In business, perception is everything. Look the part. Act the part. It’ll take you much further than you might imagine. That’s apparently a lesson some of the key players at the UFC never bothered to learn.
UFC President Dana White’s insistence at pushing ahead with a doomed and downright dangerous plan to host UFC 249 in just over a week’s time never should have happened. While rabid MMA fans will shower him in praise for his tough guy act, and parrot his rather banal observation that writers aren’t tough guys, the reality is that White was doing no one any favors by pigheadedly refusing to cancel an event that was putting his own employees at risk.
The coronavirus surpassed 100,000 deaths globally this week. Nearly every nation on earth has limited large gatherings. Some have banned meetings of five people. Some even two. The virus can be spread even when suffers are asymptomatic. A former UFC athlete, Erick Silva, is sick with the resulting disease (COVID-19). Rose Namajunas has lost two family members to it.
For years, the UFC has been focused on looking the part, playing the part of a big time sport. Remember the Reebok uniform deal? At its inception, it was all about that big league feel. “It elevates the sport,” Dana White procaimed. “For everybody to be dressed the same, to look the same, it just makes everything more professional.”
Yet when White and co. had a chance to act professional, and shut down events in the face of a global pandemic, they did the opposite. To hilariously sad and predictable results. They insisted fighters fly all over creation. Swapped out opponents. Booked fights without a location set. Blamed the media whenever possible.
Even one of their own broadcast partners found their decision to hold events in a pandemic unethical.
Here’s the bottom line: when every other major sport across the globe shuts down, your out is there. Served up on a big shiny platter. To look the part, to make the UFC what White has always wanted it to be, a key player in sports, all the UFC had to do was maintain the status quo. Listen to the advice of people much smarter than himself: doctors, epidemiologists, and other medical professionals, who said simply: shut it down. The Association of Ringside Physicians said weeks ago that it was recommending “the indefinite suspension of all combat sports events.”
Yet in what amounted to a clown show at a circus, the powers that be in the UFC looked to skirt mass gathering bans by hosting events on native land in the U.S.They attempted to secure a private island for future events (which may still happen), and were willing to find doctors unscrupulous enough to ignore the ARP’s recommendation.
If the UFC wants that big-league status, which it has inched closer to with the likes of the ESPN deal, then it needs to act like a big league. And that includes having leadership strong enough to know when to fold ’em, to quote the recently passed Kenny Rogers. Without having California’s governor leaning on ESPN to force the outcome.
Yes, that’s right. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California was forced to reach out to Disney, parent company of UFC broadcaster ESPN, in an effort to get White to fall in line with the rest of the planet. That is something that really shouldn’t have to happen.
That came after Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) issued a statement addressing the UFC that read, in part, “I’m concerned by reports that Ultimate Fighting Championship plans to hold a pay-per-view event in California, in defiance of the state’s shelter-in-place order. This event would involve dozens of individuals flying to California and driving to a casino for a purpose no one can honestly claim is essential.”
“I understand this event is scheduled to take place on tribal land and therefore is not subject to state law. However, at best this event ties up medical resources and sends a message that shelter-in-place orders can be flouted. At worst, participants and support staff could carry the virus back to their home communities and increase its spread.”
Read between the lines, and that is some awfully strong language. Especially the whole “in defiance of” comment. And let’s be clear: no real business is looking to risk the fallout that an illness, contracted at a show held against medical and government advice, would bring about.
Only, the UFC was. And while fighters do need to get paid, the smart thing to do would have been to take care of the fighters (which is admittedly now happening, at least for UFC 249), and shelter in place with the rest of the world. Instead, money and the desire to have the whole stage to themselves won out, ever so briefly. Resulting in the promotion taking another hit to its reputation in the process. All while trying to stave off the inevitable, in a debacle that simply did not need to happen.
