UFC still fighting in Germany
There were reports late in the week from German TV portal TVmatrix.de that the German equivalent of the Federal Communications…
There were reports late in the week from German TV portal TVmatrix.de that the German equivalent of the Federal Communications Commission (BLM) had made the decision to prohibit the broadcast of the UFC, which had been appearing on the German network DSF. However, Marshall Zelaznik, UFC UK president and managing director of international development states:
the UFC is “still allowed to air on DSF and in fact is continuing to air until a final decision from BLM is rendered.”
Thursday’s ban is not going to be in immediate effect, as the channel plans to run a delayed broadcast of UFC Live: Vera vs. Jones on Monday.
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Kevin Iole further reports that:
Lawrence Epstein, Zuffa’s executive vice president and general counsel, said the BLM’s action is not unprecedented. He said World Wrestling Entertainment was banned from DSF by the BLM, but the WWE went to court and successfully sued to be returned to the air.
Epstein said Zuffa will have the opportunity to appeal the ruling directly to the BLM within the next two weeks. If unsuccessful there, the order goes into effect and DSF will have to remove UFC programming. At that point, Epstein said Zuffa would seek a stay of the order in a German court and would sue to preserve its rights.
Epstein said t he expects to win approval eventually to return UFC programming to DSF.
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Dave Meltzer offers a reason for the ban:
It is believed that Prof. Dr. Wolf-Dieter Ring, who heads the regulatory board and has been subject to controversy, saw this as an easy win against something that doesn’t have a major lobbying firm behind it.
Read entire article… (subscription)
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Kelsey Philpott’s Payout Perspective:
The ruling highlights one of the major obstacles that the UFC will encounter as it moves forward with its international expansion: overcoming differing cultural norms relating to violence in its many international markets.
In the US, violence is far more socially acceptable than in a great majority of other countries. The term fighting also tends to mean different things to different people depending on where you are. Thus, even if people are fine with the occasional good scrap, it’s more than likely that boxing’s pervasive 300 year history has influenced their perception of what a fight is.
The UFC must continue to tailor its approach to each new market entry in order to take into account the preferences of not only the target consumer, but also the cultural norms of the greater public. All of this with the realization, and expectation, that things will not come easy and not every market will be open to the idea of MMA in the immediate future.
Still, there looms an even greater challenge for the UFC in the long term: pursuing international growth without compromising the core MMA product and UFC experience. Expansion is important for many reasons – revenue growth and diversity, talent pool generation, etc. – but the UFC must be careful that it does not dilute or change its current product, and alienate its existing fan base, for the sake of new and uncertain potential markets.
Largely, I think they’ve done a pretty good job of this so far. The key is likely to be patience. Sometimes people just need time to adjust; the message might not take until the 3rd or 4th time.
But I’m also inclined to think customized market content is the way of the future for a large scale UFC: things like individual market websites and individual PPV market broadcasts (like they’ll start for 111). This is probably a good few years away from coming to fruition, because it’s so resource intensive. However, if the UFC continues to grow, it’s something they’re going to want to do just because of the potential for it to leverage nationalism to identify new customers and deepen that relationship.
