UFC vs. NFL: Why the NFL Shouldn't Bother Going to the UK

The NFL will never succeed in the UK because of three letters: UFC.

The UFC has established a stranglehold on the UK; the Brits love their MMA and wont easily be wrested from it by over-payed prima donnas who are forced to play two-hand touch rather than classic American football.

How did this all get started?

In 2005, the NFL started something called the International Series, which was basically just a dog-and-pony show based around a single NFL game played in a foreign country.

The first was held in Mexico, the series picked up again in 2007 and was held in the UK each year.

Recently, the NFL has announced that the series will be taking place in the UK for a further three years, featuring the St. Louis Rams each time.

This is fine as far as getting the NFL name out there goes, but it pales in comparison to what the UFC has done across the pond. The NFL should just quit while they're ahead (or behind, as it were).

In 2006, a man named Michael Bisping made it onto the third season of the UFC reality series, The Ultimate Fighter (TUF), ignorant of the role he was to play in the sport and company's history.

Bisping proved his mettle fight after fight and ended up winning the show; the UFC finally had a foreign star it could build its overseas expansion on.

A year later, the UFC would hold its first two events in the UK in the Zuffa era, with Bisping being featured on the main card of one, and in the co-main event of the other.

These events planted the seed of MMA in the UK and the sport began to flourish there, so much so that the UFC was able to base an entire season of TUF around a US vs. UK theme in 2009.

The UFC has had many events in the UK since then and is even planning to set up another UK-based TUF, this time featuring Australia as the adversary rather than the US.

And what's the NFL done again? Host a handful of games there.

Targeting the UK as a gateway into Europe proper is a great strategy, but the NFL's expansion efforts in the UK are doomed because the UFC has the island nation locked up.

The UFC created a sport where there was none, a sport that appealed to the masses (or at least "masses" relative to the numbers that American football appeals to over there) as well as British superstars.

How many British football superstars are there for the NFL to market in the UK? None. And no offense to the current St.Louis Rams, but they aren't going to be the vanguard of any glorious expansion anywhere, ever.

Why are there none? Because British people don't grow up playing American football because they don't care about it. Do they know or care what a punt is or what the Wildcat formation is?

Of course not, they only care about real football and if they want to watch real football but with more contact, they'll watch rugby, a sport where devastating hits are welcomed and not banned.

The UFC and the NFL are different products with a different appeal.

Everyone on earth knows what a punch and knockout look like, so its far easier for the UFC to expand—people can get invested in the action because they understand it.

Conversely, most people outside the US (so that's most people on earth) don't really care about the NFL and American football.

Thus, the NFL's efforts in the UK will ultimately fail while the UFC continues to hold events in more and more countries.

Eventually, the UFC will become so massive globally that it'll dwarf the NFL in size. The football-crazy US will be naught but an island in a sea of MMA-obsessed countries.

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