IT’S DIFFICULT TO imagine now, but for the first quarter of this year it seemed unlikely that the UFC would host an event in Ireland in 2015.
In spite of the enormous success of UFC Fight Night 46 in Dublin in July 2014, a lack of available dates and the fact that Conor McGregor has since out-grown the 3Arena caused doubts in the minds of UFC officials about the success of an event in Ireland without the country’s biggest mixed martial arts star.
Nevertheless, the organisation eventually voted in favour of a return to the Irish capital for 24 October and the event — UFC Fight Night 76, headlined by Joseph Duffy versus Dustin Poirier — sold out last week within a minute of tickets being put on general sale.
The pace at which tickets were snapped up told the UFC that although Conor McGregor has spearheaded their expansion here, the UFC brand itself — along with other fighters such as Duffy and Paddy Holohan — is now valuable enough to garner the attention of Irish fans, whether McGregor is involved or not.
The UFC continues to be surprised by the appetite of the Irish market. Having given the organisation nothing for 20 years, Ireland is now at the forefront of the UFC’s growth in Europe and nowhere else in the world can match it, says Joe Carr, the UFC’s Vice President of International Development.
“From someone who grew up in an Irish community, you see how much Irish culture, tradition and heritage has impacted America and other places around the world,” said Carr when he sat down for a chat with The42 in Dublin.
A native of Boston, Carr’s role involves managing the UFC’s international business and offices overseas. His first visit to Dublin was in 2011 when he worked for a real estate private equity firm — ‘We were looking at a portfolio of Irish real estate loans when NAMA had taken all that bad debt from the banks’.
Carr continued: “I don’t think we could have imagined the success the UFC has had in Ireland and the stars we’ve built, and how that has impacted our European business as a whole, and the subsequent spill-over into the US.
“You can’t give Conor McGregor enough credit for what he’s done. It’s been his personality; how charismatic he is, how polarising he is. I’m sure his approval rating in Ireland is around 75/80%, but in the US he’s a lot more polarising. You either love him or you hate him, but at the end of the day you have an opinion.
“No one could have predicted what has taken place over the last two years, but I also think the company has done a good job strategically. We had Conor fight in Boston — a big Irish market — twice.
“He headlined here in Dublin when people said, who’s Conor McGregor, why’s he headlining a card? That was his coming-out party. It completely changed his trajectory and the trajectory of our business in Ireland and Europe. We’ve built him up.
“It’s been an amazing run and now we’re sitting here, almost at the end of the year, and if I told you 12 months ago that we might have three European champions [women's strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk, interim featherweight champion Conor McGregor and light-heavyweight title challenger Alexander Gustafsson] at the end of 2015, you would have laughed at me. Yet here we are.
“This market is on fire right now and I don’t think there’s been a stronger growth market over the last two years anywhere else in the world.”
When asked if the UFC were surprised by the level of interest in an event in Ireland that won’t feature Conor McGregor, Carr said: “It just shows how powerful the Irish fanbase is and that it’s the UFC brand that people love. Joseph Duffy is maybe not as famous or as popular as Conor McGregor, but he very much resonates with the Irish people in his demeanour. He’s calm, he’s cool, but he takes care of business.
“But the other thing people are forgetting is that the co-main event between Ben Rothwell and Stipe Miocic is a massive fight which would headline most other cards. It’s an amazing card and you’ve got some of the other Irish fighters on it too — Paddy Holohan, Cathal Pendred, Aisling Daly, Norman Parke, Neil Seery.
“We put on an amazing event here last year and if you were there, I don’t see how you could not want to have bought a ticket for this one. It was the best UFC event I’ve ever been to in my four years here. And then you also have that new wave of probably 40,000 newer fans who are thinking, I’ve got to get a piece of this.
“In hindsight regarding the ticket sales, we were probably a little more nervous than we should have been, but we were still cautiously optimistic. But when the numbers started coming in we all just looked at each other and smiled. It was much faster than last year.
