Even with the down economy, Super Bowl weekend continues to be the biggest weekend in Las Vegas. More fans flock to the desert to bet and enjoy the atmosphere than go to the site of the game, and the group that has capitalized on that Super Bowl weekend experience more than anyone is the UFC. Say what you want about MMA, the experience remains akin in brand to what the WWE is to their fans and to what Daytona is to NASCAR, and as much as the mainstream media try to downplay it, the core audience remains strong while the casual fan will still watch. The latest convert was the LA Times Kurt Streeter, who attended not even a UFC fight, but the recent Affliction event in Anaheim, and was blown away by the crowd and the power of Russian heavyweight Fedor Emelianko . Even if the Affliction/Fedor fight was not UFC, it was still good brand awareness for the sport, and as George Willis pointed out in the New York Post Friday, the UFC event in Vegas between George St. Pierre and BJ Penn was perfectly timed, well orchastrated and fed into the weekend in Vegas seemlessly. Will MMA ever replace a great boxing match or move further into the mainstream worldwid. My guess is no. But second tier sports can learn a great lesson from the UFC. They have cultivated their core audience very well and speak directly to it wherever they go. That keeps the mainstays sated and gives the casual fan enough interest to attend and drive numbers to a very solid place. The fly in the UFC's ointmen. A Bloomberg report last week that Station Casinos is near default. If true, then the UFC might have to spend less to push the fringes of its brand and not expand as quickly to questionable markets without a large cash flow. Still the times when Zuffa needed the Station money to stay afloat are past. At the end of the day it is still the UFC experience which is the only durable brand in the sport that consistently delivers a demo and revenue, and by conquering Super Bowl weekend in Vegas, the UFC brand will stay solid with their core in tough times.
Some other good reads…nysportsjournalism.com had a good q and a with IBAF President Dr. Harvey Schiller...the Wall Street Journal had their extensive piece on the Mets/CitiField issue…the Chicago Tribune has a great piece on Blackhawks President John McDonough…and The Atlantic has a great insiders look into the CBS controlroom on an NFL Sunday…huge feature piece for the CBS Sports brand worth reading for all looking to join the business.
