Ch. 7 - Business Marketing

Marketing your product to consumers is like a night and day compared to marketing your products for other businesses. In both cases UFC had great success and some issues with theft and corruption. Consumers fraudulantly record the PayPerView shows on their camera and live-stream it on internet for money or free. Some of the bars and public places pay for a regular 59.99 pay-per-view event that consumers would pay and attract a full bar/restaurant of customers. The price for businesses to stream live UFC events is around one thousand dollars, since their revenue will go up due to streaming the event.

However most of the businesses that deal with UFC, do so the right way. Since 2005 nearly ten percent of UFC's per-per-view revenue has been earned from other business such as TGI Fridays, Hooters and other sports bars.

Ch. 8 - Segmenting and Targeting Markets

In the 4 years UFC has been spot-on with identifying the right target markets for their venues and promotions. For example, going back to Brazil for the first time in 10 years was the most profitable decision the President of UFC did. Since returning to Rio, UFC has been back to Brazil 5 times in the past two years, selling out each of their events.

Ch. 11 - Developing and Managing Products

Developing and managing new products is one of the hardest tasks that any company has to achieve in order to continue their success. Quite often after introducing a new product, various companies have been closed and bankrupt. Business have to continue to improve, evolve and create new products, however, the original product is what brought the business to where it is currently at, so the new product has to be better in every way.

UFC was facing bankruptcy due to lack of innovation, government making the sport illegal and not many people knew the sport even existed. The problem was, most of the public had no access to watching the fights without paying for them. So they dicided to go create a reality TV show

called The Ultimate Fighter. None of the TV channels wanted to invest a dollar into it due to the high risk so UFC invested ten million dollars, created and recorded its own show. Spike TV aired the first few episodes and after the 2.5 million viewers saw the finale of the season UFC got a 3 year contract with SPIKE TV. The show saved the promotion and partially the sport in United States. The new product was developed, screened, and tested correctly, therefore it was a great success.

Ch. 16 -Integrated Marketing Communications

It appears as though Dan Henderson vs. Lyoto Machida is headed to UFC 157.
According to sources close to the event, both Machida and Henderson have verbally agreed to meet on the Feb. 23 card at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif. No contracts have been signed just yet, though. Tatame.com first reported the news earlier this week.
The fight isn't expected to serve as the main event. UFC president Dana White told MMAFighting.com on Tuesday that he was "working on" that card's headlining act.


Mike Tyson: People always say this guy has changed or whatever, but nobody has ever changed. People just choose to go a different direction with their life. I chose a direction in my life, a direction that is profitable for other people, more so than me. That’s why I don’t do things for myself anymore. If I do things for myself, I’m self-destructive. But to see I can do things that pay it forward and help other people, I see that as something admirable to do, instead of just being greedy and getting rich for myself. I can do so much more now for other people than I’ve always done.
ZM: These days, with UFC being so popular, boxing isn’t necessarily getting the best fighters. If you were an 18-year-old kid now, would you still be a boxer?
Mike Tyson: That’d all depend on my trainer. When I came up, my trainer was a boxing guy. If my guy was in UFC, I’d probably go that way.
Zach McCann: You’re into MMA, right?
Mike Tyson: Oh yeah, I love UFC, big time. How could you not be? They play UFC so much, you see it year round, and you just have to want to be a fan. If you’re not a fan, you’re not cool.
I think some young kids may think that in boxing you’re so restricted with just your punching power and your hand speed. In natural fighting, anything goes; you’re not restricted at all. Anything on your body is a weapon. I don’t disagree with that. Wouldn’t you like to have more than just your hands to fight with? You know how I feel; I got into a fight and bit Evander’s ear off. I didn’t plan to do it, that’s just how the mind thinks in that situation.

Ch. 10 - Product Concepts

What do Tito Ortiz, Freddie Roach and Martin Kampmann have in common?

