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UFC on 60 Minutes
By Zach Arnold | December 10, 2006
By Zach Arnold
Transcript and video of the segment here (or use this Daily Motion video link). Eye-opening things from the segment: An assertion that UFC could be worth $100 million USD and the IFL valued at $150 million USD. Plus the following quote:
“Uneducated gorillas that liked to go in there and basically kick the crap out of each other,” says Dana White, a former amateur boxer who thought the fights might be just the thing to draw an audience that advertisers often want most – men, ages 18 to 34. That group has been disappearing from TV audiences. White convinced investors to buy a league, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, or UFC. He adopted rules for the safety of the fighters and got 21 states to sanction the fights.
Yes, Dana White single-handedly adopted the rules that are in place — according to CBS. That’s right. The Zuffa Myth is back in full force. Line #1, Mr. Nick Lembo. Notice that I am not the only one paying attention to this.
More thoughts on the TV segment from UFC Junkie.
Topics: All Topics, IFL, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 37 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
LOL, I’m a liitle confused, if the UFC is worth $100 million, and the IFL is worth $150 million then how to they get off calling the IFL a fledgling promotion?
Talk about not being able to see the forest for the trees. This piece was largely excellent. Renzo Gracie and Pat Miletich came off great, The IFL came off great, the history of the Gracies was well-represented, they mentioned how many fighters are college-educated, they got a lot of the subtleties of the sport over to the casual viewer.
But no … Dana White lied, told the same lie he always told, so of course whomever posted this post is going to rip CBS for this. Never mind 60 Minutes put MMA in the most positive light they’ve ever been shown on network TV in front of an audience of millions. Dana White told the same lie he always told, so you have to fixate on that, as usual.
This is so tedious.
The statement regarding the IFL’s worth is a little misleading. Their stock shot up when it was announced that they would be featured in this 60 minutes segment. I am sure the stock will go back down in the near future.
Dave Meltzer said he had spoken with the producer of the piece and specifically told him not to use the Zuffa Myth.
As a lifelong pro-wrestling fan, I’ve had to endure the usual rhetoric about how Vince McMahon magically took pro-wrestling “out of smoke-filled rooms” and made it into what he did. It’s the same concept. UFC has no reason to push this claim (they are the king of the business), but they continue to do it. In my opinion, it comes across as a purposeful tactic. Tito Ortiz says it. Dana White says it over and over. It’s repeated and parroted by the same boxing writers in the mainstream newspapers that are now on the MMA beat.
The Zuffa Myth, not me pointing it out, is tedious.
^^^ Agreed.
If you can’t see what a positive this piece was for MMA, it isn’t even worth the bother of arguing it.
Anyways, people are free to have their own feelings on this issue and there’s nothing wrong with it. For some, it’s a case of giving credit where credit is due. For others, its about large companies attempting to rewrite history.
For me i’d say it’s a statement that I consider an exageration at worst. Did Dana White do ALL of the work on getting MMA sactioned and legal in many states? No … but he did a hell of a lot, enough that when he says “We were responsible for legalizing MMA all over the US”, I really don’t care that much.
You’re moving the goalposts here in your argument. Not once did I say it was a negative piece on MMA. I said there were some claimed facts that could be challenged.
No, but you instantly highlighted and focused in on the only minor negative of a very positive piece.
If 60 Minutes is this lax with fact checking the most basic elements of a story… It makes you wonder how much truth is in the really important stuff in the news on TV.
Overall, it was a positive piece for MMA. The way the reporter talked about MMA reminded me of how adults try to explain the internet. It always gets explained a little funny.
Well, you can’t accuse Zach of being pro-UFC. I can’t blame Zach for being fixated. Ever heard Bush speech? It’s the same feeling–the total urge to throw a BS flag when you dont have one.
They mentioned Kazushi Sakuraba, and for that, I’m very grateful.
Also, $100 mil was just something they said the UFC was worth at least… and they threw the IFL figure just to show how much it could be. I personally can’t imagine the UFC being any less than, say a NHL or NBA team right now, at around $250 mil at least.
The UFC, much like Pride and before it WCW, value is largely determined by their television deals and ability to convert that (either directly or indirectly) into revenue. At the moment UFC is the number one fight promotion in the world but unlike a basketball franchise, or UK football team, it is more vulnerable because it is the ‘league’ and not just a part of a ‘league’.
