# Dana White Says UFC is 'Neck And Neck With Football (Soccer)' On A Global Basis



## AmdM (Apr 13, 2010)

> UFC President Dana White and CEO Lorenzo Fertitta recently sat down with Lee Hawkins of the Wall Street Journal to talk about the company. The interview is about five minutes long, and sticks mostly to the business side of things. They discuss each of their roles in the company, and why they bought it in the first place.
> 
> There are two interesting quotes that came out of the video - first, Dana said that 70% of their fighters have a college education (something he's repeated often, but I'm not sure anyone's actually sat down to verify that). The other is a whopper - according to Dana, on a global basis, they're bigger than the NFL and "neck and neck with soccer". That's a pretty dubious claim to me. They might be able to get away with the NFL claim because the sport has little presence outside North America. But soccer? Come on now.
> 
> You can check out the video below the jump.


Source


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## edlavis88 (Jul 12, 2009)

I like DW, but he is delusional here. UFC 100 got 1.6m viewers... Championd league final last year got 7.5mil in England alone...


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## Hammerlock2.0 (Jun 17, 2009)

:laugh:

We'll talk when the UFC draws 45k people into a stadium 300 times a year and has 2,6 million subscribers watching from their homes (not necessarily alone). And that's just the average numbers for Germany. The Bundesliga alone is bigger than all of the UFC and it's limited to Germany whereas the UFC is international.

Not bad for the least talented sport in the world.


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## sg160187 (Apr 11, 2010)

Not even close Dana, not even close lol


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## Killz (Oct 5, 2009)

ok Dana...





this can't be serious surely?


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## Finnsidious (Mar 14, 2009)

Classic Dana. Those numbers he mentioned are still stained brown from being pulled directly out of his butt.

The UFC might be close to, or even passing Soccer in North America, but nowhere else.


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## Jags (Aug 7, 2010)

Not even close Dana White

I dont know if he's saying it as a point only in the USA but if he's talking about Worldwide he smoking something the UFC is nowhere near.

In the USA alone maybe im not sure what the numbers are but i know they like American Football and Baseball a lot more but worldwide nowhere ******* near Dana.


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## Fard (Nov 5, 2010)




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## Liddellianenko (Oct 8, 2006)

More stupid shit from a bald guy who got lucky.


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## cdtcpl (Mar 9, 2007)

I thought he meant US football and I was like, globally sure, NFL doesn't have that large of an international following. But then I reread and saw soccer and had to laugh.




Liddellianenko said:


> More stupid shit from a bald guy who got lucky.


How did he get lucky? Working your ass off on something and it pays off is luck?


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## DonRifle (Jan 18, 2009)

Smithers' I'm beginning to think that Homer Simpson was not the brilliant tactician I thought


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## demoman993 (Apr 8, 2007)

Comments like this really don't help his personal credibility with new and old fans. Optimism is ok but this is extremely far fetched.


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## Vale_Tudo (Nov 18, 2007)

Come on now Dana. Im European, and no. The UFC is nowhere near Football (Soccer). Football is so far ahead any other sport in popularity Its not even fair. Actually MMA is so far down on the list here where i live I dont even think It would get into a top 10 sports popularity list


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## Big_Charm (Jan 7, 2011)

Good chuckle for the morning...

No, not even close to Football and a drop in the bucket compared to Soccer. 

He should also verify the 70% post secondary as well, I think he pulled that one right out of the sky :thumb02:


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## Drogo (Nov 19, 2006)

Dana obviously is a firm believer in both the "Repeat a lie often enough and people will believe it." and the "The more outrageous a lie is, the more likely people are to believe it." school of thought. 

Ridiculous thing to say. His statement of 70% post secondary education is just as absurd for that matter. Yeah, there are a lot of college wrestlers who turn to MMA, but 70% college educated? No chance that is true, none.


