There’s a common theory – or excuse, maybe – that sports cannot grow their market share exponentially, or break into new territories.
The basis of that argument is that cities, states and nations have supported particular sports for generations, and the appetite, recognition factor and historical bent of their population cannot be overturned with any haste.
But let’s have a think about rugby league and sports to which it bears a resemblance.
In terms of power, endurance and bodily contact, you’d have to say it’s awfully similar to one of sport’s great modern success stories: the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
While that organisation has been around since 1993, its rapid rise to prominence has been concentrated around the last decade.
In many places it has had to overcome being banned, a blackout by some sports editors and continued division of public opinion – far more than anything rugby league has to hurdle.
Whether you are a fan of the sport or not, that the UFC went from being worth US $2 million in 2001 to being sold for US $4 billion last year (a 1999 per cent increase) is fascinating from a sports management perspective.
So what made the UFC so globally pervasive? And what can the NRL learn from it?
Ambition
Many reckon this is the UFC’s greatest asset, and it didn’t cost them a cent. The Fertitta brothers, who purchased the UFC in 2001, and president Dana White set out with the mindset of turning a flagging organisation into something ground-breaking. They were constantly on the front foot and pressing.
Compare that with senior rugby league executives who firmly believe rugby league will never grow beyond its current boundaries. People who have been in the sport’s administration for 40 years for minimal expansion don’t want to believe it can suddenly boom with new technology, because they’re afraid it questions what they have done in the past.
Marketing
This is an area the UFC dominates. Whatever they produce is crisp, clear and calculated. Everything they do in front of a camera is an event, a spectacle. We’re not saying we need rugby league to produce confected press conferences, but nor should it continue to purposely deny the natural emotion of gladiatorial combat.
What the UFC does better than most sports is embrace what it is. It’s a brutal, controversial sport, contested by tough hombres who make us mere mortals gasp in amazement. They don’t continually apologise for that fact or try to appease all people.
Broadcast
Nobody can discover your sport unless it is seen. And while the internet and live streaming knock down walls to a degree, you need the general public stumbling across it and talking to friends.
While the NRL has done well from recent domestic TV deals in Australia, overseas coverage still leaves a lot to be desired. Even expats who actively go searching for it have trouble. What chance do the uninitiated have?
Compare this to the UFC, where it floods YouTube, key clubs and pubs, and promotes weeks in advance. How good would it be if the NRL set up dedicated, advertised overseas ‘clubhouses’ where you could gather for big matches with friends, compatriots and newcomers?
Enforced media obligations
This is something rugby league has always struggled with. Even for those of us who grew up playing the game, there comes a point where you have to accept the NRL operates in the entertainment industry, not necessarily the sports industry.
Clubs have quotas of media obligations to fulfil but they get manipulated in the worst way. Last year, a two-minute chat with a fringe first-grader about a charity he was supporting was sought. But the club had already fulfilled its quota and denied the opportunity.
My editors tell me the recent captain’s call to start the season was advised on minimal notice and half the players left early. The UFC strips the NRL in this regard, even hauling Conor McGregor over the coals.
Not selling the public for fools
The UFC’s own reality show, The Ultimate Fighter, is seen as the decisive point in its success. The beauty of the widely-promoted series was it culminated in a finale won by Forrest Griffin, who went on to become a UFC Hall of Famer.
There have been several champions born from the show since.
Compare this to last year’s NRL attempt, The Rookie, which not only came too late, but featured players who were largely no chance of ever cutting it. Everyone heard about contrived trial games, saw the skill level on offer in early episodes and felt insulted.
That was a prime opportunity gone begging. And the NRL would be wise to limit other events it runs which are starting to fail the sniff test – like the World All Stars.
Promoting all tiers
In the UFC, the biggest fighters don’t fight at every event. Instead, there are different tiers of contestants, where different weight divisions throw up intriguing contests. Even if the fighters in the early bouts couldn’t hold a torch to the athletes in the main event, the UFC still promote them like crazy and create a broader knowledge among fans.
Anybody who has seen how English football promotes and integrates all divisions knows it can be transposed to team sports and be done much better than what rugby league does at present.
Promoting both sexes
Fair credit to the NRL for a massive imporvement, but it still has a long way to go. There are still administrators who don’t believe the women should play on State of Origin night, instead serving up underage games, largely because of entrenched loyalties.