It also has shallow and short terms roots – that’s not to say it can’t solidify them but it is not in any way as secure as more established sports or even the WWE.
Jesus H Christ Zach!??!!?
I Totally agree with this comment. – “Talk about not being able to see the forest for the trees. This piece was largely excellent.”
Some people are just born to moan.
This was an excellent, excellent, excellent piece for the sport. It might not have been 100% totally factually correct, but it was excellent for the sport and that should be any MMA fan’s primary concern. Instead your only comment on it (in the headlined piece) is that it featured the Zuffa myth, then a completely incorrect summation of what was said about the financial valuations of the UFC and IFL.
All they ACTUALLY said the IFL was valued at $150m and gave NO FIGURE WHATSOEVER for the UFC, other than effectively “somewhere between 100 million and 1 billion” in an off the cuff chat.
As for their actual value, who knows really… If they do 700,000 for each event from now on at 14 events a year, that’s $392m a year PPV income. I’m not saying that’s profit of that they will average 700k PPV buys – I’m just giving the figure.
My general thoughts (apart from it being excellent) are that it was a very sneaky way of promoting IFL and Pride. Show UFC fighters talking about the UFC and overlay it with IFL and Pride footage… Very sneaky but I like it 🙂
by the way, here it is for anyone who hasnt seen it
http://media.putfile.com/60mins (only works in IE).
One last comment (because you’ve annoyed me and I’m fired up) 😛
This wasnt “UFC on 60 minutes” at all. It was a piece on MMA as a whole, which used (in every sense of the word) the UFC, to promote the whole sport and particular the orgs which feature on their sports channel.
I’m honestly beginning to wonder whether you actually saw the whole thing or whether you’ve just read a summary of it on another site and got your knickers in a twist about one sentence.
This was the single most positive and EDUCATED piece on MMA I have ever seen. It got one fact wrong which EVERYONE gets wrong, other than the hardest of hardcore fans! Give them a fucking break and even send them an email to say thank you for the positive publicity. FFS!
N.B. To hear them talk about the UFC value, go to 6 mins 40secs on the putfile video.
I watched it on TV. I watched the video clip of it (which is included right in the transcript). They interviewed Renzo and Miletich, but it was clear that UFC was the top dog in the piece.
60 Minutes is a news show. A news show is supposed to get their facts right. It is really not that hard to learn how the commissions developed the rules and what UFC’s true role was in the rules process. If I watch a news program (one that has journalists on it), I’d like to be comfortable in knowing that they got their facts lined up after spending a month or two preparing for the piece.
Bryan Alvarez, who is the main writer at F4W Online, immediately pointed out the Zuffa Myth. Dave Meltzer, according to Bryan, was in direct contact with the CBS 60 Minutes producers and specifically told them not to fall for the Zuffa Myth. When you have producers that are smartened up by someone and told what the real deal is and you go along with what the PR spin is, that’s complete crap and you know it. 60 Minutes is a show that in the past had a great reputation (sans the whole Rathergate issue), so for a news program to skip over what is a critical fact is egregious. Nick Lembo, who is counsel to the New Jersey athletic commission, e-mails authors in the mainstream media every time the Zuffa Myth is reprinted. He is very accessible in terms of getting quotes or stories from. E-mail, phone, etc. Always on the ball. CBS could have placed one phone call with him and gotten the entire story.
Why is it egregious? Because UFC’s selling point is its history. Rowan alluded to the fact that UFC’s value is largely based on their television deal, so what is it that UFC has to market or try to modify? It’s company history. There is absolutely no reason at this moment for UFC to lie or to ignore what the various commissions (including California and New Jersey) did for the sport. This is a trust issue. Fight fans want to see fights, sure, but they also want the promotion to be up front with them. Would it cost UFC a single dollar in business if they acknowledged the role that commissions like New Jersey had in changing the sport? No, of course not. So why push it the way it’s been pushed? Because it sounds like a more pallatable selling point for their company history.
Listen, if you think I always look for the Zuffa Myth in every UFC article, you are sadly mistaken. Before the piece aired on TV on the West Coast, I had two people immediately point out right before I saw the segment what was coming. I watched the segment twice for good measure – and sure enough, the Myth surfaced.
