UFC landed a $7.7bn deal with Paramount. But is Dana White’s Trump bond a liability? | UFC

Forget the stereotype for a moment that MMA athletes and their fans are entirely American bar fighters. The MMA community is much more diverse and much more cerebral than the occasional spectator does not realize it.

Did Dana White forgot that?

The president of the UFC has long sought to extend the attraction of sport to as much demographic data as possible. But in recent years, he has bet big on a close affiliation with Donald Trump, who was perfectly happy to revel in the adulation of a population segment while making contempt on all the others. White campaigned for Trump, welcomed him in several UFC events and did not immediately hit the concept of holding a UFC card in the White House.

On the surface, it may seem logical. MMA culture is linked to Bro culture, and the brothers are considered the antithesis of “awake” liberalism.

But it’s not that simple. Consider a surprising fact: although Maga Champion An ideology “America First”, the UFC is a paragon of globalism. Of the 11 UFC reign champions, only one is American – Kayla Harrison, prospering in an organization that White insisted on excluding women. Australia and Georgia (the country) boast twice as many champions as the country of origin of the UFC. The only belt firmly owned by American fighters is the unofficial belt of the “BMF” (the most nasty fucker). White invented this to reward the charismatic fighters who presented major shows. Although it is an intelligent way of encouraging personality and plume, it also seems to be a program to ensure that we, the combatants, remain in sight in the pantheon of the UFC.

The UFC list is therefore more global than ever. But UFC fighters have Never Adapt perfectly to categories.

This diversity was a characteristic of the reality TV show which broke the UFC in the dominant current, the ultimate fighter. The casts included brain chess players, devoted Christians and someone who brought a compass to make sure that her bed would face the North, and another who fled the show to reassure her girlfriend that the rumors she saw online were not true.

And the UFC has evolved in a way that could be considered “progressive”. Cain Velasquez did not lose any support for notable fans in 2010 when he sported a “brown pride” tattoo on his chest and admitted that his father had illegally immigrant. (Velasquez has since been sentenced to prison for problems unrelated to immigration.) After opposing the idea of female fighters for many years, White opened the door of the octagon in Ronda Rousey in a 2013 fight against Liz Carmouche, which was openly gay. White strongly supported Carmouche and even gave passionate plea to legalize gay marriage wherever he was not already recognized – a position he declared well Before A series of historical decisions of the United States Supreme Court has confirmed this right. Four years later, UFC fighter Jessica Andrade offered her girlfriend in her post-combat interview in the octagon. While the UFC sold the equipment of the month of pride and gave the product to an LGBTQIA + organization in Nevada, Colby Covington, a supporter of Trump, has become one of the biggest wicked in sport.

However, the main demography of the UFC of young adults turned out to be a decisive force for the return of Trump to the presidency. This group considerably rides the public of the popular podcast of the commentator of the UFC, Joe Rogan, and Rogan – who felt ostracized by the left after having praised scientifically unrelated -scientific treatments – approved Trump last year.

But it was November. Quick advance this summer, and this demography has strongly turned against Trump. Rogan himself broke up with the president on prices, deportations and Epstein files. Last month Rogan told the guest of Podcast James Talarico, a Democrat in Texas, whom he should come to the White House. There is one case to do so that if the Kamala Harris campaign had managed to put it on the Rogan podcast last fall, we would have another president today.

Such changes should not be a surprise. Rogan himself is always looking for new ideas – if anything, he’s a bit Also Receptive to certain schools of thought and does not repel or do not check the facts. While older Americans are inclined to adopt a party and stick to hell or high water, generation Z is fiercely independent politically. They are also more diverse than previous generations, more likely to be non -white, LGBTQ + or any other group that may feel injured by Trump’s actions since the recovery of the presidency. The young generations are also much more receptive to socialism than those previous – after all, the young men have made enough stories on Bernie Sanders to justify the term “Bernie Bros”.