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## HitOrGetHit (Jun 29, 2009)

Seriously Dana? That is insanely ridiculous to think they are globally on par with Soccer. (Or football or whatever you want to call it)


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## Killz (Oct 5, 2009)

Just taking the UK as an example;

there are roughly 12 Premier league games every week. Each stadium holds between 30,000 - 75,000. they get full, for every game, every week and are watched by millions upon millions of people around the country... EVERY WEEK! That is wtithout even going into the thousands and thousands of supporters that go to lower league games, some of which have massive 30,000+ stadiums.

UFC struggles to fill a 6,000 seater arena here once or twice a year.

I'd go so far as to say 99.9% of people living in the UK have heard of football. I dare say less than 25% have heard of MMA


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## HitOrGetHit (Jun 29, 2009)

Killstarz said:


> Just taking the UK as an example;
> 
> there are roughly 12 Premier league games every week. Each stadium holds between 30,000 - 75,000. they get full, for every game, every week and are watched by millions upon millions of people around the country... EVERY WEEK! That is wtithout even going into the thousands and thousands of supporters that go to lower league games, some of which have massive 30,000+ stadiums.
> 
> ...


Eh I would say a lot more people know about it than in the past with the rise of fighters like Bisping, Hardy, Pearson etc...

But still it is a tiny fraction of how many people know about soccer.


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## Calibretto9 (Oct 15, 2006)

I don't even like soccer but I know Dana's claim is way, way off.


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## ASKREN4WIN (Jul 12, 2011)

As far as Soccer, lol, he is blowing some seriouse smoke on that one. 

As far as footbal globally, I could beleive that. But in the United States its not even close. the NFL and football in general is king, its ruler, its Czar.


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## Spite (Jul 7, 2009)

I think Dana must have been smoking a fat one with Nick Diaz again. Over a billion viewers watched the 2010 World Cup final between Spain and Holland. I bet you can add up the total viewers of every UFC event from 1 to 145 and it would be well short of a billion.



> Unsurprisingly the competition’s most-watched match was the final between Spain and the Netherlands, which reached 619.7 million in-home viewers based on those watching at least 20 consecutive minutes of coverage. This figure, however, rises to 909.6 million viewers based on watching over one minute and is likely to have surpassed one billion when out-of-home viewers are included. Indeed, all the figures cited do not include people watching out-of-home at the FIFA Fan Fests and other public viewing venues, as well as in pubs, bars, restaurants, clubs, hotels, or even online and via mobile handsets.


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## Liddellianenko (Oct 8, 2006)

cdtcpl said:


> I thought he meant US football and I was like, globally sure, NFL doesn't have that large of an international following. But then I reread and saw soccer and had to laugh.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


All he had was first mover's advantage, which is pretty close to luck in the business world. 

Boxing was too watered down and MMA was conceptualized and legalized by the Gracies. Dana just took a boatload of money from the Fertittas and tidied up an idea whose time had already come.

Take a comparison from the online world. Is facebook really the best / most optimized social networking site? Is hotmail really the best online email provider? Is internet explorer really the best internet browser? No. On the contrary, they are all quite shit, but have or have had until recently the highest market share.

They just have first mover's advantage. With ideas that had already been pioneered by others, they were just the first to dump money into it or piggy back off an existing base. In Dana's case, he was piggy-backing off the Fertitta's existing casino empire in Vegas.

Hard work and business skill are reflected by the likes Google, who come out of nowhere and capture the market based on superb quality & practices. 

The world loves combat, it's man's oldest instinct and the base for all other sports. The entire idea of sports originally in the tribal context was to abstract away combat into less violent but still competitive skills that could carry over into combat. That and highlight who the best warriors among them were, without having said warriors killed before the need for them arose.

Javelin throwing, archery, shot put, wrestling, athletics etc. were direct combat skills, and team sports useful abstractions of war etc. 

