Dana White "UFC is neck and neck with Soccer on a global basis"

Dana White Says UFC is 'Neck And Neck With Soccer' On A Global Basis
by Tim Burke on May 7, 2012 8:07 PM EDT in UFC Video


UFC President Dana White and CEO Lorenzo Fertitta recently sat down with Lee Hawkins of the Wall Street Journal to talk about the company. The interview is about five minutes long, and sticks mostly to the business side of things. They discuss each of their roles in the company, and why they bought it in the first place.

There are two interesting quotes that came out of the video - first, Dana said that 70% of their fighters have a college education (something he's repeated often, but I'm not sure anyone's actually sat down to verify that). The other is a whopper - according to Dana, on a global basis, they're bigger than the NFL and "neck and neck with soccer". That's a pretty dubious claim to me. They might be able to get away with the NFL claim because the sport has little presence outside North America. But soccer? Come on now.

Dana might be the most delusional person on planet earth. UFC isn't even as big as boxing globally and Boxing is way below Soccer.

 

Yeah, I don't buy the soccer call. NFL, it's not very big outside the States and Canada. Soccer is universal.

 

The college education part is weird, if even 50% were college educated it's still a surprising statistic. MMA is a surprisingly middle class sport I guess.

 

When he says "college education" he is probably spinning it to include "any" college education. Such as an art class at the local city college, because i'm pretty sure that 70% of the UFC doesnt have degrees.

I think hes just trying to fight the "white trash" MMA stereotype.

 

Dana just plain hates soccer. Probably some unresolved psychological trauma. I'm guessing after a wild out of partying with Chuck one sunday morning Dana woke up on a soccer field and the 12 and under boys team just kicked the shit out of his head thinking it's a soccer ball.

 

I've gotta give Dana a big *Cough...BULLSHIT...Cough* on the soccer comment.

Regarding the college education, actually the Wall Street Journal reporter says "I'm told that 70% of the fighters in the UFC are college educated."

The number wasn't actually given by Dana or Lorenzo. Maybe they said it somewhere else but not in this interview.

I'm not sure about the exact percentage, but I think it's a relatively accurate statement. When you consider the number of UFC fighters that came from college wrestling, it's not easy to see a large number having college educations.

Again, is it 70% or 50%? I don't know.

 

50% wouldn't suprise me at all given the number of former college wrestlers in the UFC.

I was doing some random checking and 5 of the 6 fighters on the UFC on Fox 2 card have a college education. Only Bisping is lacking. Even Damien Maia has a journalism degree.

UFC 145---8 of 12 fighters on the main card.

I think the actual number even shocks me a little.

 

not sure what the percentage is, but considering most wrestlers are college graduates, i wouldn't be surprised if those numbers were close to accurate.

right now, i can come up these guys who graduated college

josh koschek - edinboro
johnny hendricks - okla st.
rick story - southern oregon
jake shields - some naia school
ben henderson - some naia school
jake ellenberger - univ nebreska ohama
dan henderson - arizona st
jon jones - iowa central
charlie brennman - lockhaven
phil davis - penn st
cain velasquez - arizona st
shane carwin - some division 2 school
frankie edgar - rutgers
gary maynard - michigan st
rashad evans - michigan st
clay guida - some junior college
jon fitch - purdue
urijah faber - uc davis
mike brown - norwich
chad mendes - cal poly
mike pierce - portland st
chael sonnen - univ of oregon
mark munoz - okla st
brian stann - naval academy

all of the aforementioned were collegiate wrestlers and vast majority of them graduated w/ a bachelor's.

i'm sure there are plenty of guys that didn't wrestle in college who still went to college and graduated.

 

Dana White says a lot of stupid shit.

 

The problem with joony's post is that it has listed 24 guys and UFC has something like 300 on contract. No f'ing way it's 70%.

No f'ing way UFC is bigger than soccer or NFL, either, but Dana knows that and is just having fun with everyone.

 

If I had to guess, based on my spot checking, I'd say 50% is closer to being accurate.

 

The education of the fighters does nothing to change the status of the fans.

If every NASCAR driver was Ivy League educated, it wouldn't make the sport any less appealing to rednecks.

 

Soccer is selling out multiple stadiums per week in practically every country worldwide. The world cup has billions of viewers. The UFC on Fox gets 5m viewers tops.

 

ufc is bigger than the NFL globally, no question about it. Not in the states or even Canada though.

 

no it's not, is it bigger than the NFL outside of N.A. ? maybe. But if you includes it ( and you should ), it's not even close.

 

Dana is probably simply saying, in his douche bag way, that the UFC is watched in more countries/locations than the NFL. And maybe he's right. But then again, the NFL has only made modest attempts to gain any worldwide popularity.

The NFL is certainly a bigger industry and certainly has more viewers and paid attendance annually.

 

NFL will get much higher world wide ratings than the UFC. Around 200 million people watch the Superbowl. UFC isn't getting anywhere near those numbers.

 

can't speak for other countries, but korea's a huge soccer country and although mma is popular over there, its fanbase (if there is one) compared to soccer is like comparing that of a new york yankees or boston redsox to a minor league team in marlyand somewhere.

same could be said for japan.

you'd figure a guy like dong hyun kim or the korean zombie would be celebrities, but most people in korea wouldnt recognize them if they ran into them at a mall.

 

*Z* my man where you at. Perfect set up for your thing...

 

Nah, I like Asians. ::

 

but then again, someone like akiyama's a different story. he's a really famous in both korean and japan. shit, he even has a fanbase here. he was famous since his judo days because of his unique nationality from being a japan born korean to changing his citizenship to japan later on.

 

Dana is really ignorant aboit soccer. He doesnt have a clue how big it is globally. He lives in a red white and blue box.