 

They all believe a contest between Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) middleweight and welterweight champions, Anderson Silva and Georges St. Pierre, is not the 'super fight' to make because of the fact "The Spider" is simply too big for the French-Canadian.

 

They all could very well be spot on with their assessments, given that Silva walks around at 215 to 220 pounds, while "Rush" probably doesn't even break the 200-pound mark on any given day.

 

Furthermore, Ortiz believes a showdown between heavyweight title holder Junior dos Santos and light heavyweight kingpin, Jon Jones, is a much more even fight. Kampmann, meanwhile, shares the same sentiments as just about any other mixed martial arts (MMA) fan, saying a fight between "Bones" and "The Spider" is the "super fight" to make.

Ch. 18 - Sales Promotion and Personal Selling

Many fight fans feel it's just a UFC money grab, relying on Sonnen's gift of gab to sell seats and boost FX ratings, while others feel it's an intriguing match up between the sport's most dynamic talent against an experienced and capable veteran.

However, if fighters do not get paid and UFC does not get the publicity it needs in order to keep the events coming with the quality of fighters they have currently then they have to do everything and anything in order to get the job done, even if it means that the title challanger would not be as deserving as many have been sayin. That is the nature of the business. Even though ufc is a fighting promotion, it is still a business, and money and profits are number one goal.

Ch. 17 - Advertising and Public Relations

Advertising is probably one of the most important keys to UFC's success. Without their intense advertising Mixed martial Arts would of stayed an underground sport that it has been for decades until UFC arrived. Their posters are all over Las Vegas and Atlantic City, and now when sport fans are watching football on FOX they see UFC commercials which started this year after UFC signed a major deal with FOX. Most of UFC's advertising are Pioneering one since each fight is a new product and that new product is the life line of the company. Sure they still make revenue from replaying old classic fights, but they constantly, on average twive a month have to promote a new fight/product.

As far as public relations, well Dominic Cruz was a pace car driver at NASCAR last year and Jon Bones Jones is the Pace Car driver this year. Nothing to do with UFC, but both champion show their faces in front of million viewer curiuos about what's happening. Brian Stan, a middle weight contender is a silver star U.S. army officer veteran, who promotes UFC as a sport and United States armed services. Also a lot of americans who a patriotic would love to see brian stan knock people out, and he delivers it pretty good.

Ch. 15 - Retailing -- UFC

Retailing is a major source of income to millions of businesses, however for UFC retailing isn't a priority, the company uses the retailing side of the business to market their main product. For example UFC's clothing line helps the public be notified of the sport and the company. When someone walks by wearing a UFC t-shirt the bystanders that watched a fight or two before will be reminded to check the upcoming events. I know I caught myself doing that before. Besides the clothing line, UFC also has a deal made with EA sports who created the UFC Undisputed series of games of the company. Even if the game sales do not bring large profits, the kids and young adults who play the game will be the ones who end up paying for the pay-per-views and tuning in to FOX to watch the free fights and commercials. 
 
Instead of just offering fighting events to their fans, UFC offers clothing, video games, classic fight collections, sports equipment and much more. Most of the UFC products can be bought online, making their business an online-retailing one. 

When I went to Walmart earlier this week I saw a clothing line MMA-Elite, checked out the shirt and saw that each shirt had a sticker "Official Sponsor of UFC" on them. Even though MMA Elite company isn't made by UFC but each individual who buy it will see the sticker and will keep UFC in mind when picking which fighting event to watch. Its a great example of public relations. It helps UFC to be mentioned again, and helps MMA Elite to look more official.  

Ch. 6 - Consumer Decision Making

Consumer Decision making is one of the most unpredictable behaviors in the business. Consumers are always changing their interests, based on different fashion, different hobbies, life situations (marriage, divorce). Therefore, each company has to work on predicting the decisions its customers will make and what they will want out of the product. The consumer decision making process includes 5 steps:

First step: NEED RECOGNITION

After watching a few commercials about your favorite fighters, a fight fan or maybe a regular sports fan recognizes the need to watch the outcome of the build-up of the fight. They want to see who will win, and how it will happen. We are humans, and fighting is in our DNA, so theoretically most of us will be tempted to see the fight.