Ask your average teenager if they can name five members of the Australian women’s rugby league team. Then ask them if they can name five female UFC fighters.
Injury management
One lesson the UFC learnt early is that if your best stars are hurt and cannot fight, interest plummets. Every year we hear discussion about limiting the number of games for our big stars, but administrators, coaches and the players themselves defy their own advice.
At some stage, we need to look at the toll the game is taking and weigh up whether if we better promoted a wider range of athletes in the sport, could we have fewer events per player and bring in the same amount of revenue?
Overseas expansion
The UFC is not only on TV stations across the world, filled with participants from dozens of countries, but they’ve also held major bouts in 15 different nations.
It might seem like this is natural for combat sports, but in the early days of UFC it was restricted to the USA alone. Even its first overseas venture was Puerto Rico, a US territory.
In recent years they’ve been much more daring with heading abroad and it’s given them some of their most profitable events. Rugby league’s focus has been on harnessing the Pacific, where only three of 25 countries have populations of more than one million.
No offseason
A great weakness of rugby league is that, in the southern hemisphere, it’s inactive for a third of the year. Without proposing that players rack up any more games than they already do, the sport has to utilise the excitement machines that play at the secondary tiers who perhaps lack the size, consistency or defensive aptitude for regular first-grade football.
The concept of a mini-season of nines football through the summer months could ensure year-round attention, and it’s encouraging to hear the Rugby League International Federation talking along those lines this week.
Laurie
Guest
Yoda you hit the nail on the head. Poor old Sportslover/Crosscoder
Sport lover
Guest
Rack off you pathetic thread derailer lol
Yoda
Guest
You never answered my question sporty
Baz
Guest
Keep up the good fight SL.
Sport lover
Guest
You are entitled to your opinion - even if it is clearly wrong - to paraphrase Voltaire. UFC has existed for 25 years or so. Rugby league has been dealing with active attempts to kill it off, by a certain nameless party, for 122 years. Your article would have far more credibility if you had informed readers of this at first instance.
Spencer Kassimir
Roar Pro
Maybe it's my sport nerdiness side speaking but I would love to see Sport lover face off with Yoda; Rob B could then join in WWE style with a folding chair!
Robert Burgin
Expert
Been a sports writer and historian for 20 years, so well aware of Vichy and attempts to suppress the game internationally. I never said rugby league had never been banned, but rather UFC has, on all fronts combined, faced "far more than anything rugby league has to hurdle" - particularly in the last two decades. I still think rugby league is crying poor if it feels it has had the rougher end of the pineapple. Excuses don't carry far in sport, whether on or off the field.
Sport lover
Guest
And you missed the bit about amateur rugby league also being banned in France. All acknowledged by the French Govt in 2002. As for your pathetic attempt at derailing the thread Fitzsimons style, both of you should go back to wishing you reduced teams to 13 and de-emphasised penalty goals first. Yes rugby league has certainly dealt with as much garbage as UFC ever has...
Sport lover
Guest
What a miserable failed response. Lol Thanks Poly. Only you repeat things slavishly back when you have no clue... Haven't changed. Lol Soccer was not banned nor was all professional sport. Union was shamateur yet was the sport of the Vichy. Congrats. In your own post you concede it was professional. Strong argument. The French RL assets were conservatively valued at millions of francs. STILL no apology, acknowledgment or reparations. Mokdad does no such thing. Union's continued misrepresentation of the UAE situation is typical. It happened elsewhere such as South Africa, Japan, Italy, the former Yugoslavia etc. Hence the etc.etc. You brushed over Sports Accord because it is inexcusable in 2017. Union needs to recognise rugby league has been a separate sport since 1895. It is only fear the likes of what occurred in France in the 1930s, ie. rugby league racing past union in 5 years when unimpeded, would occur again which prompts its continued disgraceful conduct. As for union in Australia, go back to reading the fifty media articles a week about how to "save it"... It's going fine. Lol Liars like you make non union fans delight in your current predicament. As for global, well we just laugh... Anyone can "seen" that (sic). Lol
Yoda
Guest
The facts are there for you to see sport lover, All professional sport was banned i.e cricket,handball,football,tennis and league as they believed it corrupted the youth. 1 point What assets,union had been in existence for 50 years before league seen a chance to move in on Union as the French Union got banned in 1934 for misdemeanours regarding professionalism. 1 point The episode with sol Mokdad,he was a chancer who didn't go through the correct channels of the Uae government sport,that's why he was arrested,he even says today he was to blame. 1 point. The point about Union being nearly dead in oz is a bit far fetched,yes it has its problems but if you want to compare Union with league globally there's only one winner,league is light years behind. 1 point Here's a question for you sporty,why was league in oz the only code of football to keep on playing in WW1 when all the other codes had to close down for the war effort.
