Say what you want about Conor McGregor, but he’s creating interest. Selling out the O2 Arena in Dublin in less than an hour may have been an indication that he might not be a star in the making but a superstar already. And now, he’s drawing mainstream media coverage for MMA in the United Kingdom, furthering the idea that he has the potential to become a crossover star.
This week, there was a McGregor feature on the BBC’s flagship ‘Breakfast’ show, which is mainly a show featuring news and media tidbits covering mainstream topics. This is a big deal, although it was assumed that the audience wouldn’t have heard of mixed martial arts, and also touched on the ‘human cockfighting’ criticism which has dogged the sport since it’s inception. You can see the feature here, and McGregor seems to tone down his shtick for his audience, well aware that the BBC is a big deal.
I’d recommend watching it to see a similarly-determined nine year old boy, who wants to win Olympic Gold medals in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as well as win UFC gold. He seems remarkably switched on and self-aware for his age, and it’s good to see his mother stand up for her sons interest in the sport in juxtaposition to the Irish doctor who lambasts MMA in the same video.
In addition to the video segment, the BBC website ran an article detailing McGregor’s return to Dublin. Again, it pandered to an audience which was assumed to know nothing about the sport, which is to be expected but says a lot of the perception of MMA in the UK mainstream media. The article can be read here, and is a decent enough read, and again sees McGregor in a slightly more humble mode. He even touched on his larger-than-life personality, and confirmed what most of us expected:
“I want them all to fight me” he insisted. “It creates interest. It creates drama. It creates big fights. It is exactly how I planned it.”
McGregor is right. Even accounting for the change in opponent from Cole Miller to Diego Brandao (both ranked outside the top ten) the fact he sold out a nearly 10,000 seat arena in less than an hour is testament to his own drawing power, not the intrigue of who he is matched against. He has built his own star not only with his performances in the cage, but his performance outside of it.
And it seems the excitement about him in his own country has carried over to the rest of the British Isles. It may be hard to grasp if you live outside the UK, but this is an important step for MMA in this country.
Michael Bisping has appeared on BBC radio 5 live, a sports radio station, but there has been talk over the years about the main BBC network snubbing him for their coveted ‘Sports Personality of the year’ award, in which all the top achievers in British sport are nominated. As a flag bearer for British MMA on the international scene, a lack of attention from terrestrial television news was a sore point for fans of the sport.
Recently retired WMMA fighter Rosi Sexton had the BBC write a feature on her, but it seemed more about the curio of women’s fighting rather than a mainstream breakout. Tellingly, the links to similar stories from the BBC are about Bruce Lee and the Tom Hardy MMA-themed movie ‘Warrior’.
As you can tell, the BBC are dipping their toe into the (sometimes murky) waters of MMA coverage. They’re certainly not broadcasting it, although fellow terrestrial broadcaster Channel 5 did show an abridged version of the recent UFC card from London which had Alexander Gustaffson taking on Jimi Manuwa in the main event. Channel 5 is generally regarded as the least reputable of the five mainstream channels (it arrived the latest and has fairly low production values compared to the taxpayer funded BBC) so it wasn’t the huge coup you might expect.
This Saturdays card will be broadcast in Great Britain on subscriber only channel BT Sport 1, which costs the equivalent of around $30USD a month (also on Fight Pass, as it is to international viewers)
In Ireland however, McGregor will find no chance of being under exposed. This UFC card will be broadcast on the 3e channel, which is reportedly available to 98% of Irish homes.
With the fervent support for Irish fighters (boxer Bernard Dunne was a star in Ireland despite fighting in the unfashionable super bantamweight division, usually too light to garner much crossover support) it looks likely that McGregor will prove a hit on the box as well as at the box office.