The Sports Business Daily (subscription required) reports that MMA may be one of the most popular women’s sports in the United States. This is according to a panel of sports editors who hedge that “the emergence of popular women like Ronda Rousey could make the sport more appealing to advertisers.”
T-Mobile’s director of sponsorship and events, Meredith Starkey has taken notice of women in the sport and believes that it could sway advertisers to MMA. Starkey and ESPN.com editor-in-chief Patrick Stiegman spoke about the potential rise of women’s MMA at a recent conference on women and sports.
According to surveys on the sport, Starkey could be right. One-third of the UFC’s 18-49 year old audience is women. This is consistent with the percentage of young women who view NFL games.
Steigman indicated that ESPN MMA content has risen over the years. Currently, the site generates 3 million unique visitors and 75 million page views per month. Overall, 75-80% of the MMA web site traffic is males. But, he believes a portion of this increase is related to women in MMA.
Payout Perspective:
The comments by Starkey and Steigman should be seen as increases in the popularity of MMA as it pertains to women and not overall. Certainly, Rousey has brought mainstream news to the UFC and we may see an uptick in page views and hits for web sites that chronicle the Rousey-Tate feud as UFC 168 nears. But, it still may not do anything for the male viewership. However, the point being offered is that advertisers may see the increases in women’s viewership of the sport and determine that it is a segment it would like to target. Does this mean that we will see an influx of women-centric advertisers placing patches on the shorts of Miesha Tate? Perhaps. But the takeaway from this is that in a sport that is stereotyped as barbaric and violent, numbers show that women are becoming fans.
The only thing I have ever heard from women regarding mma is “Randy Couture/ GSP is hot!”