The point is MMA as a sport is bound to succeed the moment it's made legal. All it needed was some investment and polish, and Dana got lucky being the first one to spot it. That's it.

His amazing business sense is reflected by stupid comments like this and constant childish behavior. The man has zero goodwill or credibility with fighters, the public or TV execs, most bigwigs think he's a childish egotistical idiot and have said as much in interviews. 

If he didn't have first mover's advantage with someone else's money in a sport destined to succeed this guy couldn't make a penny. He has made every dumb move you could make and pissed off everyone he could possibly piss off. 

If he wasn't sitting at the head of an org with first mover's advantage in a sport we are bound to love, no one would give a fig about this moron.


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## oldfan (Mar 14, 2010)

Dana is a smart man. Maybe he's been consulting with chael. Someone in the UFC is smart enough to figure that out of the 2-3 billion people he just trolled, some % is going to tune into the UFC to see WTF he's talking about.


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## Killz (Oct 5, 2009)

HitOrGetHit said:


> Eh I would say a lot more people know about it than in the past with the rise of fighters like Bisping, Hardy, Pearson etc...
> 
> But still it is a tiny fraction of how many people know about soccer.


I think you are massively over estimating the exposure the UFC and MMA in general have in the UK.

Bisping, Hardy, Pearson etc are not known outside of UK MMA fans. There is literally zero MMA on Uk TV other than the occasional BAMMA event that shows on some random channel (that you wouldnt know about unless you specifically went looking for it) and the UFC which is shown only on a subscription channel at 3am in the morning.


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## K R Y (Nov 19, 2007)

Got to agree with Killstarz. Bisping, Pearson, Hardy, ANY UK fighter is not a house hold name in the UK. They're barely known, only MMA fans will know who they are.

Football > Boxing > ----------- MMA in the UK.


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## ASKREN4WIN (Jul 12, 2011)

Killstarz said:


> I think you are massively over estimating the exposure the UFC and MMA in general have in the UK.
> 
> Bisping, Hardy, Pearson etc are not known outside of UK MMA fans. There is literally zero MMA on Uk TV other than the occasional BAMMA event that shows on some random channel (that you wouldnt know about unless you specifically went looking for it) and the UFC which is shown only on a subscription channel at 3am in the morning.


So there are no channels that show episodes of UFC Unleashed etc. Do TUF episodes air in the UK. If not then that sucks. 

I have FUEL TV and that channel rocks. It should be called UFC television. HDNET is awesome also.


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## Killz (Oct 5, 2009)

ASKREN4WIN said:


> So there are no channels that show episodes of UFC Unleashed etc. Do TUF episodes air in the UK. If not then that sucks.
> 
> I have FUEL TV and that channel rocks. It should be called UFC television. HDNET is awesome also.


Unleashed airs sporadically throughout the year on the same channel as the PPVs (ESPN which you have to pay monthly for). Always after 11pm at night, usually early morning 1amish though.

TUF is also airing on ESPN this series although in the past has aired on other channels. It is very rarely advertised though.


EDIT: It's worth noting, ESPN is not a popular channel in the UK. it predominantly shows american sports, German/italian football, the occasional EPL game and the UFC. Every person I know who pays for ESPN does it for the UFC coverage only.


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## luckbox (Feb 12, 2010)

Dana White in delusional statement shocker.


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## Hiro (Mar 9, 2010)

He is probably basing this on how many countries have the UFC on a tv channel, but in reality the UFC to soccer is what Earth is Antares.

In England alone, just across the top 4 divisions there are over 100 teams which have fan followings of thousands upon thousands each. Every week there are dozens of games up and down the country and several involving the best teams are shown on TV and watched by millions. If there was a stat out there for the total number of spectators on a Saturday I reckon it would be a significant percentage of our population. 

There are hundreds if not more, of other leagues other than those top 4 too - regional leagues, children's leagues at almost every age group, school leagues, pub leagues and on and on. There's thousands of games being played every week. That's just in one country. It's ingrained into society on a level MMA will never come close to in our lifetimes.


