Modern Sport: Mixed Martial Arts (MMA)

Introduction to issue

Mixed martial arts (MMA) is a fully contact sport that involves methods and techniques that are derived from other forms of martial arts and combat sports. MMA is a modern sport, with the term first publicly used in 1993 by Howard Rosenberg, a television critic. MMA garnered much attention when a popular website that covers combat sports published an article on the sport.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is an MMA organization owned by parent company, Endeavour, and is based in the United States. The UFC is currently the largest promotion in MMA, featuring its top fighters. Despite being based in the US, the UFC hosts events worldwide that exhibit different divisions based on weight that follow the Unified Rules

The UFC has partnered with many brands ever since it gained popularity. Some of the brands that sponsor The UFC would be Burger King, Bud Light, Monster Energy Drink, Harley Davidson, and TapouT. By affiliating with these brands, The UFC would reach a wider target public other than their loyal audiences.

Newspaper

The UFC had also used this very traditional PR tool covering the fight between Mayweather and McGregor. Very rarely is UFC covered in newspapers. However, this fight was so sensational that it made the front page of many newspapers. More well-known newspapers that have covered this fight are The Guardian, New York Times and more locally, The Straits Times. Despite it being a more traditional tool, it is still very useful due to the reliable nature of newspapers. This is due to the fact that people feel that the information derived from newspapers can be trusted due to it being one of the older media outlets.

Magazine

The UFC had their own magazine that produced monthly issues. In September 2015, they officially closed it down. In spite of this, the fight was covered in various magazines including GQ and ESPN magazine. This would expose the UFC to readers of these magazines who may not have much knowledge on them or the upcoming

Because of this, there are official blogs from all over the world that cover MMA fights in their respective countries or those that cover the more well-known UFC fights. An example of such blogs would be 'MMAjunkie.com'. These blogs would contain information such as the latest UFC news to upcoming events. A lot of them would also showcase video highlights of competitions and fighters.

How The Media Presented The Story

MMA is considered to be a very serious and competitive sport. As mentioned above, it is one of the fastest-growing sports in the world where both men and women are competing in their respective weight divisions. The sport takes years of training in various fields of martial arts and those who participate are deemed to be highly skilful. However, the media does not use this as a focus in their coverage. They often direct audiences’ attentions to the rivalry between the two fighters. In this case, it is the rivalry between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor. Headlines in articles that cover the fight would often consist of the tension between the two. Hardly was there ever articles on their backgrounds having been participating in martial arts for a long time, or how they achieved their reputation in being highly skilled martial artists. The rivalry gained so much notoriety to the point where those who are not loyal followers of the UFC or do not have much knowledge