How much does it cost to buy the UFC's respect?

UFC 307 in Utah was living proof that fans matter the least for customer service.

What is the price tag for American taxpayers to buy a respectable product from the UFC office in 2024?

We live in some very interesting times where the American sports customer has never been more powerless. Unless a boycott has a heavy political slant — like the Bud Light controversy with Dylan Mulvaney — there isn’t a very successful track record for customer protests against billionaire sports owners. If anything, the billionaires always find a way to profit off of pissed-off sports fans.

Like UFC extracting a hundred million from Bud Light to buy “redemption.”

Oakland couldn’t stop the mercurial John Fisher from leaving town with the A’s. Just don’t call them the Sacramento A’s or call Sutter Health Park the old Raley Field.

Mark Davis got his Las Vegas shotgun marriage with the Raiders. Chicago fans are stuck with threats from The McCaskeys and Jerry Reinsdorf. Stan Kroenke broke the hearts of St. Louis and built SoFi Stadium in LA. The Spanos Family: three words as popular in San Diego as a root canal.

Then there’s Tony Khan. What more do I need to say?

Sports is the ultimate form of “heads I win, tails you lose” taxpayer torture. When a municipality cozies up big to a billionaire like Bruce Sherman of the Miami Marlins, they end up regretting their “investment” very quickly.

The regular American sports customer is largely feckless. Those who do possess a voice and claim to be speaking on behalf of “the fan” often don’t know half of what they are talking about. Go look at the comments section of someone like Jesse On FIRE or MMA Guru and discover how few people even know that Endeavor — not Disney — owns the UFC.

How did we get to this point?

How did we reach a point where UFC fans are ranked so low in priority?

Here’s a real Great Replacement Theory: Ari Emanuel replaced the fans with politicians as his number one UFC customers.

Whether you know it or not… and whether you like it or not… a significant amount of Americans are voluntarily or involuntarily spending tax money on paying for UFC & WWE events.

Customers barely hanging on by a thread to their MMA fandom and engaging in a form of quiet quitting are playing right into Dana White’s hands. The dumber the remaining fans are, the less self-awareness there is and the less demand there is for much-needed change.

Fans put their hearts and souls into supporting the sport. Wasted a lot of time and money on it, too.

So, how do we turn things around? Who’s going to speak for the fans and give them a seat at the table?

If current UFC fans hate Women’s MMA so much, why does the UFC office continue to book these fights?

In order to challenge UFC’s decision-making, it’s important to understand what the political and financial dynamics are right now and why we see what we see. Once you see what strings are being pulled and why, you’ll never look at UFC the same way.