Does that seem clickbaity? Haha! It is! You took the clickbait, suckaZ! NO! Don’t go. I love you. Come back! Okay, it’s a little clickbaity BUT I have a real point to make. Really it’s more like “Why Does the UFC Punish Their Longtime, Hardcore Fans in Favor of those Filthy Casuals” and while that may be more nuanced and accurate to the point I want to make, it’s a bit long for a headline… and not as catchy… Y’know, it lacks that certain… how you say? Clickbaitiness.
Let’s do a little “History of a UFC Fan” and outline what a fan had to do to watch UFC from 2005 to today. Now, I’m doing this completely by memory because I’m very lazy… I mean, to prove a point! The point being that the journey is so convoluted that over the years being a hardcore MMA fan and wanting to watch ALL the UFC content has become increasingly like an Oceans 11 level heist. I don’t have four weeks to research all of this. But the following is pretty much, more or less accurate… disclaimer notwithstanding.
So back when I got into MMA in 2005-2006, fights were either free on Spike TV or there was a Pay-Per-View card -which cost about $29.99. That was it. Easy. Then UFC moved to Versus (VS) for their prelims and free Fight Night cards. Zuffa, UFCs parent company at the time, made a deal with VS when they bought the WEC (World Extreme Cagefighting) company. Soon after UFC’s deal with Spike TV was up, they moved to VS, shut down the WEC and took all their best fighters, and added a Featherweight and Bantamweight division to the UFC. Okay… cool. I mean, unless you didn’t have VS. Luckily I did.
Then UFC announced a big deal with FOX. Which meant some of the free fight nights would be on FOX. Sweet! Every bro and their bro has FOX! Ohhh. Except some of the cards were not on Fox but on Fox Sports 1. Or Fox Sports 2 if another sports game was running long. Which was something that you needed basic cable and perhaps a Sports Package to see.
Somewhere in this general span of time, UFC announced UFC Fight Pass. Which seemed cool. Old fights on demand! But now, if you wanted to watch the early prelims, you had to have Fight Pass. Eventually there were Fight Pass Exclusive Cards. So you had to have FS1 and FS2 and Fight Pass and still buy PPVs which were now up to like $40-50, if you wanted to watch ALL the UFC fights. Not only that, but you had to figure out what part of what cards were on what outlet. “Okay! We got Early-Prelims on Fight Pass, then Prelims on FS1 -unless that baseball game is running over then it’ll be on FS2 until the game is over, then PPV on… uhhh PPV. Make sure you have fresh batteries in your remotes!”
This madness was just our reality for many years. Then Zuffa sold the UFC to Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, The Clintons and Jeffrey Epstein. Wait, that’s not right.. Well, some conglomerate of multinational supervillains. They sold it for 3 Billion? 4 Billion? I dunno. It was a lot. Dana White (UFC President and jacked-up Jeff Bezos lookalike) decided it was time to fuck with the loyal hardcore fans AGAIN. Saying something to the effect of, “You bitches need to jump through some more hoops if you want to watch OUR sport. And those hoops will be on fire. And held in a starving Bengal tiger’s mouth… Ya fuckin’ goofs!” [to be legally clear here, I am wildly paraphrasing something that he didn’t literally say.]
So now, in 2019, you have to subscribe to ESPN+ if you want to watch some of the prelims and Fight Nights (though sometimes they’re on regular ESPN or ESPN 2 because “fuck you”) AND if you want to BUY the PPV. “That’s right, unless you subscribe to ESPN+ you’re not ALLOWED to BUY our PPV – which is now $60…. AND we’re still putting the early prelims on Fight Pass so don’t even think of unsubscribing to that you pieces of shit.” -Dana, probably.
Now, look, I’ll admit that Dana White is a far better businessman than I am but this tactic of making it as painful as possible to be a loyal, hardcore UFC fan is baffling to me. To be fair, some of you weirdos watch other sports too so ESPN+ is great for you. And Fight Pass has a ton of amazing combat sports content that make it well worth the price. However, I would argue that requiring two subscriptions plus the cost of PPV is… bilking your most loyal fans. Almost like… UFC hates their fans or something. Contrast this overpriced clusterfuck with WWE’s WWE Network subscription deal that’s $10 a month and includes EVERYTHING. Including the PPVs! Way to go Dana, you outgreeded Vince McMahon.
What do you guys think? Too many hoops? Too much money to spend? Has this made you watch less UFC or are you just a lot poorer and plagued with migraine headaches as you struggle to keep up with the sport? Also, please Share this column with all your friends so I can afford to subscribe to Fight Pass again. Invicta FC, the women’s MMA organization is on there and that shit is dope!