Mixed martial arts, controlled until now by UFC president Dana White, now has a bidding war much like pro football decades ago. That issue could determine whether the sport’s popularity keeps rising or fades.
Inside sports business
Some uncanny timing behind the most surreal moment of his professional career certainly wasn’t lost on Ariel Helwani.
The planet’s most famous Mixed Martial Arts reporter this month was booted from an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event in Los Angeles and banned for life less than 24 hours after the death of boxing legend Muhammad Ali.
The same Ali whose outspokenness often defied and risked retribution from the corporate powers that control professional sports.
Helwani, 33, employed by Vox Media-owned MMAFighting.com, had angered UFC president Dana White after reporting that MMA legend Brock Lesnar would step away from his newfound WWE wrestling career for a one-off return fight at UFC 200 next month. He’d scooped UFC’s official announcement by a few hours and White, long accused of attempting to control everything the media says about his business operations, was irked Helwani hadn’t confirmed the story with him.
The banning sparked sports media outrage, and UFC reinstated Helwani’s credentials within 48 hours.
A UFC statement said it reversed course after discussions with Helwani’s employer, but added “we believe the recurring tactics used by its lead reporter extended beyond the purpose of journalism.’’
But anyone who has followed developments between Helwani and White will tell you this is less about Lesnar and more about the reporter’s coverage of fledgling “free agency’’ within the multi-billion-dollar MMA industry. Helwani talked with me at length by phone last week after his reinstatement.
“It’s like 1920s football right now, they’re still wearing leather helmets,” Helwani said of MMA’s move toward greater pay. “Things like free agency have only become a big story this year.’’
Helwani, a self-described “sports historian,” knows that during Ali’s 1960s and 1970s heyday financial corruption was rampant and fighters were literally being beaten to death in the ring. The moneymen, including underworld crime figures and ruthless promoters like Don King, famously kept fighters in line, though Ali never hesitated to speak out on social issues even though it risked his future earnings.
Helping chronicle Ali and shape his image for the American mainstream was famed sports broadcast reporter Howard Cosell. Cosell, who later campaigned extensively for boxing reforms, was idolized by Helwani while growing up in Montreal and studying broadcast journalism at Syracuse University.
Helwani told classmates he wanted to be “The Howard Cosell of MMA.” He’d begun covering it in its infancy in 2001, becoming an internet sensation and garnering an almost cult-like following of fans.
His Twitter feed has 380,000 followers while his livestreamed weekly podcast, The MMA Hour, routinely draws a half-million combined viewers and audio listeners per show.
Fans give Helwani standing ovations when he’s shown by panning cameras at MMA events. They’ve voted him the sport’s top reporter six consecutive years.
With that comes a power that hasn’t gone unnoticed. There’s a sense within MMA that Helwani’s popularity and willingness to tackle free agency is making those controlling the mighty UFC increasingly uncomfortable.
Just like the Ali-Cosell tandem used to worry the powers that be.
While traveling home from California to New York after his UFC expulsion, Ali and Cosell tribute stories flowed across television sets nationwide. A somber Helwani, uncertain about his future, received a supportive text from MMA journalist Chuck Mindenhall that nearly reduced him to tears.
“I found it particularly synchronistic that on the day when tributes to Ali featured the great Howard Cosell, that you, who set out to be ‘The Cosell of MMA’ … were escorted out of the building,” Mindenhall wrote. “That brought you closer to Cosell than people realized and goddamn it, that’s poetic.’’
Helwani kept pursuing the story on MMA free agency despite warnings it had gotten under UFC’s skin. UFC, valued well beyond $2 billion, is easily the most powerful of myriad MMA organizations. And unlike Bellator MMA, ONE Championship and World Series of Fighting, UFC until recently was the only place fighters believed they could earn serious money.
Still, many felt underpaid and restricted in seeking endorsem*nts.
Then, in 2013, smaller Bellator was bought by media giant Viacom. Suddenly, the organization Helwani calls “the CFL” compared to UFC’s “NFL’’ was owned by a conglomerate willing to throw money around.
And as UFC fighter contracts expired, the jump to Bellator began. “They’re saying ‘Let’s just fight out the contract, and instead of just taking whatever the UFC gives me, let’s see what else is out there,’ ” Helwani said.
In turn, UFC paid more to keep fighters, much as NFL players benefitted in the 1970s when Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick and Paul Warfield joined the fledgling World Football League. Chatting about free agency with fighters jumping between multiple organizations is now common on Helwani’s podcasts.
“This has become a fascinating story to me,’’ Helwani said. “It’s no different than, as you know, what goes on in MLB and the NHL. This is just great fodder, and sports fans love it. And I was being told that the UFC in particular … was getting increasingly annoyed that I kept talking about this. That I was always talking about free agency and contracts running out.”
Helwani believes a March interview with UFC fighter Rory MacDonald cost him his job as a Fox Sports MMA analyst.
Fox has the TV contract for UFC and fired Helwani shortly after MacDonald told him on his podcast he would explore free agency after his next fight.
Freed from the network — and by extension, UFC itself — Helwani says he “stopped sitting on stories.”.
“I just started reporting things,” he said. “And I was getting them confirmed. I was told I was annoying (UFC) but I wasn’t doing it maliciously or unethically. I was just doing my job.
“And then when I reported the Brock Lesnar story, they just said ‘Enough is enough.’ ”
Where things go from here will be interesting.
Sports history is rife with pivotal moments where leagues, owners and promoters must choose how to divide financial spoils. Those sports avoiding labor turmoil have thrived.
Conversely, the decline of professional boxing — which helped MMA’s surge — can be largely attributed to decades of unchecked greed. Now, UFC and MMA must grapple with newfound success and compensating those that made it happen.
Helwani says he’ll keep discussing changes sweeping the sport.
“I am happy that this discussion is now part of the conversation,” he said. “This is a thing that people know about outside of the MMA world and have opened their eyes to. I’m happy to help spread that word.’’
And, just as boxing had Ali and crusading reporters like Cosell and Jack Newfield to deal with, the future of MMA could well be determined by how it handles dissenting voices now challenging its own status quo.
