5 reasons why the UFC should cut down their number of events in 2022

#2: A reduced number of events would combat fan burnout

Fan interest for the recent UFC show headlined by Aspen Ladd vs. Norma Dumont seemed hugely low

Despite Dana White claiming that the UFC has done “record numbers” in 2021, it’s hard to dispute the idea that in terms of fan interest, the promotion feels colder now than it has done in some time.

While part of this probably has to do with the UFC losing some of its biggest stars this year, with Khabib Nurmagomedov retiring and Jon Jones on hiatus, it’s probably also fair to suggest that even hardcore UFC fans are now suffering from some burnout.

Essentially, if you’ve followed the UFC for the past decade, you’ve gone from a world in which the promotion was putting on maybe two events per month at most to a world in which there’s barely a weekend without a UFC event.

Some fans, of course, can never get enough of the UFC and will tune in to each and every show no matter what. However, for others, the old adage that less is more may well ring true.

That’s definitely more likely to be the case when some of the events produced by the promotion look so weak on paper, with examples being the recent UFC Fight Night cards headlined by Aspen Ladd vs. Norma Dumont and Ketlen Vieira vs. Miesha Tate.

And once UFC fans begin to skip the odd weaker card, how long will it be before their interest wanes entirely?

Essentially, the only way to combat this kind of burnout is to give the fans less events – in turn, making them wait a little more for what they want, thus drawing them in much further.

---

#1: Reducing the number of UFC events would make for more stacked cards overall

Stacked cards like the recent UFC 267 might become more commonplace with less events overall

Perhaps the greatest reason for the UFC to cut down on the amount of events it produces in 2022 would be that right now, it seems to be spreading its roster far too thin.

Sure, the UFC is still more than capable of producing a truly stacked card, with recent examples being UFC 267 and UFC 266.

However, too often we see the promotion put together very weak cards – particularly for their Fight Night shows – that feature a headliner with some name value and then very little else underneath.

2021 has seen a handful of extremely weak headline bouts, with fights such as Dan Ige vs. Chan Sung Jung and Aspen Ladd vs. Norma Dumont in particular standing out in the wrong way.

And pay-per-view cards that start off looking excellent can quickly become diluted if one big fight is scratched due to an injury.

If the UFC were to cut its events by merely a third, for instance, though, the majority of the promotion’s weak headline bouts would quickly become very strong main card fights instead.

In turn, we could see much deeper cards overall, with the UFC having the opportunity to stack big-time pay-per-views much more often.

Naturally, that would mean much more interest from the fans – which should theoretically bring in more money for the UFC.