Brazil long has been considered the spiritual birthplace of MMA, and now it's suddenly becoming one of the UFC's top markets.
UFC executive Marshall Zelaznik today declared the debut season of "The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil," which concludes at Saturday's UFC 147 event in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, a resounding success and said the promotion is already planning on a second edition of the series.
"We do anticipate another season," Zelaznik today told MMAjunkie.com (
www.mmajunkie.com). "It's certain that we'll do it."
Zelaznik said the second edition of the series will likely take place in 2013, with the show following a similar schedule to this season's debut, which featured Wanderlei Silva and Vitor Belfort as coaches of 32 prospective UFC fighters.
"We don't have coaches identified or weight classes yet," Zelaznik said. "You can expect that 'The Ultimate Fighter' season will come back, and we'll do more tryouts. The timing of that is probably just like this season, so we'll start filming around January and be on air in March."
Zelaznik said the series is likely to continue in its Sunday-night timeslot in Brazil, where the series proved one of the country's most-successful events and drew massive ratings for broadcast partner Globo.
"Brazil is quickly becoming the No. 1 market for the UFC when it comes to fan support," Zelaznik said. "You're talking about 10 million people watching each week. We're No. 1 in the timeslot. The AB demographic is the most upscale demographic, and we're the highest-rated reality show in Brazil (in that demographic).
"When you start looking at the data, you could almost lump the U.S., Canada and the U.K. together, and it wouldn't be as many fans as there are here in Brazil. The country has adopted the sport."
Zelaznik said "TUF: Brazil 2" will be one of as many as five versions of "The Ultimate Fighter" produced in 2013. The debut season streamed online in the U.S., and Zelaznik said the episodes drew as many as 100,000 viewers per episode. The series is now also airing on FUEL TV, but only two episodes will have aired in the U.S. before Saturday's "TUF" tournament finals.
Zelaznik said he's not sure what the future holds for U.S. audiences when it comes to international versions of the show.
"They have limited shelf space," Zelaznik said. "I think next year we have five versions of 'The Ultimate Fighter' that probably get produced. We're staffing up now. We're trying to figure out how to support all those. Will FUEL TV have the shelf space for all those? I don't know. The good news is we're working hard to get the product distributed online.
"We did, on average, over 100,000 views on 'The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil' online. It was a massive, massive success. People are curious. They're interested. The Brazilians are pretty amazing fighters, and people want to see them."
It was, of course, "The Ultimate Figher" that launched in 2005 on Spike TV and propelled the UFC's current popularity boom. Zelaznik said the first Brazilian edition of the show created a similar effect in South America's largest nation.
"I think for this market, it was a huge success," Zelaznik said. "I think there may not have been the reality or drama that people may have been expecting. That's been a comment I've heard, but I think what this did – much like the first version in the U.S. – was it represented the sport in the best way possible. Fighters were respectful. They took it seriously. It really demonstrated how professional they were and how dedicated they were.
"We're still building this sport, so that stuff is really, really important so that people can see who these guys are. I think it was a homerun success for us."
"The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil" was generally well-received by MMA pundits, with the fights and fighters providing entertaining scraps punctuated by both emphatic victory celebrations and heartbreaking moments of tearful defeats. The show also featured a Brazilian signature: over-the-top product placement.
Zelaznik hopes the emotion and intrigue remain high, but he guarantees the product placement – which Silva featured live at Thursday's UFC 147 pre-event press conference – will certainly return.
"I know when Jamie Pollack and I were sort of overseeing as this thing was being developed, we had a lot of discussion with our sponsor team, with the production, about whether this was appropriate," Zelaznik said. "If you watch TV here, like 'Big Brother' is very successful here, and it is in-your-face product placement. It took a while for us to get used to.
"We used to have internal struggles about what was right, and there were certain things we didn't approve. You can imagine what we didn't approved when you look at what we did approve. I don't see that changing in the future in Brazil. It's sort of the market. It's how you monetize these things, and it's part of the revenue model."
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