You Herd Me!: I'll Say It If Nobody Else Will (22 page)

White tells a really, really good story, and he understands the power of narrative. He has created storylines and rivalries, with humble, everyman stars who don’t command extreme salaries. The sport sells a brand of affordable sex appeal that attracts members of both sexes in the targeted youth demographic.

UFC isn’t flourishing because it suddenly picked up massive amounts of media support. You don’t read long, detailed stories about its championship bouts in the
New York Times
. In fact, they’ve used that to their advantage, too. The lack of media
attention has created a revolutionary feel to the sport—screw the rest of you, this is
my
sport.

Like most people my age who grew up with the mainstream sports, I was highly skeptical of cage fighting when I first laid eyes on it in 1995. I was in San Francisco at the end of a long night with friends when we walked into a bar called The Condor. Dark and rough, it was the perfect place to experience what was beaming down at us from several big screens.

At this point, the sport wasn’t called MMA. In my mind, it could have easily been named WHW, for What the Hell Am I Watching?

It was a series of raw, uncomfortably violent fights. Eye gouging was permitted, and I can only hope the American Optometrists Association lodged a formal complaint. It was the sort of scene I can imagine seeing in a rural tavern at 2 a.m. the night of a plant closure. Or maybe in the parking lot of a Raider game.

I watched, but I was disgusted.

Nearly two decades later, the sport is not only standing but punching back.

My bad.

White’s efforts have tapped into a vein of American sports fan who doesn’t find much to like in baseball, basketball, and football. They connect to the anarchist mentality of MMA. It’s back to the insider idea; they’re getting something they can’t get somewhere else. They draw strength from knowing there are other people out there like them. Watching UFC and wearing TapOut gear is like nodding along to Limbaugh or laughing at one of Letterman’s failed jokes.

The success of MMA—and specifically the UFC—proves the customer is always right. The marketplace dictates success and failure. Sports networks have promoted women’s basketball, college
baseball, the Tour de France, and rodeo, but those audiences remain small. Ultimate fighting, however, exploded in popularity without the benefit of a “sugar daddy” network or even a popular proponent among newspaper columnists. The sport was virtually ignored when it wasn’t being singled out for ridicule or elimination.

Through the years, the sport blew through every major disadvantage.

The critics haven’t disappeared. They feel the sport has blossomed only on the strength of bloodlust. Violence sells, right? Then why isn’t hockey more popular? Why has boxing basically vanished?

Simple: MMA survived, and thrived, because it made people care. It connected with its core audience and made it feel important and special. It sold a grassroots narrative that a lot of people on the fringes identified with.

I don’t have to love or even regularly consume a product to respect its path to popularity. The rise of MMA, over and through countless obstacles, highlights a bigger and more inspirational story: people with ideas and passion overcome the roadblocks that are placed in front of them. The defining quality is passion, not fancy titles or bloated ad campaigns or celebrity endorsers.

Starbucks overcame the Great Recession not by slashing prices or ramping up a fancy television campaign but by speeding up service and touting a have-it-your-way Frappuccino. My mom and dad didn’t get in the car and drive somewhere to get their cup of Folgers, but millions feel their days aren’t complete without their 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Starbucks runs.

Great ideas and great thinkers can thrive in the worst economy and against the longest odds. The UFC is proof.

So all of you sports leagues and teams whining about lack
of media coverage need to look to Dana White and MMA for an example of how to make it work.

Tell a better story. Cast yourself as a revolutionary or an underdog. Connect with your constituents. Make them believe you’re giving them something they can’t get anywhere else.

Listen to Dana White.

Or, if all else fails, Rush Limbaugh.

Hockey is never going to be as popular in this country as football or basketball. It didn’t originate here, and it’s just so much better in person than on television. Probably comparable to Broadway. You can only really feel it if you’re there.

But the sport doesn’t do itself any favors with marketing. When they returned after the strike, the ad campaign they sold to the public was, “Hockey is back.”

Now, think about that. You are reminding us that you left. Reminding fans of your labor strife.

“Hey fans, we may have ticked you off. We realize you’re the most loyal fans in sports. But listen, we are back. Now. Today. What’s up?”

Brilliant.

