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UFC Fight for the Troops 2 Prelim Bouts To Stream On Facebook
Big news from the UFC today as they announce that Saturday's UFC Fight for the Troops 2 preliminary bouts Cody McKenzie vs. Yves Edwards and DaMarques Johnson vs. Mike Guymon will be streamed on Facebook. From the official press release:
The opportunity to watch two live prelim fights for free from UFC® Fight For The Troops 2 is now only a click away. The Ultimate Fighting Championship® announced today that fans will have the ability to watch two exciting UFC contests on Saturday, Jan. 22 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT by simply clicking the "Like" button on the official UFC Facebook page.
By liking Facebook.com/UFC, fans will gain access to a live stream of the lightweight battle between Cody McKenzie (12-0) of The Ultimate Fighter® and veteran Yves Edwards (39-16-1), as well as a pivotal welterweight clash pitting TUF alum DaMarques Johnson (16-8) against Mike "The Joker" Guymon (13-4-1). Fans that do not have a Facebook account are encouraged to sign up at www.facebook.com.
"I'm always looking for ways to give fans fights for free and this is just another example of that," UFC President Dana White said. "Facebook is such a great tool for people to stay connected and we're excited to put two live fights on our UFC page for free."
Following these bouts, fans can tune in to Spike TV at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT to watch the live broadcast of the Fight For The Troops 2 main card from Fort Hood, Texas. The card is headlined by lightweight battle between Evan Dunham (11-1) and Melvin Guillard (44-9-3, 1 NC).
This is a huge opportunity for the UFC to fully integrate with social media and possibly grow their fanbase. It’s no accident that this is happening with a “free” show. They will have a good amount of attention on Facebook and will hopefully be able to carry that over into telling some new people checking out the promotion to flip on Spike TV.
I think this is absolutely genius. You’d be hard pressed to argue other sports leagues more meaningfully and successfully integrate their operations with social media and web 2.0 efforts.
In fact, you wonder why other sports leagues don’t try out more efforts like this. The reality is that social media is very much an open frontier where best practices are not fully sorted out. And with technology like LiveStream allowing virtually anyone to stream video directly from their Facebook wall, any MMA promotion of virtually any size can reach a wider audience than they currently draw in.
The UFC is clearly trying to up the number of social media subscribers by getting users to “like” their Facebook page in order to watch the prelim. We’ll try to keep a tally of how many they add before and after the program and will report back.
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