International expansion has been one of the tentpoles of the UFC's business strategy for most of the last decade. New international markets mean new international TV deals, which mean substantial and ongoing sources of additional revenue even in the absence of live events in those countries. They mean new talent and potentially new fans, which in turn drives revenue even higher.
It's a sound and logical strategy, but one that has seen both highs and lows.
The UFC's branching out beyond the United States began early in its existence, with an event in Brazil in 1998, four in Japan between 1997 and 2000 and one in the United Kingdom in 2002. It would be another five years before the promotion left the United States again, however.
2007 marked the beginning of the UFC's modern efforts at becoming a global brand. It purchased Pride Fighting Championships in March and followed that with an event in Manchester, England, in April. Shows in Belfast, Ireland, and London followed later in 2007, and another three shows graced the UK in 2008.
That same year saw the UFC's first event in Canada, when Georges St-Pierre dominated Matt Serra to reclaim the welterweight title. A card in Dublin featuring Dan Henderson and Rich Franklin kicked off 2009, and Germany followed shortly thereafter. 2010 saw expansion to Australia and a single card in Abu Dhabi that was meant to be the start of a regular rotation, but which has never panned out as such.
The UFC finally returned to Brazil in 2011, relying on the burgeoning stardom of Anderson Silva to reach out to its long-neglected fans in South America.
2012, however, marked the point where international expansion reached a fever pitch. Twelve of the promotion's 32 events were held overseas, with shows in Brazil, Japan, Sweden, Canada, the UK, Australia and China. Fifteen of 33 cards in 2013 were outside the United States, and the promotion's conception of itself as a global brand was by then firmly established.
Things got out of hand in 2014. The promotion expanded its schedule to an unwieldy 45 events, of which 22 were outside the US. It marked the UFC's first trips to Singapore, New Zealand and Mexico, and featured a single day—October 4—on which it held events in both Sweden and Nova Scotia.
Two events in China followed up on a subpar season of The Ultimate Fighter and effectively amounted to throwing good money after bad. The promotion's ill-fated venture into China reached the level of farce when its drug testing accused headliner Cung Le of using human growth hormone but badly botched both the testing itself and its response to the situation.
The UFC's efforts in East Asia were a fiasco. The product, particularly that of the TUF China competitors, was bad by any standard. The Singapore show reportedly failed to turn a profit, and it's hard to imagine either of the events in China did. The promotion's office in China closed in 2014, and the Singapore office saw mass turnover of staff in the same year. Earlier plans to begin operating in India were thankfully shelved.
2015 was a retrenchment for the UFC, and it appears it learned valuable lessons about which markets are worth its time.
Only 18 of 41 events were held overseas. Expansion shows in Poland, the Philippines, Scotland and South Korea all drew on already existing and strong local MMA scenes rather than attempting to build them from scratch, particularly in Poland and South Korea.
Those countries have great bases of talent and well-developed systems of local and regional promotions to hone it. In places like China, or even worse India, that infrastructure simply doesn't exist.
This is the common thread that runs through each of the UFC's successful international expansions: The talent is already there and promotions utilize it, which both develops potential international-level fighters and speaks to an underlying level of public interest in the sport.
The UK had this in 2007, Canada had it in 2008, Australia had it in 2010 and Ireland had reached that point by 2014.
And that's why the UFC should expend as much effort as possible to get into Russia. The talent exists, and so too does a network of existing promotions, some of which have been in operation for a very long time.
In January 2015, the promotion signed a substantial broadcast deal with VGTRK, the state-owned company that operates individual television networks in Russia. This gave the UFC access to a large slice of the Russian public, as Match TV, its primary broadcaster, is part of the basic television package following the demise of Russia-2, with which it initially had a deal.
Accessibility is only part of the equation, though. Russia, the home of the legendary Fedor Emelianenko, is the source of the most exciting up-and-coming talent in all of MMA right now.
We're not talking about a few fighters who, if carefully groomed, might become UFC mid-carders; instead, there is at least one potential top-five fighter and even a possible future champion hailing from Russia in practically every weight class. Some of them are already in the UFC, and others are still on the regional scene waiting for a call-up.
Khabib Nurmagomedov is the best known of these budding contenders. He holds a win over the current lightweight champion and will likely receive a title shot if he beats Tony Ferguson in his return from long-running injuries this coming April. Ali Bagautinov already challenged for the flyweight title. Rustam Khabilov has already challenged some of the lightweight elite.
Albert Tumenov and Rashid Magomedov have recently snuck into the UFC's rankings, and the former looks like a mortal lock to reach the elite even in the stacked welterweight division. The talented Ruslan Magomedov is one of the few youthful heavyweights in the UFC and by sheer dint of aging and attrition should reach the peaks of the weight class.
Talented up-and-comers like Islam Makhachev, Magomed Mustafaev, Mairbek Taisumov and Zubaira Tukhugov are all on the cusp of big things in the UFC as well.
Outside the UFC, the situation is just as bright. Andrey Koreshkov is Bellator's welterweight champion, and World Series of Fighting has invested heavily in Russian talent, including Abubakar Nurmagomedov, the cousin of Khabib.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Eight of the top 25 MMA prospects in the world, per Bleacher Report's recent list, hail from Russia. That's more than any other country, including the United States, and there were many other fighters who could make an impact in a major promotion either now or in the future.
It's impossible to overstate just how rich the talent pool is in Russia, particularly its North Caucasus region, which includes Chechnya and Dagestan. Even local shows like Absolute Championship Berkut's "Young Eagles" series (in contrast to its larger efforts) feature multiple fighters who could easily reach the international level.
ACB is only one of the competent and talent-rich promotions in Russia. There's also the Akhmat series based in Chechnya, which is affiliated with a talented fight team; the venerable M-1 promotion formerly affiliated with Emelianenko, which has produced UFC talent like Rashid Magomedov; and Eurasia Fight Nights, which is now broadcast on UFC Fight Pass.
The UFC already has plans to expand in Europe in 2016. It has announced shows in Croatia, which will take place on April 10, and a May show in Holland.
The Croatia event can draw on the solid talent of the surrounding Balkan region, but the event in the Netherlands is questionable: There are few local promotions and little local talent. Unless the intention is to use it as a proxy for the larger French and German markets, which are relatively close, it's hard to see the show in Rotterdam as anything other than a mistake.
Holland and Croatia are sideshows. Russia is the crown jewel, even compared to talent-rich Poland, which has already produced a UFC champion in Joanna Jedrzejczyk. While there are inherent difficulties to doing business in Russia, it would be worth any effort the promotion could expend.
We can go a step further. Russia is a country of nearly 150 million people, and it's home to the richest concentration of talent in the world, particularly in the North Caucasus. The UFC must find a way to get into Russia: It's the most worthwhile place left for it to crack, and given the talent and level of popular interest, potentially its best long-term market after the United States.
Patrick Wyman is the Senior MMA Analyst for Bleacher Report and the co-host of the Heavy Hands Podcast, your source for the finer points of face-punching. He can be found on Twitter and on Facebook.
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