UFC is Already More than a Sports Company, but can Grow Further

The UFC has managed to change a sport that many once saw as unseemly into mainstream entertainment. Along with its live sporting events, it runs a reality show and has even seen many of its biggest stars breaking into entertainment proper. While sports is an entertainment product by its very nature, the UFC has taken it to another level while still keeping the spectacle about a proper, competitive sport.

Such is the way that the company operates that it’s now among the biggest sports in the US and has even earned a solid overseas fan base. This is thanks to its world championships involving fighters from around the world and events taking place all over the globe. As such, Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Conor McGregor – a Russian against an Irishman – garnered 2.4 million PPV purchases, per the Statista report.

From the sports itself to how its famous faces have broken beyond the UFC, it’s now an entertainment goliath, and yet, there’s plenty more room to grow.

Expanding beyond the octagon

Perhaps the biggest way that the UFC has been able to reach out of the live events is through gaming. There may only be three official renditions, but the UFC game series from EA Sports has been a huge success. Much as these sports games help to entrench fans around the world who can’t always follow the live action closely, so does the UFC game, particularly when it comes to teaching how moves and style work but in a hands-on way.

Next, and possibly to a greater extent, is that the UFC has made its stars famous even beyond the combat. It started with the reality TV show ‘The Ultimate Fighter,’ which started in 2005 to see who could win a UFC contract. The likes of Michael Bisping, Nate Diaz, Tony Ferguson, TJ Dillashaw, Raquel Pennington, and Kamaru Usman all came through TUF and made a splash in the main event.

Some have gone even further, though, to reach traditional celebrity status in Hollywood. Many, many UFC stars have left the octagon for the red carpet, including one of the promotion’s greatest of all time, Georges St-Pierre (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier). Along with GSP, there’s Randy Couture, Bob Sapp, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, Gina Carano, and Cain Velasquez, the latter two of which were both in Van Damme’s Kickboxer: Vengeance with GSP.

Room to grow the UFC’s entertainment footprint

There’s one prime space of entertainment that other sports have grown into for years, but the UFC is yet to touch. What’s strange is that not only is this step a clear money-maker, but it perfectly blends with the company’s brand image of being entrenched in Nevada and Las Vegas. This form of entertainment is that of casino gaming, particularly slot gaming. 

We asked Josh Long from an online casino review site why there were no UFC-themed slots on the market yet. According to the research by Long, evaluator of Bonusfinder New Zealand, the platform offering 50 no-deposit spins on Book of Dead also has an extensive selection of sports slots. There are some 11 soccer slots, including The Champions, two boxing games, five that span other smaller sports, and only two that could, at a push, be considered MMA games: Bruce Lee and Shaolin Spin.

The UFC loves Las Vegas, and nothing fits this persona and the whole tale of gambling it all in the octagon than having a licensed slot. This could include a fighting mechanic like the Street Fighter II slot, with gamers pitching some of their favorite athletes against each other while they spin the reels. The brand is simply too big for it not to attract thousands of online casino gamers, which would make it a tremendous success.

Over the decades, the UFC has become an undisputed titan of sports and entertainment, but there’s still a little further that the company can grow to expand its footprint even further.