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## b45her (May 28, 2007)

K R Y said:


> Got to agree with Killstarz. Bisping, Pearson, Hardy, ANY UK fighter is not a house hold name in the UK. They're barely known, only MMA fans will know who they are.
> 
> Football > Boxing > ----------- MMA in the UK.


the useless git who was banging katie price (jordan) was a household name for a couple of months , he was apparently a mma fighter .


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## joey.jupiter (Apr 7, 2010)

i'm not a hater of Dana at all and usually I think he has some smart things to say but this is just bizarre. He hates football too much.


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## Budhisten (Apr 11, 2010)

Hah - I laugh at Dana thinking he's anywhere near soccer popularity-wise


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## Purgetheweak (Apr 23, 2012)

I think Dana equates having a fan-base in a country (no matter how small) with total success....


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## ProdigyPenn (Sep 9, 2011)

No doubt MMA is a growing sport. But neck to neck with Football? 

LOL! :smoke01:


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## js9234 (Apr 8, 2007)

Is it possible that it has been taken out of context? Does he mean airing in more countries or people watching it overall, etc... I can't watch the video but I wouldn't think he would just completely make that up. Just wondering what exactly he meant by it. Like I said, can't see the video.


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## Sports_Nerd (Apr 23, 2012)

js9234 said:


> Is it possible that it has been taken out of context? Does he mean airing in more countries or people watching it overall, etc... I can't watch the video but I wouldn't think he would just completely make that up. Just wondering what exactly he meant by it. Like I said, can't see the video.


Talking head: You wanna be big bigger than the NFL.
Dana: We are.
Lorenzo (to talking head): Not on a global basis.
Dana: Globally? We're bigger than the NFL. We're neck and neck with soccer.


Dana must be really easy to submit, with a neck like that.


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## kilik (Oct 12, 2007)

Ok Dana if you believe that then maybe its time the fighters got paid like footballers?

That should be question asked to him and see how he worms out of it.


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## DonRifle (Jan 18, 2009)

oldfan said:


> Dana is a smart man. Maybe he's been consulting with chael. Someone in the UFC is smart enough to figure that out of the 2-3 billion people he just trolled, some % is going to tune into the UFC to see WTF he's talking about.



Not often I would disagree with you longhaired one, but in this case the 'any publicity is good publicity' doesn't work in my opinion. He just succeeded in losing the respect or some of the respect soccer followers have for him. 

He's put himself into that category of people that might be described as 'stupid americans'. Like the guy who once said to me 'Wheres Europe? Is that in England?"
Dana is not skilled in trolling, he may take lessons from Chael but the guy is too forward, angry and direct to be able to be able to pull of what Chael does ad lib


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## deadmanshand (Apr 9, 2008)

Might I be the first person to say who gives a shit? Does it matter? It's not even really an insult. It might be delusional. So what?

I get it. Soccer is a big deal around the world. Once again so what? Are the football fans in here talking about how delusional he is and how he's lost their respect? No. Know why? It doesn't matter.

Does him saying this honestly impact how you feel about mma? If it doesn't then who cares?


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## Hiro (Mar 9, 2010)

Oh please, let's not go down the 'he's just trolling' path because he was in an interview where the credibility of his entire business was on the agenda... I think he'd pick a slightly better way to troll soccer fans than that.


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## SideWays222 (Sep 9, 2008)

Well the numbers the UFC draws in Brazil is pretty surreal. Wasnt it like 50million or something for one of the free fights?? I think it was JDS vs Cain??? not sure.


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## Sports_Nerd (Apr 23, 2012)

Hiro said:


> Oh please, let's not go down the 'he's just trolling' path because he was in an interview where the credibility of his entire business was on the agenda... I think he'd pick a slightly better way to troll soccer fans than that.


