The Specialists
ALL BUSINESS - The Ultimate Culture: What TUF Is Doing For The Sport
Dec 18, 2009 - 1:32:57 AM ALL BUSINESS - The Ultimate Culture: What TUF Is Doing For The Sport

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Pardon my short absence. I was in the U.S. Virgin Islands. (I know tough life.) I did see a decent amount of TapouT t-shirts and a number of people training around the beach while there. The industry known as mixed martial arts is everywhere.

Well, everywhere is a relative term. Massachusetts recently approved regulatory mixed martial arts legislation. It is a surprise that it took so long with fighters like Marcus Davis, Kenny Florian, and Joe Lauzon living and/or training in Massachusetts. (I am a Boston guy myself.) To many it seems as if professional MMA has hit its stride based on the number of superstars created by the sport, but I still think we are in the wake of larger things to come, and the Ultimate Fighter's 10th season is a sign of this.

The Ultimate Fighter Series is definitely a huge vehicle for the sport of MMA. The Ultimate Fighter, TUF, has the uncanny ability to create hype around relative unknowns, former contenders, and former champions all at the same time. The contestant's diverse backgrounds and fighting styles allow young would be mixed martial artists to latch on to almost any of the shows personalities.

TUF's Season 10 winner, Roy Nelson, has given every "couch fighter" as sense of hope (no matter how false it is, the man has some cardio most chubby goes don't have). Nelson appears to be just a regular guy who likes Burger King. Fight fans might relate to him more than they do an athletic phenom like Brock Lesnar. It may be safe to say that Roy Nelson is a phenom in a completely different way than Lesnar.

So what's my point? Well, the point is TUF has successfully reinforced (if not furthered) the UFC as a culture. Culture is a key component to any branded business. The Ultimate Fighter is currently the biggest MMA product that participates in a wider cultural phenomenon on a mainstream platform. This show capitalizes on America's reality TV culture and then adds it's own core competency—fighting. This core competency also serves as the added value proposition for watching the UFC's reality TV show. The show, even though it is in its 10th season, is a budding cultural phenomenon that will surely be replicated as other American based fight companies get their acts together.

The ratings prove that mainstream fight sports culture is growing. TUF's Season 10 Finale had an average viewership of 3.7 million fight fans, and a peak of 5.2 million viewers during the Kimbo Slice vs. Houston Alexander bout. On average about 3.4 million viewers tuned in each week to watch this Heavyweight season of The Ultimate Fighter. These millions of viewers are seeing quality fights, how the UFC looks out for the health of the fighters, and the key component of drama.

Unlike WWE, the Ultimate Fighting Championship cannot write in the hype. There is just not enough theatrical opportunity in a real one-on-one fight. The drama in the UFC usually derives from stare downs and Quinton "Rampage" Jackson's Twitter account. TUF has given the UFC ten seasons of the dramatic edge needed to cultivate a culture around prizefighting in homes across America.

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Alvin Benjamin Carter III is an MMATorch Specialist columnist focusing on the business and statistic side of the sport of MMA. He trains in SanDa / Shan Shou (Chinese Kickboxing) and plans to train in MMA once his torn calf heals. He also has a business background is music production, management, and clothing. He has launched two companies which cater to niche markets, giving him experience in examining trends and attitudes that can affect a particular business model, which he applies in his weekly column for MMATorch to the sport of MMA. Follow Alvin on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AwwwSnap.

[Roy Nelson photo provided to MMATorch by Spike TV]