How many mma fans are there

Davis is betting that his audience will gravitate to PFL through a new partnership in with Durham, North Carolina-based SMT, whose technology will measure MMA fighter performance analytics along with biometric and positional data. The results will appear in real time on screens for fans.

The gender pay gap is massive in most sports. I am a senior editor at Forbes and focused mainly on the business of sports and our annual franchise valuations. I also spend a lot of my time digging into what athletes. I also spend a lot of my time digging into what athletes earn on and off the field of play. I've profiled a bunch of athletes that go by one name: LeBron, Shaq, Danica and others. I also started our biennial B-School rankings; annual features on the Best Places for Business metros, states and countries ; and America's Best Banks.

I joined Forbes in after working 3 years at Financial World magazine. Email: kbadenhausen forbes. This is a BETA experience. Mairbek Khasiev founded it in and has since hosted events all around the world. Getty Images. By: Akaash Sharma. Sport Playlists. Sports Video. ONE Championship. PR Newswire. The Sports DB. Conan Daliy. Cage Warriors. In recent years, MMA has evolved and developed into a hugely successful business model, in the same vein that boxing used to be.

This has seen a surge in popularity in the sport, as well as more exposure for fighters. After reforming some of its rules, the UFC became much more mainstream competition and began to dominate pay-per-view.

This seems to show the pinnacle of how far MMA has come over the years, so why is is so popular? Well, there are a few reasons we could look at to explain the rise of MMA around the world.

One of the biggest reasons cited for the growth of MMA around the world has been the decline of boxing as a sport. Heavyweight bouts attracted millions of viewers worldwide and generated hundreds of millions of dollars. Match ups like Mike Tyson vs. Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis vs.

Vitali Klitschko had boxing fans across the world purring. However, following the retirement of these top fighters, and a greater emphasis on money, boxing has alienated a lot of its audience. There has, arguably, not been a great world heavyweight champion since Lewis, though Anthony Joshua is making a good claim for that honor.