The Internet has changed many different aspects of professional sports. Fans now have more ways to interact with their favorite players, talk about the games, and even watch games that may have previously been out of their reach. With the announcement last week that the UFC will become part of the YouTube pay movement, it seems that the World Wide Web is about to impact the world of sports once again.
It’s been rumored for quite some time that the Ultimate Fighting Championship would like to move away from their current pay-per-view model, particularly on cable television, in the hopes that it can keep more money from shows purchased by UFC fans through its own service. The Internet has long been a destination for mixed martial arts fans, and this move with YouTube may become the first step towards them reaching that point. We’ve seen other promotions, such as Invicta Fighting Championships, present their fights to fans via paid internet streaming, to mixed reviews. And the UFC, through its UFC.tv service, currently makes its PPV events available for live stream purchase via the internet, as well as through XBox and Roku services. This could be another step towards the UFC reaching digital parity alongside its broadcast offerings in that category.
When it was announced last that YouTube would be rolling out subscription-based channels, many popular brands were included among the first group, but some – such as World Wrestling Entertainment, turned down the opportunity. This may be because the company plans to roll out a subscription-based television channel, and doesn’t want online offerings to compete with its brand new cable platform.
The subscription channel has been dubbed UFC Select, and for a $5.99 monthly fee, viewers will get access to some original content, but mostly replays of previously-aired content. For example, new episodes of “The Ultimate Fighter” and replays of classic pay-per-view events will be available through this channel. Additional exclusive content is also expected to be featured through these channels as well.
During the last few years, the UFC has seen success with hosting preliminary fights from its live shows on both Facebook and YouTube. It would be interesting to see whether the organization stops doing so, and makes these preliminary fights YouTube-exclusive, as a way of steering fans to its YouTube channel, which would obviously heavily promote this new UFC Select channel. In addition, if the UFC Select channel were to offer preliminary fights from previous pay-per-view events, this would create another opportunity for the UFC to showcase some of the lesser-known talent on its roster. Even though the organization is still actively trying to trim its roster of a large number of fighters, the ones that remain will still be grossly unknown to much of the fight-watching community, and this platform could be a potential solution to that problem.
In recent years, the Ultimate Fighting Championship has worked tirelessly to combat internet pirates that have granted free access to their premium events and most popular fights, and have shared them on YouTube. As the saying goes, if you can’t beat them, join them. Though far from free, the UFC looks to be embracing the platform, as a way to reach that same target audience. However, it will ultimately come down to the organization’s ability to create content for these potential viewers that is worth paying for; this will determine whether UFC Select is a success or not. It remains to be seen whether they can, but we can still applaud them for trying.