This is a sport with so many assets. It has great parity and good-looking players who play through injuries. There’re very few divas and, unlike most pro sports, it’s mostly relatable dudes. The sport is also superfast with a regulated level of violence. Many major cities such as Boston, New York, Detroit, Chicago, and Philadelphia love the sport. Yet can most sports fans name four players?

Introduce me to those guys.

Be demographic specific in your ads. Sell young people and maybe women. Sell a party, not just the sport. It’s how Mark Cuban turned around the Dallas Mavericks. Invite the sexiest girls in town. The guys will follow.

Let the party begin. Get the ten best-looking guys in the league, splice in some hard checks, some great goals. Sell the speed of the game. This is what real men play. You can’t turn the channel even if you dislike hockey. Let me see the fans. Hockey fans are nuts. Add some hip music and remember, you are selling a vibe, not just a sport.

Then have those guys look straight into a camera and say, “Ladies, we’re in town this week. We’re having a party. Bring some of your friends.”

Fade to black. White letters then appear. “The party is back. Bring your friends.”

Now that is a place I want to hang out. Stop reminding me you dumped me and broke my heart.

If you’re anything like me, parenting is one continuous reality check. When your son is five, you think he could become President of the United States. By six you’re hoping he could be president of a fraternity and by seven you’re awake nights praying he doesn’t end up on a grainy security tape on the eleven o’clock news.

The ups and downs are tough. I’ve also come to realize I’m much more forgiving of my kids than I might be of, say,
your
kids. Mine just make common, age-appropriate mistakes—
phases
, let’s call them—while your kids are completely undisciplined and probably need counseling.

My philosophy pretty much boils down to this: I love my kids; I tolerate yours.

I have high hopes for my kids, and I’ll defend them to the death. Come to think of it, I’m a lot like Boston, the most peculiar and parochial sports city in America.

Fans in every city have emotional connections to their teams. There’s no debating that. But as I have discovered, Boston takes it a step further. A
big
step.

I was first hired by ESPN ten years ago, and I made a simple request to get television ratings for every market for every event, large or small.

Immediately, one truth became undeniable: Boston is, without debate, the most provincial major market in the country.

Rose Bowl? Not interested.

Indy 500? Crickets.

Final Four? Final
What
?

I’m not here to claim Chicago loves NASCAR or New York is a college football Mecca, but Boston’s ratings were a healthy notch below the norm for every major event that didn’t include a Boston-area team.

I can hear it now. Every Fitzy or Patrick O’Connor on the South End is hollering, “So what? This ain’t a college town. All we care about are pro sports.”

Fine, but the same argument could be made for several major cities—Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Dallas—where they still watch nonlocal teams far more often. Boston, judging by the numbers, is a world all its own.

Why? Is it geographical? Boston’s tucked up in a corner of the country with no connection to the rest of the nation. Am I supposed to believe that? I’m supposed to believe that one of the most educated cities in the world doesn’t get cable TV or the Internet? Does the Red Zone Channel fail to penetrate New England? For a quick comparison, take Honolulu. It’s a city with quite a bit of outdoor entertainment. It’s not exactly rubbing elbows with Iowa. And yet it’s the highest-rated NFL market without a team. Sorry, Tommy Boy, the count’s now 0-2.

The numbers I found most surprising were World Series ratings. We all know Boston as a hub of baseball history and enthusiasm. But explain this: from 2010 to 2012, a three-year span, World Series ratings in Boston were substantially lower than most major markets. They were even lower than many markets without major-league franchises.

How can that be? Boston
is
baseball, right?

Nope. It just loves its own kids.

Judging sports towns can be tricky. Los Angeles has a terrible reputation. It’s the place where fans arrive late and leave early. It’s apathetic. It’s dependent on trends and glamour and who’s hot
now. But going through the last five years of attendance figures, the Dodgers and Angels outdrew the Yankees and Mets in four of them, with the fifth being a draw. Those numbers have to include a significant notation: during that time the Dodgers were owned by the slippery Frank McCourt, who was so despised that many Dodger fans protested his ownership in the final year by refusing to attend games.

For the most part, we have a grasp on the cities that occupy the pantheon of sports fandom. The exception is Boston, which gets high marks despite not seeming to care about anything outside its immediate vicinity.

I’m trying to figure this out. These kinds of sociological oddities fascinate me, and I’ve come up with two possible roadblocks Boston faces when it comes to caring about anything past its nose.