Agreed. I think the idea was more to present an air of success to the American audience, rather than approach potential European fans.


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## Sports_Nerd (Apr 23, 2012)

deadmanshand said:


> Might I be the first person to say who gives a shit? Does it matter? It's not even really an insult. It might be delusional. So what?
> 
> I get it. Soccer is a big deal around the world. Once again so what? Are the football fans in here talking about how delusional he is and how he's lost their respect? No. Know why? It doesn't matter.
> 
> Does him saying this honestly impact how you feel about mma? If it doesn't then who cares?


Oh, come on. It's funny, is all. It's a bit like a child exaggerating how strong his dad is.


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## Hammerlock2.0 (Jun 17, 2009)

DonRifle said:


> Not often I would disagree with you longhaired one, but in this case the 'any publicity is good publicity' doesn't work in my opinion. He just succeeded in losing the respect or some of the respect soccer followers have for him.
> 
> He's put himself into that category of people that might be described as *'stupid americans'*. Like the guy who once said to me 'Wheres Europe? Is that in England?"
> Dana is not skilled in trolling, he may take lessons from Chael but the guy is too forward, angry and direct to be able to be able to pull of what Chael does ad lib


Pretty much. I never fully understood the Dana haters before he made these football comments. I do now.


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## Mr. Sparkle (Nov 3, 2009)

So...the UFC is equivalent to FIFA, and its 208 member nations, who every 4 years begin a two year process to qualify for a tournament (The World Cup) whose final game is watched by over 1 billion people. 

I think Dana has learned to fellate himself and his discharge is accumulating in his brain, thus affecting the ability of the synapses to fire properly and produce coherent statements.


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## Hazflo (Oct 17, 2007)

Globally the UFC is far far bigger than the NFL.
Few people outside the US watch it aside from the Superbowl but even that is a small number (in Australia anyway).

as far as Football (soccer) not even close bro if it was a race soccer would be lapping the UFC a 100 time over


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## Swiss (Jul 19, 2011)

NFL is small overseas but it's still more popular than mma I reckon - they pack out Wembley every year over here when they take a game on the road and that's 80k+ people.

When they used to have the world league they would get good crowds in Germany, Spain and all sorts of places.

The NFL has had tv coverage on major channels (ok, at about 3 in the morning) since the 80s.


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## Sports_Nerd (Apr 23, 2012)

Swiss said:


> NFL is small overseas but it's still more popular than mma I reckon - they pack out Wembley every year over here when they take a game on the road and that's 80k+ people.
> 
> When they used to have the world league they would get good crowds in Germany, Spain and all sorts of places.
> 
> The NFL has had tv coverage on major channels (ok, at about 3 in the morning) since the 80s.


Yeah, I tend to agree, as far as Spectating is concerned.

As far as participating, though, I think MMA is bigger. I have no more numbers to support this than Dana does, but I just think it's a lot easier to get an amateur MMA promotion going than a Football league. I'd be interested to learn how many sets of grappling gloves were sold worldwide last year compared to football pads.


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## DonRifle (Jan 18, 2009)

Sports_Nerd said:


> Yeah, I tend to agree, as far as Spectating is concerned.
> 
> As far as participating, though, I think MMA is bigger. I have no more numbers to support this than Dana does, but I just think it's a lot easier to get an amateur MMA promotion going than a Football league. I'd be interested to learn how many sets of grappling gloves were sold worldwide last year compared to football pads.


Dude every village in every country in Europe has a soccer team. And most will have U10, 12, 14 , 16, 1st Team, 2nd Team. In my city alone, there are about 10 divisions each with 12 + teams. Thats the people who play it for a club. And there is not even a professional league in the country its all amateur. And soccer is about the 3rd sport down the line of popularity. 
Then you have the people who play it for fun in the sports centers and 5 a side pitches, which is just as many people.
Its not even 1% the amount of MMA gear purchased compared to soccer gear. Never mind the 10's of millions of kids in Africa etc who play every day in their bare feet


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## Swiss (Jul 19, 2011)

^ I think Sports Nerd was talking about american football.

