Dana White: ‘We’re just not mainstream’

“It takes a long time. We’ve only been here for 13 years [as owners] and we really didn’t even start kicking until 2005, 2006.”

White told a story about sitting with his kids in seats on the 50-yard line at Gillette Stadium over the weekend to watch his New England Patriots play the Pittsburgh Steelers. He got to talking to one of the fans sitting right behind him and the fan–a 30-something man right smack in the middle of the UFC’s target demographic–had no idea what the Ultimate Fighting Championship was.

“He didn’t even know (Patriots defensive end) Chandler Jones’ brother was the champ of the UFC,” White said, referring to light heavyweight titleholder Jon Jones. “He was asking me if it was regional.”

In a report coming out of Fox Sports, UFC President Dana White addressed the state of the UFC’s popularity on yesterday’s conference call to promote this weekend’s Fight Night event in Brazil.

The UFC boss desperately wants to be considered a main stream sport, but has admitted that the sport of MMA just isn’t there yet.

Can you imagine a world where a man in his 30’s has never heard of the UFC?

Apparently we live in it, who knew…