win here and there. They have just as humiliating loses. Like I said they were inconsistent. Saku could have had a more meaningful career if he had and stayed in his weight class. Then again being smaller im sure helped him in a lot of his fights too.
As much as i hate to say it, but officially diaz did not beat gomi.he pissed hot remember? Sakuraba desperately needed surgery. uhhh, sak won a ufc tournament he had nothing to prove, beat vitor and subbed rampage. he didn’t need to do anything except get surgery on his knee. he had the best reflexes of all time.plus pride didn’t have a welterweight or mw division at that time.