Sport lover
Guest
No all professional sport was not banned. 0 points. Rugby league was banned at all levels, not just at the professional top level. 0 points. Rugby league's assets were stolen from it and given to rugby union by the Vichy government, who actively collaborated with the Nazis. 0 points. And you selectively missed the other references to the last few years during which rugby union has continued to act unconscionably. 0 points. No wonder rugby union is near death in Australia with deluded apologists like Yoda in its corner...
Kavvy
Guest
No comparison, as mentioned above, the reason UFC and Zuffa were able to do what they did was because of the complete basketcase of corruption boxing was, leaving a void to be filled. no such void exists for Rugby League, especially when talking about expanding globally.
Kavvy
Guest
+1
Yoda
Guest
Oh dear here we go again Vichy,let's go back in time sport lover to that period,what you fail to say is All professional sport at that time was banned,not just league.
TigerMike
Guest
Great article. Thanks for getting UFC/ MMA on the Rugby League page. You make a few great points that show the league establishment can and needs to aim higher and reach further. And stepping back our NRL has of course grown to include NZ although a next step should aim for teams from Adelaide, Perth and another one or two from Melb or VIC. Have 20 teams, all play each other once, have breaks for Origin seems simple enough. Back to UFC it did kick off late 80s and had less rules, no time limit, no weight divisions. Brutal. Could be over in 15 seconds or run out to 15 minutes. Head butts were allowed then. Thecweight divisions make some sense, although only 3 or 4 would be enough. But the timed rounds, 3 or 5 x 5 minutes reduces the impact. One suggestion is only one break after say 10 minutes for the lighter divisions or 15 min fit the heavyweights, then go on from there until one fighter wins, no hidden 3 judges points system. A fights a fight, right?
joe
Guest
Maybe league can pay its players far less,thats something UFC can teach them LOL...difference is UFC has far more leverage on its fighters than league has on its players therefore UFC can pay a ridiculously low amount to the majority of its fighters for there aren't many alternatives other than UFC to make consistent money. League players can switch codes go play in England or whereever else.
GWSINGAPORE
Guest
I would like to see rugby league adopt a fighting rule like the NHL. Allow a couple of players to square off one-on-one early in a game. The referee should step in when one of the players has clearly out punched his opponent. What a way to build excitement levels to fever pitch while allowing real men to square off.
Sport lover
Guest
In terms of rugby league never being banned, one might suggest the author Google words like 'French rugby league', 'Vichy' and '1941'. He will be surprised no doubt by what he finds. Then try 'Sol Mokdad' and 'UAE rugby league'. etc. etc. I doubt UFC's accreditation by Sports Accord is currently being blocked by boxing either. Cf: rugby union blocking rugby league. In 2017. etc. etc. Time for the author to educate himself...
Julian King
Roar Guru
This a chalk and cheese debate. The two sports aren't remotely comparable. UFC/MMA has a market dominance outside main event boxing because of the corruption and mismanagement of the sweet science. Rugby league has no such market void. It resides in arguably the most competitive sporting market on the planet, given our population. Yes, the game should be constantly seeking to refine, improve and grow. By all means borrow innovations from other sports, but any suggestion that rugby league can attract global attention is another Super League style flight of fancy.
andrew
Guest
I am not a fan of UFC and was skeptical of the article before I read it, but I agree with many of the points. In summary it comes back to clearing out the old wood ducks who continue to deliver the sport the same way it has been delivered for 100 years. Younger, more innovative administration - invest in the back of house rather than giving jobs for the boys, or paying peanuts for kids straight out of university. UFC also wouldn't have shows like the Thursday Night Footy Show as its primary magazine show on Free to Air TV. The NRL needs to find the balance of more professionalism while still entertaining families.