UFC has settled in China for the first time. How can niche sports open up the Chinese market?

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The purpose of the press conference was to introduce a middleweight duel held at the Mercedes-Benz Cultural Center in Shanghai on November 25 two months later-"UFC Fighting Night: Silva VS Gestrum". The purpose of the press conference was to introduce a middleweight duel held at the Mercedes-Benz Cultural Center in Shanghai on November 25 two months later-"UFC Fighting Night: Silva VS Gestrum".

on September 25th, UFC, the world's top integrated fighting championship, held a press conference in Shanghai. The purpose of the press conference is to introduce a middleweight showdown, "UFC fighting Night: Silva VS Gestrom", to be held at the Mercedes-Benz Cultural Center in Shanghai on November 25, two months later.

original title: UFC settled in Chinese mainland for the first time on the spot. What homework has it done?

"UFC fighting Night: Silva VS Gestrom" will be held on November 25th at Shanghai Mercedes-Benz Cultural Center.

although UFC has a great international influence, UFC programs are broadcast in 35 different languages in more than 1.1 billion regions around the world, but the game two months later is the first time that UFC has settled live in Chinese mainland. Therefore, many of the contents and links of the on-site press conference are related to the local situation.

along with Silva and Gestrum, Li Jingliang, a contestant from China, appeared at the press conference. A relatively niche sport hopes to open up a new market, and local athletes are always expected, such as Wang Bin, a Chinese player, in an exhibition match held by WWE in Shanghai. In addition, the press conference also announced that UFC had signed two female contestants from Liaoning, China, namely Yan Xiaonan and Wu Yanan.

Anderson Silva

Social media is another key target. Weibo accounts are attached to the introductions of the three Chinese contestants. However, in addition to the already famous Li Jingliang, who has nearly 200000 fans, Yan Xiaonan and Wu Yanan have only more than 7000 and 200 fans respectively.

the closer cooperation between UFC and Weibo comes from a national bodybuilding competition launched not long ago, in search of the first Chinese UFC card girl. After more than a month, two winners were finally selected. The topic of # UFC Chinese card girl # has more than 60 million readings and 33000 discussions on Weibo.

in 2015, PPTV announced its deep cooperation with UFC. The most important of these is to obtain the exclusive copyright of new media in Chinese mainland area of UFC for five years from March 2016 to February 2021, so that UFC events and programs can be broadcast and broadcast on demand for free. It was reported at that time that the cooperation between the two sides was not limited to the copyright of the event, but also included the promotion of the event and the training of contestants. It was necessary to build a whole industry chain of "copyright + promotion + competition + player training".

on PPTV's UFC page, in addition to regular events, short videos are updated with events or news, such as this press conference is edited into different clips. UFC hopes to let the audience know more about the sport through short videos, so it has also partnered with platforms such as second shot, Toutiao and Youku. In the video related to the event, there are few videos with more than 500000 hits, except for the previously hotly debated cross-border battle between McGregor and Mayweather with 2.61 million hits. This is still a far cry from the WWE, which has 2 million comments.

however, UFC has gained a lot of fans in the mainland through video. According to Zhang Zhuolin, vice president of UFC Asia Pacific, there are 93 million UFC followers in Asia, of which 28 million are in Chinese mainland region. Moreover, WWE's click shows that UFC has more room to fight for sports enthusiasts.

UFC's revenue reached $600m in 2015. In 2016, brokerage WME | IMG bought UFC for $4 billion. At home, it still depends on phenomenal events, such as the previous match between McGregor and Mayweather. Two months later, Silva VS Gestrom was expected to do the same. On the Barley website's ticket sales page, SuperFan Super Fan package, HollywoodRow Avenue of Stars package and P1, P2, P3 and P7 districts have all been sold out; 880RMB in P4, 680RMB in P5 and 480RMB in P6 are still on sale.

Edit: mary