In other words, just because women are in the UFC, it doesn’t mean that they’re treated fairly. So yes, representation matters, and female fighters have, relative to other sports, high levels of exposure, especially given that just 4% of all global sports media coverage features female athletes.īut, as retired UFC fighter Julie Kedzie recently told me, “It’s not enough to shatter the glass ceiling.
Seeing women be successful in the sport gives an impression that anything is possible and all the challenges female fighters have faced are behind them. The promotion often depicts female fighters as heroines who, against all odds, have broken barriers in MMA and in sports more broadly. But it does show that the UFC is willing to give women a platform and sell a message of empowerment. This doesn’t absolve them from the sexism, racism, xenophobia or transphobia that has characterized the promotion over the years. The UFC has come to understand the power of promoting diverse female athletes for expanding their market and boosting profits. The phrase “ representation matters” is popular across an array of brands and platforms today, and consumers are ready to invest in companies that promote women’s and girls’ empowerment – including a stereotypically hypermasculine brand like the UFC. The UFC’s interest in promoting women has been rare in a sporting landscape that regularly objectifies, trivializes or downright ignores sportswomen and their fans. He noted that featuring women had grown the “female fan base” in ways that have “been transformative to the UFC.” Lawrence Epstein, the UFC’s chief operating officer, recently told sports business publication Sportico that female athletes are a “huge growth engine” that brings in different audiences for the company. Even though Rousey retired from MMA long ago, the UFC continues to court fans by promoting its women fighters. By 2015, she was the UFC’s highest-paid athlete – male or female. Rousey became a star unparalleled in women’s combat sports history. However a year later, the UFC signed Ronda Rousey for a “six-month experiment” in women’s MMA. In 2011, UFC president Dana White famously said that the promotion company would “never” include female fighters. While women may glow under the bright lights of the Octagon, exploitation and deep inequalities persist.
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