Prob right about the numbers participating though. MMA is far more accessible than something like american football, which is prob why it hasn't seen any real growth in about 20 years. Just need a proper media outlet that's prepared to properly partner the sport and promote it overseas (well, over here in the UK anyway).


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## DonRifle (Jan 18, 2009)

Swiss said:


> ^ I think Sports Nerd was talking about american football.


Oh yeah my bad


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## Sports_Nerd (Apr 23, 2012)

I should've been clearer. I find typing "American Football" every time a little tedious, but I also know this is a primarily European board.


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## Dr Gonzo (May 27, 2010)

Dana is really missing the irony here. He seems to be talking down or bashing football (soccer) at every turn, yet it is the number one sport in each of these countries he is trying to move into, Brazil, UK, etc. 

MMA will never be as big as football, it just won't. I was born in Scunthorpe, they are a team currently residing in the 3rd tier of English football. The 3rd league down, yet they have a ground, and sometimes fill i,t that holds 9000. 

I actually can't believe Dana hasn't already retracted his statement or at least say he was misquoted/misunderstood.


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## oldfan (Mar 14, 2010)

so... pretty much everyone thinks Dana is so dumb he doesn't realize he's pissing off 2 billion people?

No one thinks he may be trying to spark some curiosity? if 5% of those people check out the UFC to see what the hell he's talking about, who wins?

2B x 5% = 100M raise01:


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## Dr Gonzo (May 27, 2010)

oldfan said:


> so... pretty much everyone thinks Dana is so dumb he doesn't realize he's *pissing off* 2 billion people?
> 
> No one thinks he may be trying to spark some curiosity? if 5% of those people check out the UFC to see what the hell he's talking about, who wins?
> 
> 2B x 5% = 100M raise01:


I think it would be a bit weird if anyone got pissed off with his statement. Most reactions have been utter bewilderment rather than indignation. The 5% of what people? The people watching the video? I think they already know about the UFC! :wink01:


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## Sports_Nerd (Apr 23, 2012)

oldfan said:


> so... pretty much everyone thinks Dana is so dumb he doesn't realize he's pissing off 2 billion people?
> 
> No one thinks he may be trying to spark some curiosity? if 5% of those people check out the UFC to see what the hell he's talking about, who wins?
> 
> 2B x 5% = 100M raise01:


I don't think Dana is dumb, but I don't think your assessment is correct either.

This interview won't reach anyone outside the U.S who isn't already into MMA. What he's doing is presenting a successful image to potential viewers in the U.S who don't know better. "You know how crazy they go for Soccer overseas? Well our product is almost as successful. You should check it out."


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## Term (Jul 28, 2009)

DonRifle said:


> He just succeeded in losing the respect or some of the respect soccer followers have for him.


I imagine that ship sailed when he said it requires no skill to play Soccer.


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## MagiK11 (Dec 31, 2006)

The fact he mentioned Soccer is killing me! That is the most ridiculous thing he has ever said. 

I won't even bother looking up the stats, and I know there are other, many other soccer tournaments, but some of the biggest ones are these:

1. World Cup
2. Olympic tournament
3. European Championship
4. Africa Nations Cup
5. Copa America

If we waste our times and look up how many people watch any of these, let a lone all of these world wide, the UFC will never even come close to the stats soccer generates.

Soccer is mainly watched by men, but many women watch it as well, and I don't think the UFC will ever cross over and demographically reach as wide of an audience as soccer does.


EDIT:

Also I don't understand the need for this little man (Dana) to unnecessarily go after other sports the way he does. He is totally trying to brainwash the dumb and or ignorant viewers into believing the UFC is bigger than it is. Killing off other MMA organizations wasn't enough for him?


