FanPost

UFC Instrumental in Fox Sports 1 Success Even if They Don't Know It

At first glance, the navigation footer on the new Fox Sports 1 Web page doesn't seem too conspicuous. That is until one compares it to the recent claims made by Dana White over the past several months.

For weeks now we have heard Uncle Dana ramble on and on, like a proud papa, about the importance of the UFC to Fox Sports 1. He has spoken at length about how the UFC will be instrumental in the success of the network and how the executives and top brass at FOX realize this. That all sounds well and good (and may well turn out to be true... who knows?), but upon closer examination of that Fox Sports 1 navigation footer I am forced to wonder, 'Has Dana let FOX know how important the UFC is to the launch of their new network?'

What I quickly noticed when I scrolled to the bottom of the FS1 page in search of all the latest mixed martial arts news and stories was that I couldn't find any. I must confess that as a major fan and admitted addict of mma, I was a bit saddened by this. However, I also feel that it is only fair to note that as someone who isn't the biggest fan of Dana White, or the people that believe everything that comes from Dana is true (especially when he's "nice" enough to tell us that he wouldn't lie), that I also got a soft chuckle out of it. It would seem to me that the UFC may well be important to the success or failure of the new Fox Sports paradigm, but if it is -- apparently nobody at Zuffa has let Fox know about it. And assuming I am wrong, the message obviously hasn't made its way to the Web development team as of yet.

Addendum: It has correctly been brought to my attention that the Fox Sports line of Web sites do link to UFC news and programming in their header navigation strip. I failed to notice that earlier, and I thank my readers for pointing that out to me.

Now that the link has been pointed out to me I would like to say that leaves me even more puzzled as to why UFC news and programming is not featured within the long list of content links in the site footer. That is a bit odd and strange, and I can only assume that will be remedied shortly. Be that as it may, I would still prefer to see and read links that say, "MMA" and not "UFC." Although I do understand the other links read "MLB" and "NFL" and not "BASEBALL" and "FOOTBALL."