UFC To Target Chinese Market

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has announced a partnership with China’s leading social media platform, Weibo, to become the Official Social Media Platform of UFC in China.

The deal is set to strengthen the UFC’s reach in China by providing thousands of mixed martial arts (MMA) fans in China access to UFC live event content including athlete and executive interviews, fight highlights, fight night results, athlete metrics, fight announcement and content highlights.

The social media platform has more than 400 million active monthly users, and with the world’s largest MMA facility, the UFC Performance Institute in Shanghai set to open in a few months, the deal is helping to grow consumer engagement in the UFC in China and invest in developing the next generation of UFC stars from China.

UFC senior vice president Asia-Pacific, Kevin Chang, said this deal will help to solidify the UFC alongside other mainstream sports in China.

“We are honoured to announce our landmark partnership with Weibo, the leading social media platform in China that has led the industry for the past 10 years and has amassed over 400 million active monthly users.

“We are the very first MMA promotion to enter into an official partnership with Weibo to leverage its massive reach and promotional support, which will propel the brand to new heights and solidify our place among mainstream sports in China,” Mr Chang said.

This partnership comes after the UFC pledged a multi-million-dollar expansion into China with the objective of building a rich and diverse MMA ecosystem supporting the next generation of athletes.

Weibo senior operation director, Zhe Zhang, said the deal is of major importance for Weibo and they are excited to begin working with the UFC.

“We are very excited to build strategic partnership with UFC, the most influential MMA organisation in the world.

“It is very important for us to tap into the combat sports sector, and to help us achieve this goal, we are making combat sports a vertical field with its own independent Weibo team focused on growing the brand in China,” Zhang said.