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## edlavis88 (Jul 12, 2009)

I Think someone said it before... The last world cup final.was watched by 900 million people worldwide. That is way more than the buyrate of UFC 1-145 combined...

Some Americans, Dana included, really do underestimate how huge football is in Europe, South America, Africa and Asia. I am confident There will never be a more watched sport than it.

I do think Dana should do a social experiement and put a UFC event on at the same time as El clasico, Liverpool/United or Bayern/Dortmund and see what happens to his viewing figures across Europe... It won't be pretty


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## MagiK11 (Dec 31, 2006)

edlavis88 said:


> Some Americans, Dana included, really do underestimate how huge football is in Europe, South America, Africa and Asia. I am confident There will never be a more watched sport than it.


I am positive Dana knows the numbers. If he didn't like going against Mayweather and Pacquiao, or even the WWF for Christ's Sake lol, I am 100% sure he knows the numbers Soccer generates worldwide. 

He isn't an idiot, even though he acts like one at times. The dude is smart, and says these stupid comments to promote his brand, but it isn't diplomatic....in fact the way he promotes the sport at times is classless. Which is a shame.


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## edlavis88 (Jul 12, 2009)

At the end of the day stuff like this doesn't even affect the sport. I would be very surprised if anyone was so offended by this they'd stop watching, like you said it just gives of the ompression that DW is very misinformed which he probably isn't!


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## Mr. Sparkle (Nov 3, 2009)

oldfan said:


> so... pretty much everyone thinks Dana is so dumb he doesn't realize he's pissing off 2 billion people?
> 
> No one thinks he may be trying to spark some curiosity? if 5% of those people check out the UFC to see what the hell he's talking about, who wins?
> 
> 2B x 5% = 100M raise01:


I think you are giving him too much credit...but as the saying goes, "there is no such thing as bad publicity (intentional or not)". 

I would say, though, that by now, knowledge of the UFC is pretty global. Therefore, I doubt his statement would have any significant impact, other than to re-affirm what many around the world already feel: That Americans are wilfully ignorant of the world beyond their borders - present company excluded.


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## Roki977 (Jul 13, 2011)

I didnt have to pay per view for Champions Leuge half finals.
When UFC come at that level than we could talk about it. 
Right now UFC is just "no soul" mony machine. Footbal, esc. bigger leuages are even bigger mony machine but with much more history and pride and glory etc..UFC needs to earn all that. I would be fun to see Dana in fotball waters with big sharks. He is the man in MMA but swims with little fishs..


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## halifaxdonair (Aug 27, 2011)

i was going to make a joke about dana meaning womens soccer, but then i realized that the womens world cup final did 14-21 million viewers in just the US.


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## MikeHawk (Sep 11, 2009)

He could be thinking there's a handful of people out there who will believe it and watch it to see what it is.

There are a lot of people out there who just read headlines and take it as fact. He can also get away with it because he's always over the top and everyone expects this behavior from him by now.


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## DonRifle (Jan 18, 2009)

Came across an interesting stat from Sport England http://www.sportengland.org 


There are 265,000,000 male and female players in addition to 5 million referees and officials make a grand total of 270 million people – or 4% of the world’s population – who are actively involved in the game of football (soccer)

- 
I would hazard a guess the number of people involved in MMA specifically is not even 1% of that number


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## tommydaone (Feb 19, 2010)

Not sure why this has been bumped but thought I'd just let everyone know that most people in England that talk about UFC think that UFC is the actual sport rather than MMA.

Nothing will ever be as big as football worldwide


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## osmium (Mar 6, 2007)

As far as number of fans worldwide it is conceivable that it is now more popular than the NFL but they don't generate near the same amount of money which is what really matters.


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## Soojooko (Jun 4, 2009)

Man... Dana trolls so hard, it echos 6 months later.


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## Roflcopter (Sep 5, 2008)

Welp, the stress has officially turned into psychosis.

Poor Dana.


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