As Alvarez stated on Sunday night, as a fight fan the segment was positive for the sport. However, it was a segment with factually-challenged points. The IFL is valued at $150 million USD? How can they be a ‘fledgling’ operation if their value is more than what UFC’s perceived or claimed value is?
The purpose of this piece was to air it late in the show and hope that MMA fans would tune in so that they could get a younger demographic and better ratings for the show this week (as opposed to the usually geriatic audience demographic). I’m sure they succeeded. What they didn’t succeed at was not buying the PR spin about the Zuffa Myth in light of them being directly told by Dave Meltzer what the truth was. Inexcusable.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHH!
I spent 3 posts bascially saying “yes, it included the Zuffa myth and that might be worth a mention but is that all that was worth mentioning?!?” and all you can reply about is the f’ing Zuffa myth.
By all means, email them if you like and point it out but can’t you see anything positive in having an 11 minute news segment on MMA which was 100% positive in terms of it’s portrayal of the sport?
Also, PLEASE understand that I know what the Zuffa myth is and I know that NJ instigated the rules. Your posting of that little explanation just distracts from the debate with people like me and Mike who just think you’re being rediculous to focus on 5 seconds of an excellent 11 minute piece.
As for “well, they’re a news station so you’d think they’d get their facts straight”. Purely rediculous. A news station can have it’s own adgenda and can bend the truth in whatever way they like. The BBC ran the most ludicrous piece on “Cage Fighting” for example and even had to issue and apology. They even held up a WWE DVD for god’s sake. In that piece which aired on global news, you had to worry about them saying that it was only a matter of time before someone was killed, that it was far too brutal and sickening to show on civilised television, that 2 men entered and invariably one was carried out on a stretcher, fighting for life. THAT is an article which was worth complaining about. Whilst not 100% perfect, this one certainly wasnt – it was an article which deserves wholehearted praise!
Anyway, the point is the media has come a long, long, long way. This was an excellent piece. We get it that you don’t like the Zuffa myth but you’re being rediculous to focus on it in this circumstance. Mention it by all means but mention it in the context of the most positive piece on MMA in media history.
A summary of much that was said –
– MMA is safer than boxing (with medical evidence)
– An argument that it’s even safer than football
– Showed the characters of the sport to be well educated, polite and noble
– Showed the complexity and grace of the sport, comparing it to ballett
– Showed that it isnt cage fighting or ultimate fighting but mixed martial arts (emphasising the art – particularly in their last sentence summary)
– Explained why it is more complex and intricate than boxing
– And showed that it is popular with the mainstream and not underground
Oh and a final point just to stick a spanner in the works, are you telling me that Dana White and the success of the UFC under his leadership has had NO INFLUENCE WHATSOEVER in terms of helping get the sport get sanctioned in states such as California, for example? Are you telling me that Zuffa hiring Marc Ratner hasnt helped and will not help get the sport get sanctioned in more states? Because you highlighted that part of the quote as a “lie” at the top of the page too.
AND the piece doesnt say he invented any of the rules. It says he adopted them. That is actually not 100% incorrect because whilst he didnt make up the rules and whilst the UFC was already running under those rules for a couple of events before Zuffa took over, he certainly made a big deal of rules being a good thing when many of the smaller promoters were still going the other way (infact some smaller promoters STILL go the other way and promote the sport as bloody cage fighting).
To be honest, you can change two words in that “lie” quote and it would be 100% correct.
change
“He adopted rules for the safety of the fighters and got 21 states to sanction the fights.”
to
“He embraced rules for the safety of the fighters and helped get 21 states to sanction the fights.â€
To be honest, it REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEALLY isnt that big a deal. It’s annoying but THAT IS IT. Some people spend far too much time obsessing about it
Anyway, whatever. If you don’t think it was the best piece on MMA ever (which I do), please post a link to one that was better.
I agree, a few changes in wording by 60 minutes could have ended with a more factually complete statement on the subject. However, the UFC is in the business of selling soundbites. Everything Dana White says is designed to be taken and digested in a single sentence. Everyone cheered the ‘Football is more dangerous than MMA’ statement even though I have my suspicions that it’s a questionable argument from some angles.
