Abstract
Mixed martial arts emerged as a major player in the sports industry during the 2000s, with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) growing into the sport's foremost promotion. Critical to the promotion's management is understanding fan consumption choices. Using economic demand theory, we draw on the spectator motivation and team sports demand literatures to provide an empirical analysis of what drives demand for mixed martial arts events. Our regression models show that economic and scheduling considerations explain the variation in UFC attendance. The popular notion that The Ultimate Fighter reality series served as the impetus for the UFC's growth is unsupported by time series analysis and numerous independent variables in our model.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 206-224 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| Journal | International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue number | 3-4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 2012 |
Keywords
- Combat sports
- Demand
- Individual sports
- MMA
- Mixed martial arts
- Time series
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Business and International Management
- Strategy and Management
- Management Science and Operations Research
- Marketing