“Conor is obviously responsible for a lot of that in everything he’s done for the business, but so are the team in our European office, the other Irish fighters and the fanbase here.”
The reaction to next month’s event at the 3Arena will only serve to add to the UFC’s belief that an event at Croke Park can be a success. It’s believed that if Conor McGregor defeats Jose Aldo in their featherweight title unification bout in Las Vegas on 12 December, the organisation will aim to schedule McGregor’s inaugural championship defence for GAA headquarters next April or May.
“We’re 100% confident that we can sell out Croke Park with a Conor McGregor fight, so it’s not a question of the Irish fans or the demand here,” said Carr.
“As we think about our global business, the challenge is if we do Croke Park in primetime here in Dublin on a pay-per-view, that means it’s the afternoon in the US, which causes some headwinds from a pay-per-view buy perspective. So that’s more of a financial decision.
“If Conor wins, he’s pretty good at getting what he wants. He’s been calling the shots for two years and he’s been delivering. From a brand perspective, if he gets by Jose Aldo, I think that’s something we’re going to consider.
“That’s what this brand is about. The UFC is about rolling the dice and making statements. We’re going to a 65,000-seater stadium in Australia in November with Ronda Rousey. Conor is no different.
“Could we put 80-to-100,000 people in Croke Park? Absolutely, 100%. I’ll tell ya, if he wins in December, that Croke Park noise is really going to start. Stay tuned because it’s something that’s definitely in the mix.”
There are several obstacles between the UFC and an event at Croke Park. The organisation would almost certainly lose out on pay-per-view revenue, but that could be offset by the long-term benefits of such a landmark event on this side of the Atlantic. The unreliable Irish climate could provide another challenge but none of the obstacles are insurmountable, Carr insists.
“Croke Park would be a brand statement for the business. It’s hard to financially quantify the return on a brand statement like that but you can’t tell me that it wouldn’t have a lasting impact and a spill-over effect on our European business. And even our American business.
“We’re not thinking short-term profitability. We’re thinking about the sport five, ten, twenty years down the road. And that’s going to pick up more steam and momentum as we get closer to December and the outcome of that fight with Jose Aldo.
“We’ve done the homework already. Obviously there’s planning involved but I think that’s the easy part. The logistics we can get through in terms of setting up the stadium, because we do that all over the world. We’ve done it in Toronto and we’re going to do it in Australia, so I’m not actually concerned about that piece of it.
“It’s more about, as a business, committing to it and getting the right fight at the right time of year. As much as I love Dublin, the weather’s not the most co-operative. That’s something we’ll have to figure out but if we want to do it, we’ll be able to do it.”
Carr also admitted that the success of fighters like Conor McGregor and Ronda Rousey has left the UFC in a stronger bargaining position when it comes to attracting the interest of major broadcasters like Sky Sports. The UFC’s current three-year deal with BT Sport in Ireland and the UK is due to expire in 2016.
“The brand is in a much stronger place now,” Carr said. “We’ve done a lot of work over the last year or so. These are the best athletes in the world. It’s not fighting, it’s the pinnacle of athletic competition.
“Our ratings have continued to improve on BT, but they deserve a lot of credit too. BT invested in us a few years ago and have done a great job promoting us. They’ve been amazing partners and that has helped to build our viewership and our ratings.
“When deals are up in sports there’s usually multiple bidders, everyone wants a piece of your content, so we’ll see which direction it goes. But we’re confident that we’re going to have a major pay-TV partner when that deal expires. Who it’s going to be, I can’t tell you or promise you now, but we’re very happy with where we are and the last few years have been great for the business.”
As for appointing a successor to Dubliner Dave Allen, who departed from his role as the organisation’s head of operations in the EMEA [Europe, Middle East and Africa] region recently, Carr said the role will be filled internally and an announcement is due shortly.
“It’s something that we hope to reveal maybe in the next month or so, definitely ahead of the Dublin event. We thought long and hard about it, spoke to a number of different people, and we think it makes more sense to stay internal for this one. We’re excited for that person and the prospects for the business going forward.”
