Dana White: Brazil, then Mexico, then Latin America, then everywhere
At the UFC 135 pre fight press con, UFC President Dana White detailed how UFC Rio plays into his long stated…
At the UFC 135 pre fight press con, UFC President Dana White detailed how UFC Rio plays into his long stated plan to raise MMA into the world’s most popular sport.
It’s very important for us. Obviously, Brazil has exploded in popularity for mixed martial arts and the UFC, and the guys we have fighting in the UFC are icons in the sports world down there. t’s a big deal. We’re very excited about it. It sold out fast. It’s one of those situations where we think … we were a little gun-shy down there.
I don’t know how many people know this, but we have, like, a 14,000-seat arena down there and 350,000 people were online looking for tickets, he added. So, we probably could have done a little bigger arena, but we played it safe the first time down there. I think that the energy in Brazil is going to be insane. People have been so fired up for the UFC to come back.
It’s big for Latin America. We’re making that move down there. We keep talking about coming down to Mexico and all these other places in Latin America, and Brazil is our first big step.
As you go into every market, it’s different. We faced a lot of different challenges in the United States than we did in some of these other countries. There were different things that we had to face in Europe — and mainly in the UK — than in Brazil. They’re all different in their own different ways. You’re dealing with different governments, different business styles. It’s pretty interesting. You learn something new every day when you get out there into these different countries and try to do business.
There’s no doubt about it. Brazil will be a zillion times easier than the U.K. and Europe has been, White said. I think their economy is, like, the fifth-largest in the world or projected to be very soon. Things are booming over there. There’s so many talented guys that come out of there — not just talented guys, literally icons of the sport come from Brazil. It’s the country where this whole thing started. It’s a fighting culture down there. People really get it and like it.