Expecting the UFC to asterix their established soundbites to satisfy everyone isn’t realistic. They’re out there marketing. I’m sure if they were asked point blank about the exceptions they wouldn’t deny it. But so long as they’re on FoxNews and 60 Minutes and Howard Stern getting maybe 15 minutes of air time, you’ll continue to hear them simplify their message in order to create the best result for their product.
To make it in business, you must sell your company. In my line of work, we make ourselves out as if we “re-invented the wheel”. I’m so sick of people bitching about this “Zuffa Myth”. Just be happy 60 minutes did a piece on the UFC and we get more MMA on TV than ever before.
Shut up already.
How is the Zuffa Myth beneficial in selling the value of UFC to the public? If UFC stated the truth, it wouldn’t cost them a dollar. And it wouldn’t alienate or anger some of the commissions that would be friendlier to them.
It’s like when Vince McMahon and the WWE PR crew still continue to claim that they drew 93,000 for WrestleMania 3 in Detroit when they drew 73,000. 73,000 is 73,000. Big is big. It’s the over-the-top embellishment or lying that serves no real marketing purpose that is silly.
Zach, would you care to make any comments on this piece which aren’t about the Zuffa myth?
If you’re not prepared to give a balanced view, you lose a lot of credibility in my eyes.
Overall, it was fine. I didn’t come away from it wowed to a high degree. I suspected that when the various promotions and fighters were pushing the piece ahead of time (like the IFL) that it was beneficial to some degree.
Thanks for the reply.
Honestly I’m not sure what you expect from mainstream media if that was only “fine” though, at this stage of MMA’s development. Like I said, feel free to let me know of a better piece if there are any, cos I’d like to see it.
I’m sure an MMA fan might be able to make a more interesting piece (to and for other MMA fans), but when it comes to a piece for the uninformed masses, this was as good as I think anyone could do in 11 minutes.
For the ratings that 60 Minutes still draws now, it’s not what it used to be in the past. And the audience demographic skews very old (Baby Boomer and older) for the most part. The MMA segment’s purpose (in my opinion) by the producers was to try to draw in younger fans and get a new demographic to their show this week (as I alluded to earlier). On that level, I think it will be successful.
With that stated, I’m not sure how to angle the fall-out (if any) from this segment. The majority of Baby Boomers (or people older) that are boxing fans are unlikely to be converted to MMA. I guess the one argument you could make is that the generally positive piece might be an “influencer” for TV network executives who are in the Baby Boomer age range or older, but I’m not sure that those types of executives care right now about MMA anyways. Perhaps you can angle it as a call to advertisers who are ran by older management that MMA is safe to invest money in. Even on that level, I’m not sure that MMA is a great target audience range for what the audience 60 Minutes usually draws (the sponsors on 60 Minutes ranges anywhere from Ensure to medical commercials, ads aimed at older people who generally fall outside of the 18-34 male demographic). It’s the networks with younger executives (like Spike TV) that are driving the MMA boom and want to put resources into the product.
“60 Minutes is a news show. A news show is supposed to get their facts right.”
Didn’t the most popular anchor in CBS history get fired for reporting without checking facts?
They have got / will get lots of positive emails from sherdoggers on this.
The poll on yahoo where these vids are posted is also 90% positive in terms of MMA.
This was a positive article which generated a positive response. I think that will encourage the network (and perhaps other networks) to continue portraying the sport in a positive light rather than a negative one (which inevitably results in a mass backlash from the online MMA community).
Positive article > positive re-inforcement from fans > more positive articles and coverage > perhaps a better slot for IFL. MMA is a massivel niche which is largely under catered for. If you give these fans what they want they will pay you back with a good degree of loyalty.
Whether it appeals to the old fogies or not, I dont think will matter a great deal… and neither of us think that was their goal anyway. Perhaps 10% of baby boomers who’d have chirped up with some ignorant comment at a dinner party, might think twice now after having seen this piece.
I don’t think anyone’s arguing about the positive aspects of this story, and even when you’re happy about the item as a whole doesn’t mean you can’t take people to task on specifics.
I did allude to Rathergate up above, but that said 60 Minutes still is a valuable brand in terms of viewers from an older demographic who are less Internet savvy than others.
