The UFC’s announcement to come to Winnipeg this year for the first time is a welcome surprise to the fans in Manitoba, but also a disappointment for those in Calgary who might feel slighted.
As recently as a month ago in the media conference directly after UFC 156, president Dana White clearly indicated the company planned to come back with a card in Calgary because of last year’s experience. The UFC 149 card at the Scotiabank Saddledome sold out quickly, but fight night ended with a chorus of boos because the product didn’t deliver as expected. There were some people suggesting the UFC should offer refunds for people who bought tickets and paid top dollar expecting a card that became a skeleton of what had been advertised as injuries that depleted one scheduled bout after another.
“I owe Calgary one,” White said after UFC 156. “I want to go back to Calgary and make that right. Definitely, definitely going back to Calgary. I don’t know when. I don’t have a date or a time or anything, but we’re going to make that right.”
Now White never actually promised the organization would return in 2013. If the assumption was made that it would happen this year to immediately make up for the disappointment of UFC 149, that should not fall on the organization.
But why wouldn’t the UFC come back as quickly as possible to erase that bad experience instead of waiting at least two years? The UFC has committed itself to three shows a year in Canada, in the past considered the mecca of MMA, between 2012-2014. Montreal and Toronto are mainstays because they are major media markets, leaving a variety of other cities to place the product. Tom Wright, the director of UFC operations in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, stated in a Calgary newspaper column last year the company had been eyeing Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Quebec City, and Halifax during the three-year commitment.
In an interview I had with him on Wednesday, he re-affirmed the company’s plan to expand to other parts of the country, but said Winnipeg had been at the top of the list for future expansion.
“There’s a strong culture of combat sports in Manitoba, big boxing tradition there and, frankly, it’s a great sports town, brand new venue at the MTS Centre and it was just a logical next step in living up to our commitment,” he said. “Calgary remains part of our longer-term commitment as does Vancouver. The fact of the matter is that when you’re trying to co-ordinate a total of 33 events around the world and 13 of them are pay-per-view, it’s a bit of a chess game and a mosaic trying to find venue abilities and work within the schedules.
“The Saddledome has all sorts of demands on it as does Rogers Arena (in Vancouver). We’ve got regulatory issues we have to manage ourselves around, and in the end it didn’t look like we were going to be able to fit Calgary into the mix for 2013. We always wanted to go into Winnipeg and the stars just aligned that it works out coming to MTS Centre.”
Wright said there is “no question” the UFC will return to Calgary at some point.
“Dana made the commitment, I made the commitment. It will happen,” he assured. “It’s just not as easy as people think to decide in a couple of months to drop into a joint. It takes a lot of planning and (Calgary) is already on our radar for 2014 as is Vancouver, but until we have a chance to sort out all the different places we’re going to around the world (we have to wait) … that’s one of the differences when you’re looking at our sport (compared to) a North American sport or a Canadian sport. With us, there’s demand and competition for the events from major markets around the world — five, six different continents — and you have to balance that stuff.”
The competition also exists within cities in countries, hence it’s understandable that Winnipeg made a big pitch to the UFC, perhaps not unlike what it did with the NHL to re-acquire a franchise. This time though, they did on the down-low to avoid distraction and creating false expectations.
Wright said after he made the Winnipeg announcement, he received tweets from UFC fans in Ottawa, Edmonton, Halifax, Calgary, Vancouver and Saskatoon wondering why their city wasn’t chosen.
“Those are the kinds of things you have to work with, and if you’re only going to be able to have three or four events of the global schedule on an annual basis in Canada and we’ve already made the commitment to Montreal and Toronto, that only leaves one or two cities to go into to fulfill the Canadian complement,” he said. “Canada will get three out of 13 pay-per-views (this year) and that’s a significant percentage of the pay-per-views we have around the world. It’s remarkable we’re getting that as it is.”
White said he understands the sentiment of Calgarians who may feel slighted, but he offered hope.
“Make no mistake, we absolutely will come back to Calgary,” he said. “Dana will make good on his word and we’ll make good on our commitment and it will be a great show. I guarantee it.
“Wherever Dana goes around the world, whether it’s London or Liverpool or Tokyo, people ask ‘When are you coming back?’ That’s always the question that obviously gets asked. We obviously want to come back to these markets, so you’d have to ask the people who were making those assumptions (about Calgary) to know whether that’s what they were assuming.”
There’s an old line that says what happens when you assume. The UFC came to Calgary where it had a show that fell far short of its goal. It now goes into Winnipeg on June 15 with the same type of excitement UFC/MMA fans felt prior to seeing a show that everybody would just as soon forget. The UFC 161 card will be headlined by one of the same fighters who ended up in the main event at last year’s Calgary show — Renan Barao defends his interim bantamweight belt, which he won by defeating Urijah Faber last July, against Eddie Wineland. Hopefully it will deliver this time.
2012 was a tough year for the UFC with injuries, a cancelled card and assorted other issues, but so far 2013 has started off strongly.
Maybe 2014 will be Calgary’s year.