Second step: Information Search

People who saw UFC before they know how intense and interesting the fights could be and therefor, they information about the product is already there. As far as consumers who haven't watch UFC yet will start YOUTUBEing past fights of the fighters to see if they are good, exciting, bad, or even worth watching.

Third Step: Evaluation of Alternatives

There are alternative promotion companies that feature fighting events, such as Bellator fighting championship, World Cage Fighting, Bamma. Most of them actually show their fights on free tv. However most of their fighters are unknown and are amateurs compared to UFC fighters. In the past the champions of other fight promotions joined UFC and most of them weren't as good due to higher competition. So consumer will either watch UFC on FOX or Payperview for championship fights to get the best quality fights.
Forth Step: Purchase

Payperview runs about $44.99 to $59.99 per event which has 9-11 fights. Is it worth it? It depends on one's budget. Most of the time a group of friends get together and chip in a few bucks each and enjoy the show on high definition TV. They can go to a sport bar and watch it for free (however sportbar has to pay 900 for payperview), or they can purchase a ticket and watch it in arena full of energy of psychotic UFC fans.

Post Purchase Behavior:

If the fights were as good as a consumer expected then they are more likely to watch those fighters again next time. If the fight were boring then its bad business for UFC. that is why UFC give out bonuses to fighters for exciting fights that do not make it to the end, there for someone get KNOCKED out.

CH 5 Developing a Global Vision -- UFC

When a promotion company such as UFC, which promotes a rapidly growing world-wide sport, has conquered the number one spot in its home country of U.S. then the next step is to take over the competition worldwide. In order to compete and provide great shows and have sold out sports arenas UFC has to have its global marketing department working at full speed. Just two days ago on Sept 29th UFC held its 7th Event in England called UFC on FUEL 5. The event took place in Nottingham England which featured 8 of the British fighters including Dan the Outlaw Hardy and Brat One Punch Pickett. It is very important to have a good international fighter roster in order to interest fans overseas to pay over 300 dollars per ticket to watch the fights. Every even that UFC holds overseas the promotion makes sure to have one of the home town fighters on the card, and if he is not top 10 guy, then they'll match him up with an easy opponent to raise the morale and money of course.

Dan Hardy (the dude on the left) didn't disappoint his fans and made sure he won the fight and made his opponent look bloody, which is what every fan went to see. However the main card featured and American vs. Dutch fighters who are well known all over the world and prove that Global Marketing Standardization exists in the sport of MMA.

What UFC also created was a reality show back in 2006 called the Ultimate Fighter. They recruited 32 young fighter from all over the country and had them live together and compete for 13 weeks straight. The fighters are divided into two teams with two coaches (current top level fighters) and only one winner comes out the house as the Ultimate Fighter. The coaches also step inside the octagon to fight on the last night of the show. This show did very good and is on its 16th season as we speak. However, now for the first time UFC created the Ultimate Fighter Brasil. Same type of show with two of the top Brazilian fighters as coaches and a team of 32 insane in the membrane Brazilian amateur fighters. The results were amazing, which helped Brasil to become the number one emerging MMA market.

Ch. 4 - The Marketing Environment

In order to have a successful busines a company must have a good marketing plan. Most companies prior to making a good morketing plan must know their marketing environment. Basically they have to know their target market, as far as who they are more appealing to, must know their demographics, and how to satisfy the most ammount of their consumers without hurting its image. Events that UFC throws like FAN EXPO lets casual fans meet fighters take pictures, listen to the announcements, buy UFC apperel and for the most part, the Expo lets UFC

fans comment on what right and wrong with the direction that the company is heading. Pictured on the right is Jose Aldo, right after his win of featherweight championship belt in his home country Brasil, he got up on the cage and jumped over 10 feet down into the crowd full of his fans knowing that he'll be caught and safe. Those crazy people happen to be the mojority of UFC fans.

