MMA on YouTube

YouTube and MMA: Perfect Together

_{Streaming MMA Events is a Great Way to Supplement the Demand}

Everyone starts small, right? 

MMA has,and in some circles still fights an uphill battle for growth and acceptance as a sport. Yes, the UFC is now the standard vernacular for the casual fan referring to mixed martial arts but as much as they want it to be the case, it’s a brand not the sport.

So how do you get eyeballs on it when the options to watch are out there, but you’re not sure folks will pay a fee to get into it?

YouTube seems to be the answer.

Invicta FC held their last two events on YotTube and when we had Bobby Nash on a recent episode of Coast-2-Coast Combat Hour, he told us the upcoming XMMA 4 event on April 2 might be streamed on the promotions YouTube channel. If you watched the latest ONE Championship event (Lights Out), the event lived up to its name with having all but one bout end with a finish.

Speaking of “Lights Out”, Shawne Merriman’s Lights Out Xtreme Fighting went to Fubo Sports Network (which is free and you probably have it and not know it) last year and had some pretty interesting results. If you need more confirmation of that, the PFL added their “Challenger Series” there not long after. That may be behind their paywall now, but the proof of interest came with Merriman’s events. I spoke with Merriman about those first few events for MyMMANews so you can check those conversations out there.

Paywalls are becoming more common for folks that want their content a-la-carte, but for a sport like MMA it seems to be getting more expensive. The UFC has UFC Fight Pass, ESPN+ and through the paid ESPN+ service you can buy their pay-per views. At the end of 2021, the math comes out to $1400 per according to the math done by Twitter user “TevTalksMMA”, and that’s not including Fight Pass.

Bellator is on SHOWTIME, which is $10.99 a month and if you like what SHOWTIME has, getting Bellator MMA along with some boxing and movies is not a bad deal. But, SHOWTIME is to premium channels what Bellator is to most MMA fans these days.  Which is pretty messed up, but I’m a longtime fan of Bellator’s product so I am certainly being biased. But their prelims are usually fantastic and those are on the YouTube channels of both brands. I thought about canceling when my $4.99 promotional deal was up, but I like what they’re doing and I got into a few shows on SHOWTIME.

What I’m getting at is, if any of the companies want to grow, give folks a little taste that’s easier to see before you start trying to get money out of them. YouTube in the era of cord cutting might be the best way to do that. 

Of course, YouTube has been pulling a lot of folks' content these days but that’s another subject. But I think we can all agree, “if it’s free, it’s for me.”