48 Rules of Power
Law 7
Get others to do the Work for you, but Always Take the Credit
Use the wisdom, knowledge, and legwork of other people to further your own cause. Not only will such assistance save you valuable time and energy, it will give you a godlike aura of efficiency and speed. In the end your helpers will be forgotten and you will be remembered. Never do yourself what others can do for you.
Speaking with a former segment producer at MSNBC, she confirmed the following:
1. Stories have to the pitched. Anything that simplifies the story and makes it more easy to understand, makes its a more desirable story.
2. Producers are under very tight deadlines and don’t have a lot of time to get the story perfect.
3. These kinds of factual errors happen ALL the time in the “media” and certainly this situation with the UFC myth is not unique.
Zach said the UFC has nothing to benefit from telling the truth and that’s not true. With tight deadlines and all the news noise competing for attention, the UFC Myth makes the story of the fall and rise of MMA much easier to tell and that benefits the UFC and MMA.
I can’t say that this is morally right, but people need to understand that this isn’t an evil corporation or a meglomanical Dana White trying to “rewrite” history to bolster their own ego. This has more to do with the media and how they create stories.
Tshirt said it best. In the greater scheme of things, this really isn’t that big a deal and MMA websites need to dial it down and report on the situation more objectively.
“What they didn’t succeed at was not buying the PR spin about the Zuffa Myth in light of them being directly told by Dave Meltzer what the truth was. Inexcusable.”
From their standpoint though, are they supposed to drop everything the head of a major fight promotion has to say, because this guy sweatly rambled on about some “Zuffa myth” to them?
http://www.superstarbillygraham.com/images/meltzerlogo.jpg
I’ve been an MMA fan for over 12 years, this was one of the few positive looks the sport has gotten on television, I’ll take the Zuffa myth over tales of barbaric thugs beating each other to death in a cage.
I agree that the segment had positive value and was better than the usual discussion in the broadsheets.
Well, in this specific case, they apparently did talk to Dave Meltzer direct. And he did tell them about how the newer rules were implemented. So, this wasn’t a case of ignorance (because they had a source right there telling them the truth). I wouldn’t call it lazyness, either. I don’t know what to call it.
Why has the media ignored the “truth” in so many cases? Because its convinient to the producers who don’t have a lot of air time and resources to explain every detail in a short segement. Saying how the Zuffa saved the UFC by doing X, Y and Z is short and comprehensible to the average joe. Again, I’m not saying this is right. I’m just explaining the dynamics of how the media works.
I’m sure Meltzer told them that the NJAC was the first to sanction MMA under the current rules. It is not hard to get the NJAC to affirm the version of the story as told by Meltzer. The final answer is that it was not a BIG deal to them or to most people how the sport was sanctioned. It is much simpler to say Zuffa saved the day. To tell the story correctly and place emphasis on the proper instances which led to the sanctioning of MMA would have taken up most of the segment and not allowed the story to place emphasis on the growth of the sport today. The peice was great for the sport and just happened to make Dana look good in the process.
“the sport was sanctioned. It is much simpler to say Zuffa saved the day. To tell the story correctly and place emphasis on the proper instances which led to the sanctioning of MMA would have taken up most of the segment and not allowed the story to place emphasis on the growth of the sport today.”
No, it wouldn’t have. All they had to do was not lie. They didn’t have to go into all the details of how it got sanctioned and where it got sanctioned and when it got sanctioned. Just don’t lie and say that Dana White added all these rules that he had nothing to do with.
Also, to all the people who have implored the MMA media to stop pointing it out when this lie is propagated in more and more mainstream media outlets, and that the MMA media should just “leave it alone,” I’m really struggling to understand the logic behind that argument. If a person or company constantly repeats a set of blatantly false statements, it’s not the press’ job to point it out? And if that person or company continues to propagate the same misinformation and it airs on national TV in front of an audience of 15 million, it’s not the press’ job to point it out again? I guess I must have forgotten about the rule of journalism which states that if a company that you routinely cover consistently and repeatedly makes false statements about a particular topic, you should stop mentioning it if they do it often enough.
You know, about this whole “Zuffa Myth”…
It’s an “archive” for web sites over the years. It takes a sort of snap shot of the page and stores it for viewing later. I found this little article from 4.3.01 from Sherdog.com.
Link: http://web.archive.org/web/20010410003152/http://www.sherdog.com/index.html#040301
Just an neat piece of history for those interested in the topic.