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judo guy · 07-04-2001, 10:14 AM

Hi Lac,

It's been awhile since we last spoke. Hope everything is well with you and your family. I pretty much agree with your points.

Another thought occurred to me about the problem of marketing MMA. The sport should be marketed as an "extreme" sport to males, particularly young males. But how do you market a sport as extreme, when you are trying to tell the regulators that you are really a safe and mainstream sport? A conflicting message.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that the early success of UFC is gonna hurt it.

In retrospect, SEG should have realized that eventually state and local governments would try to regulate a sport that said "there are no rules" and accented the brutal elements of the sport. How could they not?

The problem with government action is the further you make the pendulum swing in one direction, the more they are gonna try to push it in the other direction.

The mainstream public wasn't ready for a "no rules" format. SEG would have been better off starting off with a limited rules format, and then over time, reduce the rules of the contest until they had a format that appealled to their desired target audience.

They should have taken a lesson from Hugh Hefner. If Hugh had originally published Playboy with centerfolds with full frontal nudity in the 50's, someone, somewhere would have figured out how to shut down Playboy. Heck, it was still controversial, but not so controversial as to cause drastic action. Hugh waited until the mainstream public could "tolerate" full frontal nudity before he published it. Part of the process was getting the public comfortable with publications allowing "semi nudity". Had Hugh tried to push the envelope in the 50's, I think Playboy would have been shut down and Hugh would be spending his later years in a retirement home somewhere, with a catheter stuck in him, instead of nailing hot little Playboy bunnies all day long. As an aside, Playboy is pushing the envelope again (for them anyway), as they have just recently bought their first hardcore porn channels.

So, while we all should be thankful to SEG for being the original promoter of NHB, I think they blew a golden opportunity to grow the sport over time. I think its a tough hole for the new management to get out of.

Having said all that, I got to admit I think that the UFC has made all the right moves. I can't imagine playing the cards they were dealt any better than they have. They are putting out a quality product, they peacefully coexist with regulators, they are developing "likeable" athletes, they are reaching out to cable again. All the steps needed to grow the sport expotentially have been taken.

Now we will see how big the market for MMA really is. I've always thought most of its audience was there for the spectacle more than the sport. Hopefully I'm wrong.

07-04-2001, 10:14 AM	#7 (permalink)
judo guy Novice Join Date: Sep 2000 Posts: 177	Hi Lac, It's been awhile since we last spoke. Hope everything is well with you and your family. I pretty much agree with your points. Another thought occurred to me about the problem of marketing MMA. The sport should be marketed as an "extreme" sport to males, particularly young males. But how do you market a sport as extreme, when you are trying to tell the regulators that you are really a safe and mainstream sport? A conflicting message. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the early success of UFC is gonna hurt it. In retrospect, SEG should have realized that eventually state and local governments would try to regulate a sport that said "there are no rules" and accented the brutal elements of the sport. How could they not? The problem with government action is the further you make the pendulum swing in one direction, the more they are gonna try to push it in the other direction. The mainstream public wasn't ready for a "no rules" format. SEG would have been better off starting off with a limited rules format, and then over time, reduce the rules of the contest until they had a format that appealled to their desired target audience. They should have taken a lesson from Hugh Hefner. If Hugh had originally published Playboy with centerfolds with full frontal nudity in the 50's, someone, somewhere would have figured out how to shut down Playboy. Heck, it was still controversial, but not so controversial as to cause drastic action. Hugh waited until the mainstream public could "tolerate" full frontal nudity before he published it. Part of the process was getting the public comfortable with publications allowing "semi nudity". Had Hugh tried to push the envelope in the 50's, I think Playboy would have been shut down and Hugh would be spending his later years in a retirement home somewhere, with a catheter stuck in him, instead of nailing hot little Playboy bunnies all day long. As an aside, Playboy is pushing the envelope again (for them anyway), as they have just recently bought their first hardcore porn channels. So, while we all should be thankful to SEG for being the original promoter of NHB, I think they blew a golden opportunity to grow the sport over time. I think its a tough hole for the new management to get out of. Having said all that, I got to admit I think that the UFC has made all the right moves. I can't imagine playing the cards they were dealt any better than they have. They are putting out a quality product, they peacefully coexist with regulators, they are developing "likeable" athletes, they are reaching out to cable again. All the steps needed to grow the sport expotentially have been taken. Now we will see how big the market for MMA really is. I've always thought most of its audience was there for the spectacle more than the sport. Hopefully I'm wrong.