The UFC recently entered into a 5 year broadcasting partnership with ESPN, and tonight is the first UFC/ESPN event. The main event features Bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw going down a weight class to challenge champion and former Olympian Henry Cejudo for the Flyweight belt, a fight that should be absolute fire. This partnership is intriguing for so many reasons.
It’s smart of ESPN to partner with the UFC. ESPN’s subscriber numbers have been dwindling for the last few years now. Football, baseball, and basketball remain ESPN’s bread and butter, but I think it is becoming harder and harder for ESPN to make those partnerships profitable.
For me, the elephant in the room is that ESPN has to begin finding revenue streams to replace the NFL, and they need to do it while there’s still time to cultivate and grow those streams properly. After decades of lying about and downplaying the considerable body of research that shows the relationship between football and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE,) the NFL has low-key conceded the point. The one thing that the NFL never wanted- white suburban mothers finding out about the research and discouraging their sons from playing- has happened. That inflection point is the death of the NFL, and it’s behind us now.
Before ESPN, the UFC’s most recent broadcasting partnership was with Fox, and the viewing experience left a lot to be desired. To watch a full event required beginning on the UFC app, transitioning to FS1/FS2, and then either to Fox or PPV. Between all the app/channel switching and other content being played on FS1/2 at the time the UFC was to be broadcast, it was sometimes quite difficult to actually find the fights to watch them. If it was difficult for a hardcore and savvy fan like me to find them, I imagine it was quite a bit more so for people who are less tech savvy or more casual fans. The FS1/2 pacing for cards was awful, too.
I’m really hoping ESPN improves that. They’ve got the talent, the infrastructure, and the resources. I’m hoping the pacing of the cards improve. I watched the ceremonial weigh ins, and there were already marked differences in the production, though I was heartened to see the same crew from UFC on Fox to give viewers friendly faces and a sense of continuity. I have enjoyed seeing the UFC begin to lean on current and former fighters more and more for commentary and other television duty.
The biggest thing I’m hoping for is a smoother viewing experience, with less switching around. Upon first glance, it doesn’t appear ESPN has learned anything from Fox’s mistakes. The early prelim fights for tonight’s card will begin on ESPN+, a standalone subscription offering that began last year. After 2 hours, it switches to ESPN for the remainder of the prelims, and then back to ESPN+ for the main card. That’s disappointing, and I’m really hoping ESPN will streamline it. You want to make it easier for people to consume your product, not harder.
The concept of making UFC events available via an app owned and maintained by ESPN is a great one, but there’s a moderate amount of risk involved, especially in the beginning. The ESPN+ app is only $4.99 per month, which is a very reasonable price for the amount of content you get, and they are offering a 7 day free trial that allows you to check the app out before committing. I expect the app functionality to increase over time, the UFC deal lasts for 5 years and the UFC is ramping up their schedule to meet the ESPN programming demand, so the value will only increase with time.
The risk is the ESPN+ app itself, and having to switch between the main ESPN app/channel and the ESPN+ app to watch the full card. I have to wonder how willing most ESPN viewers will be to do that. Existing UFC fans are used to it, we know every note of this song, but in my opinion the UFC has been increasingly targeting and prioritizing casual fans over existing fans for years now, and I have to wonder how many casuals and new fans will be willing to jump through the hoops we’ve had to for so long. There are a lot of people who don’t like fiddling around with possibly finicky stuff like apps, stuff you have to squint and peck at. They prefer the remote controls they’re already familiar with. I understand that the target demographic skews heavily young and male, but the UFC has existed for a quarter of a century now. Fans who were also young men back when it started aren’t that far from needing bifocals now, though I suppose if they’re still fans they’re very used to hoop-jumping.
Also? Cable and satellite are dying. Like an increasing number of people in this country, I’m quite comfortable with that. Since living on my own, I’ve never owned a television. I’m very much a fan of the month-to-month streaming model, paying companies directly for their content.
In that spirit, I wish ESPN had gone quite a bit further. It would be much simpler for all ESPN content to live on a single app, an app that would be either free to cable/satellite subscribers or available directly from ESPN as a standalone subscription. I understand why they don’t, ESPN dies without a constant guaranteed revenue stream, but it’s a nightmare for people who really only want to see good fights and don’t give a rip about the details. If ESPN is really serious about targeting a younger demographic, that direction or one like it is where they’ll eventually have to go to survive.
In the coming days, many of the outstanding questions and uncertainties we have now will be addressed. They’ll have to be, at the rate UFC events will be aired to meet programming demand. My biggest question right now is what will happen to UFC Fight Pass, it sounds as though its content will eventually transition to ESPN but I don’t believe that has been confirmed. My second biggest question is who thought the new belt design was a good idea, because it looks like something you’d get out of a claw machine at the grocery store.
Still, this is a wonderful time to be an MMA fan. I’ve been an MMA fan for a long time, and I’ve never seen a time in which so many exciting things are happening so frequently on so many different fronts. MMA and its best athletes are more visible now than they ever have been, and UFC partnering with ESPN only helps to pull MMA further into the mainstream.
I do know one thing. I’ll be parked in front of my iPad to watch every bit of it, like always, and I can’t wait to see what happens.