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"UFC will be the biggest sport in the world by 2020," UFC President Dana White begins in an article written for the Las Vegas Sun. "People were saying I was a lunatic 10 years ago when we first got this going, but the stuff we’re working on right now on so many levels is mind-boggling."
Despite his assertion that "UFC," and not the actual sport of mixed martial arts, would be the biggest sport in 2010, White lays out a good comparison to the NFL that he's used before to illustrate his point.
"Think about this, White says. "Right now in the United States, there is nothing bigger than the NFL. It is huge. But the NFL has been spending billions of dollars trying to break into other countries and it’s not working. You know why? Because these people in other countries don’t care about American football. They didn’t grow up playing it and they’re not invested in American teams."
"I take two guys and put them in an octagon and they can use any martial art they want — that transcends all culture barriers. Right now we are on some form of television in over 175 countries. We’re all human beings and we all “get” fighting."
It's a valid case for the continued rise in popularity of the sport over the next ten years, but at the same rate there's a long, long way to go to reach the worldwide popularity of soccer or the stateside popularity of the NFL.
One factor that could assist the UFC's goal of being the most popular sporting event in the U.S. is the possibility of a lockout in the NFL in the 2011 season. There is currently talk that negotiations between the Player's Association and the Owners are regressing in regards to a new collective bargaining agreement that could lead to said lockout in that year.
Should that happen, the loss of a full season of the NFL would be a major blow to it's popularity. Major League Baseball lost a lot of it's popularity after the strike from the 1994-1995 seasons wiped out all of the playoffs and the '94 World Series; most recently the National Hockey League suffered a major blow with the entire 2004-2005 season wiped out due to a lockout, and it's something that sport is still attempting to recover from. If the NFL goes the same route in 2011, the continued rise of mixed martial arts could gain an even larger hold on the sports consciousness in America.
Dana White is never one to be short on confidence when it comes to the UFC, and he claims that he and Lorenzo Fertitta will figure out a ten year plan and execute it. White believes ten years will be enough to make this sport the biggest in the world, and with some help, and some missteps on the part of some of the major sports leagues in this country, it may just come to fruition.
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PART OF THE USA TODAY UFC GROUP