San Francisco Chronicle refuses to cover MMA and UFC and UFC President bashes em

You typed "Quick, find me one fan that has been beaten at a UFC event the likes of which we have seen at baseball games and football games."

So I did.

I'll quit posting now before you rip off your TapOut tee shirt and try to choke me out.

 

I'm sorry. I disagree with this point of view completely but this line was hilarious!

 

Speaking of tap-out T-shirts...

Took my kids to the amusement park yesterday and these 20-something decked out in tattoos and a black Tap-Out T climbs aboard the Frog-Hopper alongside my 6-year-old and a pack of other first-graders.

Really dude? Perhaps you should rethink your ride choice, or at least your wardrobe. Should have grabbed a quick photo, but I couldn't stop chuckling long enough to snap one

 

Only, you didn't really show me a horror story like we have seen from MLB or NFL games. Nice joke though.

 

Now that the UFC is on FOX and now mainstream soon, will there be more mainstream papers and sites covering the great sport?

The UFC will be cross promoted with American Idol and NFL and other FOX broadcasts. Great day for MMA fans

 

the other 99 percent of us suffer.

 

I'm sure if there were an equal number of UFC events as there are MLB or NFL games, attended by the same number of people, we'd see it. Or I could talk to my buddies on the local PD. While they train at a local MMA gym, they refuse to work security off-duty at the local shows because of the crowd problems.

All this whining about lack of coverage is hilarious. How long was NASCAR putting tens of thousands in the stands before it got bigtime coverage?

It would help if Dana White wasn't better suited to being a two-bit thug than doing PR. Him tweeting F you at various media outlets doesn't help the UFC go mainstream. Even though their shirts have replaced Texas hold'em shirts on the rack at truck stops around the nation.

 

Those darned MMA crowds. Oh wait, no, it's another NFL crowd....

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/man_shot_after_dissing_ers_outside_x8FlEObMg2lTDkZ9MUSLzN

 

daily, as I said, comparing the actions of crowds that are much smaller for events held much less often doesn't work.

I've got some cop buddies who train in BJJ. Yet they won't work off-duty security when the local promoter throws his monthly card at the fairgrounds due to the problems in the crowd.

As I've said before (maybe on this thread even) I was watching the UFC when Gracie was in the gi and dominating. It's a niche sport. The niche is growing. But it's still a small niche.

 

It was a crowd of gang-bangers, Surenos vs. Nortenos -- the exact crowd Fox is trying to reach with the cross-promotion.

 

How about local shows? There's one coming to the Indian casino 30 miles away in a couple of weekends - they've been advertising a lot (probably because their tickets are ridiculously expensive for such an economically depressed area), but so far they haven't contacted me or my superiors. I know at least one of the "professionals" on the card is local.

I'm trying to be open-minded about the whole thing, but I've never watched or covered MMA in my life, so I don't know an arm-bar from a mini-bar. Not sure how it would play for our readers, either. Of course, a staffing snafu could render this all moot, but I wanted to get some feedback.

 

If you have the available staff and you know there's a local angle with one of the "pros," I'd lean toward going. Of course, how you cover it might vary depending on start time and how many fights are on the card. If you just have the one local, you might be better off focusing on him and giving the rest of the card a cursory mention.

Do you have contact info for the organizers? Maybe reaching out to them will help clear a path and turn up some other potential local angles (assuming they're at least mildly competent).

I was in your shoes not too long ago, being thrown in to cover a local MMA event. Like you, I had zero interest in MMA (still don't), but I was able to track down the organizer and sat beside him during the event, asking questions when I could be heard over the music. Your life will be easier if you find someone similar, if only to clarify what happens when the fighters get in a tangle and one taps out (knockouts are fairly self-evident). My article obviously lacked some of the nuance and detail a seasoned MMA viewer would provide, but I did my best to give the event and the fighters a fair shake and they seemed to appreciate the coverage. Hopefully you have a similarly non-negative experience.