Quote:
Originally Posted by alnorth
The silliest thing about this whole issue is that Ariel Helwani is incredibly valuable to the UFC, financially, and they didn't even seem to realize it.
Casual fans don't generally decide to watch the fights on a whim like they might for football or baseball, they usually have to be talked into it by a friend who is a dedicated hardcore fan, and Ariel's audience for his weekly show is nothing but those guys. Every week he keeps them fired up about the next card, and then his audience goes out and preaches UFC to their friends who otherwise wouldn't watch, etc.
And, as Kevin Iole incredulously wrote, "the UFC wants to ban that guy?!?"
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Great point, al. The UFC wants the media to be more of a PR firm than actual journalists and then they run off the one guy who has been hyping their product unlike anyone else in the business. It was a short-sighted, foolish move by the UFC to permaban Ariel and his colleagues. By the UFC revoking the MMAFighting staff's media credentials and subsequently reinstating them it begs the question how much was this decision influenced by mainstream media backlash, Fightpass & UFC 200 blowback in buys and a potential sale of the UFC?