So the place of Maga in “Bro Culture” – and those who are fans of the MMA – is in no way secure. And one day, Donald Trump will be out of power. We have already seen that the American conservatives are impatient to abandon one trend for another. Today’s magnet supporters had a resolutely different message when the Tea Party reigned supreme. Two decades after calling the democrats “traitors” for the opposite wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they excommunicated the whole Bush family.

Trump’s popularity could also be on the slide. Its approval rating sang, and its mutable responses to the saga of Jeffrey Epstein fractured its base. The UFC may well lose as many fans as its attracted by aligning with Trump.

The UFC, on the other hand, is still a strong brand but perhaps not the hot property it was a few years ago. The Disney earnings report last week made a brief reference to “remuneration fees for the vision of the lower ultimate combat championship due to the lower average purchases by event”. The fighting game tends to be cyclical, motivated by great personalities like Rousey, Jon Jones and Conor McGregor, who have all left sport or crossed a period of prolonged inactivity. It is difficult to imagine that the current light heavyweight champion Magomed Ankalaev reaches the renowned level of Forrest Griffin, Rampage Jackson or Chuck Liddell. Although we cannot really quantify the impact of the Trump Lovefest on the popularity of the UFC, the organization clearly cannot afford to alienate the 60% of the population which disapproves of the presidency of Trump so far.

This is perhaps one of the reasons why the UFC has just opted for a new media affair that breaks its à la carte model in order to obtain a wider exhibition. “This change in distribution strategy will unlock greater accessibility and greater accessibility for sports fans,” the press release announcing the seven -year -old agreement of $ 7.7 billion. Some combat cards will be on network television, and others will be free for the subscribers of their streaming partner.

This streaming partner, however, is essential, which has also designed the anger of many American viewers through a series of movements that seem to be a capitulation of the president’s desire to control the media. Firstly, Paramount settled a lawsuit on the modification of an interview with Kamala Harris, a trial considered by many legal specialists as quite simple to win, at the same time as the conglomerate of the media requested the government’s approval for a merger. Second, after the television host, Stephen Colbert, criticized his parent company for having settled the trial, Paramount announced that his program would end in 2026, ostensibly for financial reasons even if it is the most rated end of the evening. (Fox News Channel claims that its show Gutfeld! Has higher notes, but it is broadcast earlier than the traditional end of the evening window that starts at 11:30 p.m.

However, the decision to move away from the payment model in view can only be considered as a sign that the UFC feels the need to enlarge its big tent a little because it faces the difficult challenge to keep American fans interested in a sport in which American athletes are far from dominant. As a general rule, American sports radiudiffusers revolve to events in which American athletes are doing well, which is why Olympic coverage concentrates much more attention to swimming and snowboarding than, let’s say, table tennis or biathlon.

White and Trump have always been a strange match. Trump was involved in Affliction, a rival organization of the MMA in the late 2000s that White fought with the venom of the Trump administration against Harvard and the media. Trump ridiculed veterans, going back to when he said that he did not consider John McCain as a war hero because he likes “people who were not captured” and continuing with arrests of veterans ice in his second mandate and a difficult moment in which he turned attention to himself during a ceremony honoring the beneficiaries of Purple Heart; White and the contributors of White and the other contributors. Philanthropist; Trump used funds from his own foundation on a portrait of himself and his presidential campaign.

We will probably not see white publicly repudiate Trump, a decision that would not be good with an important part of the Audience of the UFC. But over the years, White has cleverly expanded the base of fans of the UFC, and he would really like his sport to be the biggest in the world. White has already said that his involvement with politics ends with Trump, saying to the New Yorker last year that: “I never do a start again.

White has changed my mind on many things over the years. He brought Kimbo Slice shortly after the denial of his fighting skills. He brought women into the cage. But these movements have been motivated by popular uprisings, and white is almost always ready to give fans what they want. While a large part of the country looks with horror while Medicaid is cut, the suffering of Gaza Empire by the week, the economy is on board, and the White House is in crisis mode trying to divert from the Epstein case, the clamor to reaffirm his post to Trump’s team to Trump will surely be coated.