The Future of the WEC Brand
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The reaction to this past
Saturday’s ‘Aldo Vs Faber’ event has been unanimously positive across the board
with the company taking a solid position as the # 2 promotion in North America.
Amidst the praise and
adulation the show has received there has been a tremendous amount of head
scratching over the branding of the event with the letters ‘WEC’ all but
expunged from Saturday night’s offering.
To the loyal fans of the
promotion that have been following their cards long before the December 2006
purchase by Zuffa it is a blow to their loyalty but it becomes an example of
penny wise and pound foolish to live in this bubble that believes the WEC brand
is going to resonate on a worldwide level and confusing the central cause of
the industries explosion in the last five years.
Now is the time that Zuffa
needs to take a hard stance and realize that the UFC brand is the strongest in
the sport and are the letters that will pull in a new audience that is going to
take this promotion to the next level.
Strikeforce has proven
that stars cannot be created on a platform such as Showtime where audiences
range in the 300,000 neighborhood nor can WEC create a sound business model on
the Versus network alone.
In my opinion it’s time to
wash out the WEC letters altogether and brand this entire entity ‘UFC’ and
encompass all of the weight classes thus melding together and adding two new
weight divisions to the larger audience (145, 135) with a potential third
weight division in the proposed 125 pound class.
The selling feature of the
promotion is a near guarantee of exciting fights on a consistent basis.
However, it is not about producing great fights that are going to elevate this
promotion into a pay per view juggernaut – it’s the ability to create stars and
expose these personalities to the largest audience possible, who will be
invested enough to plop down $45 on a semi regular basis.
The UFC has done such a
tremendous job in marketing that fans are typically going to be sold on the
fact that ‘the UFC has a show on Saturday’ as opposed to who is fighting, the
company has delivered on a continual level that the brand overshadows the
talent with the exception of the top draws in the company that make a sizeable
difference.
I, more than anyone want
to see the stars of the WEC finally bank in on their skills and to see Urijah
Faber, Mike Thomas Brown, Manny Gamburyan, Jamie Varner etc start to see the
pay days that are consistent with the level of output they have showcased for
years on a smaller scale.
The dyed in the wool WEC
fans fail to see the forrest from the trees and a complete re-branding of the
promotion is not a slap in the face nor a snubbing of the past accomplishments of
the organization it is merely the best step forward in evolving this promotion
and creating a new avenue for fight fans to drop their money.
They key now is in
establishing a platform to create an interest to a follow up pay per view. The
biggest draw from a casual fan’s point of view is still Urijah Faber who finds
himself out of the featherweight title picture and a potential drop down to
bantamweight to remain in featured fights, the next biggest draw one could
argue is Jens Pulver who still has an unbelievable connection with his audience
but is a fighter you can no longer put anywhere near the top of a card based on
his last five outings.
Jose Aldo, Benson Henderson,
Dominic Cruz, Joseph Benavidez, Jamie Varner, Donald Cerrone and a whole host
of other fighters in the organization have the potential to be taken to the
next level but they need to be exploited much in the same
way the UFC took talented fighters and exposed them to the masses via ‘Ultimate
Fighter’ and we understood who these performers were.
The average fan knows that
the above listed performers are all tremendous fighters but that is all they
know about them. The countdown specials, reality shows and general mass
exposure are key ingredients in establishing their personalities and breaking
down the wall of ‘talented fighter you will watch for free on TV’ and turn them
into a widespread personality that you are willing to pay money to see.
We now await the results
of the first pay per view offering to see how big the interest level was for
this show because the momentum coming out of this show is such that growth is
the only logical next step.
A UFC branded ‘WEC’ is the
best for all parties concerned and creates a further ownership of the MMA pie by
Zuffa, which competing organizations will be forced to live off of the crums
left over by the big monster.
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