Ultimate Fighting coverage

[WSKY]

I was wondering how some of you have covered Ultimate Fighting in the past. I realize it's gaining ground on other sports such as boxing, but when it comes to town, do you ignore it, or welcome it like a pay-per-view boxing match?

 

[JBHawkEye]

This question came up a few days ago.

We've had three events here since January. Basically, it's a bunch of local and state thugs battling it out. The last two events, the promoter hasn't even bothered to notify us of what's going on. We've basically ignored it.

 

[joe]

Coverage? In a word, no.

 

[Bruce_Shoebottom]

Right, joe. I mean, why would a newspaper cover a sport people actually watch?

 

[Seabasket]

I think local events are probably not worthy unless they're drawing big audiences, but UFC itself is drawing strong numbers for PPV events, so it warrants some type of attention.

 

[WSKY]

Yeah, I wasn't talking about a few drunks battling in a makeshift boxing ring. I was talking about the real deal.

 

[Brookerton]

When usually put info about the fight in the briefs column the day before the fight. We've never covered it.

 

[kingcreole]

Right, joe. I mean, why would a newspaper cover a sport people actually watch?

So should cheerleading competitions be covered too?

So nobody bites my head off, cheerleading and UFC aren't sports. Both are events/competitions.

 

[Bruce_Shoebottom]

So is boxing not a sport, either?

 

[2underpar]

I covered a toughman competition a long time ago when butterbean was all the rage. Instead of covering who won and who lost -- nobody cares -- I turned it into an enterprise piece on a random guy I picked at the weigh-ins and followed him the whole day and night. Turns out, his buddies at work ponied up some money to dare him to do it. talked to his skanky girlfriend, work buddies and family.
It actually was a hell of a lot more interesting than some "real" sporting events I've covered.
The trick is to turn it into something people will read, not so-and-so knocked out so-and-so.

 

[WSKY]

Right, joe. I mean, why would a newspaper cover a sport people actually watch?

So should cheerleading competitions be covered too?

So nobody bites my head off, cheerleading and UFC aren't sports. Both are events/competitions.

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with you, but say there are 10,000 people at at UFC deal, but only 1,000 at the minor league game down the street? Sure the baseball game happens some 40-plus times a year, and the UFC once or twice per year — at best. I guess I am simply trying to judge how others have dealt with this in the past.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Are we required to have a thread about covering the UFC every week? Hell, I started a thread last week when I got an invite to attend a dinner thrown by Dana White and UFC during the APSE convention in Vegas.

Speaking of ... there's also a dinner/cocktail hour being thrown on the same night by a couple of boxing promoters. The UFC event is at its training center. The boxing event is at Pure, a hot nightclub in Caeser's Palace. First round, based solely on venue, goes to boxing.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

For me, the real story of UFC isn't event coverage of whether John "The Defecator" Smith can defeat Mike "Ultra Manly Warrior" Jones. It's not about writing "Wow, there were 10,000 people here, so this is a legit SPORT!"

For me, the story that would resonate regarding UFC, and the story that most belongs in the newspaper is a discussion of whether or not boxing sees it as a threat (apparently it does, according to that other recent thread Inky_Wretch started). And a further discussion of the roadblocks a sport like boxing would put up against UFC with the help of its politicians and its decades of history.

Also, what type of things are done to those ends? This didn't happen, but as an example, the same ownership runs both Staples Center and Home depot center. HDC has boxing events, Staples had a UFC event. What's to prevent someone from saying "hey, if you put on that UFC event at your other venue, we'll pull our boxing events from your places."

Simple event coverage will always only reach a niche audience, like Xgames stuff. But something that delves into the business of it, something that investigates any machinations to keep it down and keep UFC from getting a piece of the revenue pie . . .that is a story I know I would be very interested in reading.

 

[HeinekenMan]

There are 1,000 people at minor-league baseball games on 60 different nights. There are 1,000 people at UFC once every six months to a year.

That's one key difference.

Additionally, I'm not sure your UFC crowd is much into reading the newspaper. In fact, I'm not entirely sure that UFC fans can read.

 

[shotglass]

So is boxing not a sport, either?

Bruce, are you really suggesting these street fights get coverage in a newspaper? I mean, as a sporting event, and not in something like Hattori suggested.

 

[jay_christley]

<sigh>

Inky is right. We have this discussion every month.

The main problem is the preconception a lot of newspaper people have of the UFC -- a notion reinforced in this thread -- that is not based in reality.
People think they have an idea of what the UFC is based on what it was marketed as 10 years ago or some local tough man/"cage" fighting event that was held at their local VFW. Again, this is like judging the quality of Major League Baseball as a local pickup game, comparing the MSL to the NASL or condemming the NBA over the fact that fights always break out at the local blacktop hoop games.
As far as interest, I love the idea that, "well, the ufc crowd doesn't read newspapers." And we wonder why newspapers are dying. Instead of trying to reach out to new audiences, we're limiting our coverage to the generation that still live and die on newspapers -- a readership that gets smaller every year.

As far as numbers go, I'll just say this:
An event gets a crowd of between 13K-14K live. (That's at Vegas, I don't know what the Staples Center drew).
Buyrates are comparable for mid- to upper-level boxing cards. Not Tyson numbers, but not bad.
There are 12 PPVs this year, not once every six months.
The "Ultimate Fighter" finale live show on fX two years ago had at one point 2.6 million viewers for the cards final fight. They have also begun to host other live, non-ppv shows on cable TV, much like boxing's old Tuesday Night Fights.

 

[shotglass]

<sigh>

1. Newspapers are not dying for quite a while. You and I will both be out of this business by the time it happens.

2. Yes, we can add some readers by bastardizing ourselves to quasi-sport. At what point do we become no better than the supermarket tabloids?

3. I only know what I see, and what I see is quasi-sport.

4. There is some problem in dictating your coverage by TV and attendance figures. As in, will the cross-section of people attending or watching the event: a) read the paper on a regular basis, and b) be the target demographic for your advertisers?

 

[jay_christley]

I'm not arguing that we dictate coverage by attendance figures.
I'm pointing out that a lot of people don't cover sports based on misinformation or faulty logic.

Sorry, newspapers may not be "dead." But they'll be increasingly irrelevent if we base our coverage on "those people don't read the paper anyway."

Tell me, what, other than one has a longer history, is the difference between boxing, wrestling (Olympic-level, not WWE) and the ufc?

 

[playthrough]

Does it have to be "covered" like a ballgame with play-by-play and a quote from the winner? No. But papers are missing out if they don't think it would make a fantastic live or weekend feature. Readers who wouldn't go to UFC if they had free tickets and beer may still take the time for a 30-inch takeout if it tells a good story.

 

[shotglass]

Maybe I'm guilty of looking at it the same way as pro wrestling. And I know it's not fake.