“You will see more of us in Asia-Pacific” – Exclusive interview with UFC's Mark Fischer

Mark Fischer on UFC’s expansion plans for Asia

For years now, MMA fans in the Asia-Pacific region have been demanding for some action. MMA has been a hit in the United States and countries like Brazil, and even the United Kingdom, so it was only a matter of time before the biggest MMA organization in the world, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) tested the waters in the Asia-Pacific region. I had the opportunity to talk to the man behind UFC’s expansion in the Asia-Pacific, Mark Fischer!

I caught up with Mark during the UFC Fight Night – Macao event, headlined by “Stun Gun” Dong Hyun Kim and “The Hitman” John Hathaway. Mark Fischer was kind enough to have taken 10 minutes out of his busy schedule to talk about UFC’s plans of expanding in the Asia-Pacific region, and if UFC has any plans to have some live events this year in Asia – Pacific.

Can you please elaborate on UFC’s plans on expanding in the Asia-Pacific region?

Mark: Sure, we hope that one day UFC will be among the top 3 most popular sports or sporting leagues in any territory that we enter or consider a top priority. How we get there is, first of all TV, we’re trying to get on very broad platforms so that we can have exposure, for our very exciting sport and high production values that we bring. Secondly, to work with the media – print partners, TV media, internet media and to expose our sport, explain the rules, our great fighters – the characters and the personalities etc. Thirdly, we are working on a series of live events across the region, so we can bring the incredibly exciting live experience to as many people as possible, and for those who’re not lucky enough to see the event live, there’s a lot of buzz when we come to town. We’re also working on the grassroots level. First we have the TUF show that we completed, thanks to Cung Le in China last fall, which aired in December-January nationally across China, and that helps us discover and develop talent from that particular market.

We’re doing that in key markets like China, that are long term potentials for us. We’re also looking at programs like fighter development programs, because we realize it’s important to build the local heroes, and create the stars that the people from that market can rally around, and build that connection for the long term. We’re bringing over that for the fighters to train their skills, and bring some coaches to coach the coaches and that’s another way of growing our sport. Lastly, we’re building our business to get the support of our marketing partners, other great brands to help support this effort, and in turn bring them value with our marketing aspects and our very loyal fan base that follows us, with our sponsors or product licensees and so on.

You’ve already done this with NBA. How different of a challenge is doing the same thing with UFC?

Mark: I think the biggest difference has been that basketball has been around for more than a 100 years, and it’s an Olympic sport. There are basketball hoops in every school, in China anyway, and it’s more of a mass participation sport. Our challenge is really, since we’re a new sport, and a niche sport, it’s been explaining and exposing UFC and sport of MMA. There’s a lot more education involved, there’s a lot of work in terms of basics, and again that’s why we focus on having the right media partners – Mass media, TV programming as well as the press and internet coverage that can explain in detail about our sport. That’s probably the biggest difference that we’re a newer sport, but I do think that we’re growing incredibly fast than when we entered.

For example in China, when we first set up our shop in China 3 years ago, we probably had about 10 – 20% awareness, and a fan following of maybe a fraction of that. Now in the major cities, we have at least 60% of the people knowing about UFC, having heard of us, and a fan following of nearly 25% of the urban population. On a regular basis, we’ve reached 10 – 20 million viewers per week, with our TV programming in China which is still relatively niche. We’re growing really fast and we hope to stay on this trajectory for some time to come.

What were the biggest problems that UFC faced while entering the Asian market?

Mark: Challenges again were not understanding the sport. Some people thought it’s a sport while some people thought it was like the WWE, which is scripted, but we’re as real as it gets. Other people thought maybe this sport is too violent. Again, there are a lot of things, sure, it’s a combat sport, it is a fight sport. By nature there’s going to be that type of competition, but we place an enormous priority on safety precautions, we place an enormous stress on fair and pure competition.

We have athletes of great discipline and character and personality, that are really wonderful people outside of the Octagon, as great as they are inside the Octagon. It’s the rate at which we’ve overcome these things, again the exposure, having given people the chance to see what we’re really about, behind the scenes, the rules and all of that. Again, building step by step the local heroes like we did with the TUF – China this season and we’ll continue to grow on that platform.

Can you also please elaborate on UFC’s success when it comes to TUF – China?

Mark: First of all, getting it done at all, crossing a number of obstacles, bridging cultural gaps and so forth was the biggest achievement. Beyond that, we built up an audience averaging about 10 million a week nationally for that show, which is quite an accomplishment for, again a relatively new sport, a brand new show. With the people through the internet and other places, I think we reached a 100 million viewers for that show in one shape or another! It’s again a great boost to our awareness, a great boost to people who’ve started following UFC.

So I think they’re key achievements, and on the other hand, we’ve also found and helped develop through coaching on that show 4 – 5 excellent fighters from China, who were not in the UFC before! Other than the TUF – China winner, there are 2, 3 or 4 others, who I think if they show their potential, can enter the UFC. So the show in addition to building awareness, allowed us to effectively qualify several new entrants from China, again building that local hero relationship from China.

And you’ve also signed the second ever Chinese fighter?

Mark: That’s right, he’s Jumabieke Tuerxun, and he debuted on UFC Fight Night – Macao. He didn’t exactly come out of the TUF but it was good timing for him to burst onto the scene at the right time.

Also with UFC announcing 7 events in the Asia-Pacific region for 2014, can we expect more such events frequently?

Mark: Absolutely. I’m not sure if it’s 7; we may do as many as 7. I think we’re pretty well set for 5 and 6 is a strong possibility, 7 being an outside shot, but we’re looking at doing 1 roughly every other month. Sometimes it’s going to be a little more squeezed, make us work a little more hard than other times when it’s like a break, but we’ll have about half a dozen a year, that’s what we’re looking at here in the East Asia region.

This question is on behalf of all the Asian fans: Can we expect any live PPVs in Asia any time soon?

Mark: Stay tuned! It is a strong possibility, and it depends on the market dynamics. Nothing in 2014, but I think there is a real possibility that we’re going to have a situation meriting a PPV or a major event in 2015!

As Mark Fischer said, stay tuned to the latest updates regarding UFC entering the Asia-Pacific region! Also, some great news for the Indian MMA fans! UFC will be coming to India in some capacity this year, as Marshall had exclusively told me during an interview (You can read the entire interview here), and let’s hope that UFC and Asia-Pacific/India can come out as joint winners in this venture!