How Dana White Can Make MMA the Biggest Sport in the World by 2020

Dana White’s dreams of making MMA the biggest sport in the world will come true by 2020.

As a rabid fan of MMA, do you ever just stop and say, “Wow, how’d we get this far?” I do a lot, and it's all still very surreal to me. Just about everywhere I look I see someone sporting a TapouT shirt. With the UFC starting to show fights on Fox, dare I say this sport has finally gone mainstream?

Back in 2005, I used to look at this sport as an underground obsession that hardly anyone knew about. Now, people from all over are talking about the UFC, and I believe this growth in popularity has just begun.

The biggest reason why I say that is the Fox deal. More and more people are going to be flipping through the channels, catch a fight on TV, watch it and like it, and sooner or later they’ll be just like us.

That’s how we all got hooked, right? In my case, I saw Tito Ortiz fighting on Spike, and I thought it was the craziest sport I’d ever come across. I became obsessed with hating Ortiz and wanted someone to put him away badly, and there came "The Iceman."

The rest is history, and in the past three years I haven’t missed a PPV. It puts quite the strain on the wallet, but that’s a different article for a different day.

A big reason for UFC’s growth is not only how athletically gifted and talented the fighters are, but also because the company’s ability to market fights is second to none.

I always tell my friends that the UFC can make you believe any fight will be closely contested and strike a sense of curiosity in the average fan. The numbers prove that.

Just look at what the UFC was able to do with its debut on Fox. It peaked around nine million viewers, and the fight lasted a little more than a minute. Not only did it do great in the United States, but it’s been heavily reported that the fight did around 60 million viewers in Brazil. That’s crazy.

The truth of the matter is White and his company have a sport that can translate in any language and any country. Everyone “gets” fighting.

It’s in our blood, and it’s human nature to pick up your hands and go to combat with another person. We’ve seen it for century through various wars, and we’ve seen the success that the sport of boxing has had for nearly a century.

The NFL has experienced troubles going into other countries because football is an American sport. Most people from other countries don’t understand it, and that’s where White and the UFC have an advantage.

The bottom line is that this sport is one of the greatest sports in the world, and if you catch a glimpse of it, it’s easy to fall in love with it.

It has some of the best athletes in the world with most of them showing honor and respect, and it’s truly remarkable to watch these fighters pull these techniques off.

All they need is a platform to show the world, and this Fox deal for the next seven years is going to do just that. Look for the UFC to become a global phenomenon in the next decade.