Chapter 3 Ethics & Social Responsibility

Ethics and Business should really be never used in the same sentence, since to much about business have anything to do with ethics. Entrepreneurs do not open up businesses in order to be ethical or improve the society, at least it is not their main goal. The number one priority is to make money and earn great profits, then everything else comes as a second priority.

UFC is no different from any other company. They hold events at cities and countries which will have a sold out arena. They also match up the fights that not only fans want to see but the ones that fans will spend $60 to watch the pay-per-view. If one of the challengers deserves a shot at the championship belt but fights very safe and boring, he is not guaranteed a title shot. and the other less qualified fighter who puts on a show and fights like a gladiator will have more chance to face the champ and earn more money.

However, there are plenty of great ethical  effects that are caused by UFC towards society, and their employees, the fighters. For example, Anderson Silva (pictured on the right) came from a very poverty stricken part of Brazil, yet thanks to UFC and his unnatural ability to knock people's heads off he is making over few million dollars per fight, not including the endorsements from Burger King and Nike. Such big companies haven't sponsored any fighters outside of UFC yet.

The events take place in cities and towns who are positively affected by the fight night. The revenues of the shops withing vicinity of the stadium go through the roof within a few days of each event.

Chapter 2 - Strategic Planning for Competitive Advantage

In the past 20 years of the young yet the fastest growing sport of MMA(mixed martial arts) there are around 100 major promotions that sponsor and organize the MMA events. Most of them work on the local or national level, meaning that most of their events take place in one country. For example, BAMMA promotion has held all of their events in Great Britain. In order to obtain competitive advantage of all UFC's rivals, the president of UFC, Dana White, and his marketing team has been holding most of their events spread around the world. For example UFC's 110th event was held in Australia, while their 124th event was held in Montreal, Canada. Being a world wide promotion enables UFC to grow at a much more rapid pace, and thus their marketing development is skyrocketing as I type this blog. They have sold out 90% of the arenas and stadiums when UFC promotes their fights overseas. In fact, they hold a North American attendance record from UFC129 in Toronto, after a sold out 55,000 seat Rogers Center in Canada for Georges St. Pierre fight.


The reason for being the leader in MMA industry is due to their product differentiation competitive advantage. They aren't concentrating on cost, moreover they are the most expansive event for a fan to watch. Average UFC fight cost around $50 to watch and their tickets to see them live are around $300-$600 a person. What they do have is a one of a kind product which are their fighters. They have talent scouts who recruit the most talented fighters all over the world including Brazil, Russia, Japan, US, Korea, UK, and many more places around the world. Having the best talent all over the world not only makes the fights more exciting but also helps with promoting the events. For example, Georges St. Pierre(GSP, the 4-year welterweight champion) is a native of Montreal, Canada. Therefore, most of his fights take place in his home country, where he can easily sell out a hockey stadium due to his popularity. Same goes for Jon Jones, who does very well in United States being a light heavyweight champion. UFC has been very successful with their marketing strategy so far, and they have been implementing it step by step.

Chapter 1, mission statement.

Only 19 years ago UFC had its first fight card, which was filled with exciting mma fights. Mma(mixed martial arts) is a very young sport which has only been around for a quarter century. The sport consists of all combat sports (boxing, karate, judo) combined and used to defeat the opponents, with very few rules. Just like many other fighting promotions, UFC was purchased by Zuffa LLC in 1997 due to the lack of funds. Since the take over UFC has become the largest MMA promotion in the world, featuring over 30 events per year in over 10 countries worldwide. They are a market oriented company and set up their fights and events the way their fans prefer. The also have a frequently changing clothing line for their fans to wear that also gets updated to fit the needs of the consumers. UFC's mission statement is "To help and promote the sport of MMA evolve into a major world sport".