UFC's Crackdown on PPV Piracy - Why Suing Individuals Who Pirates Shows is Such a Bad Idea

The UFC is apparently making efforts to crackdown on websites pirating their pay per view shows.  For a cutting edge sport, this seems like a really backwards move to horde more wealth in their already fat wallets. UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta testified for the U.S. House Judiciary Committee earlier this month during a referendum on internet piracy of sporting events, stating that "the piracy of live sporting events is illegal, it kills jobs, and it threatens the expansion of U.S. based companies, the UFC is potentially losing millions of dollars a year from piracy."

Their solution? They want to SUE individuals who are pirating their live events.

Hmm... this reeks of how the record labels are trying to prevent the pirating of music. How are they doing with that anyway?

I argue that this is a horrible move by the UFC. For one, the UFC is built on their great relations with their fans. Dana White has a really close relationship with the fans through Twitter and gives out free tickets regularly. What other sporting league does that? To sue individuals who pirate UFC events will be counter productive in building relations with fans.

The same guys who are putting up the fights are the same guys who are passionate about the sport. While some are doing it for individual gain, most are true fans who just want to make the sport of MMA easily accessible to everyone. 

That brings me to my second point of building an international fan base. It's no secret that the UFC wants to take over the world, and they're slowly building their empire by holding events in the UK and in Europe (well, Germany). How do you think people got interested in the sport and the UFC brand in the first place? It certainly wasn't through buying a live PPV event, seeing how the time difference would make it difficult to catch any North American based shows. The internet is the only way that allows fans in the UK and Europe to stay in touch with the sport and the brand, and to cut us off would be detrimental to their efforts in expanding here. Boxing is still a much bigger sport in the UK than MMA, and I reckon that the UFC *needs* the internet to get more people interested.

I say the UFC should work with these people instead of going after them. There must be a creative solution somewhere that can make MMA easily accessible on the internet without burning the bridge between the league and the fans. After all, without those so called pirates, I wouldn't be a fan of the sport.