As recently as the 1990s, American soccer fans often had to gather in groups to watch notable matches, as US television networks were, at best, inconsistent in airing the sport. Live or taped feeds from foreign broadcasts were played in union halls, theatres, ethnic restaurants, any place where a mass of fans could get together and buy tickets to watch a game in what felt like an us-against-the-world mentality. These days, soccer fans still come together to watch matches, but they do so for the camaraderie rather than outright need, as US broadcasters now bring lots of the world’s game to the screen.
Similar to what soccer used to enjoy, the status of mixed martial arts has a certain “underground” quality today. Daily newspapers seldom cover the sport, the same policy as the 24-hour-a-day sports radio stations. All they’re doing is ignoring a large and fast-growing fanbase, who get news from countless websites dedicated to the sport’s various, world-wide promotions. Locally, at bars and restaurants around St. Louis, large numbers of young fans frequently gather on Saturday nights, especially when the sport’s flagship promotion, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, offers up a pay-per-view show. Rather than spending the $40–$50 fee for home viewing, fans flock to bars like the St. Louis Sports Zone in Shrewsbury, where several standing-room-only crowds have been seen in the past couple months.
Paying the cover price of $5, smart fans filter in a good half-hour before the 9 p.m. broadcasts in order to get a decent seat. Depending on the popularity of that card’s fighters, you can be out of luck if you don’t arrive early; even with dozens of TVs scattered through the fairly large venue, you can wind up standing in a corner with your beer, trying to sort out which screen to watch. About a month ago, for example, the Sports Zone was pretty much past capacity for a super-bout between the sport’s largest star, Anderson Silva, and his fellow-Brazilian, challenger Vitor Belfort, proving that it’s not only the US fighters who bring crowds.
That audience at the Sports Zone offers a decent glimpse of the typical MMA fight fan. Whereas young people pretty much are unseen at boxing matches, the MMA crowd overwhelmingly tend to be under 30, often hovering just about the drinking age. Though more men than women attend pay-per-views, it’s not as disproportional as you might think, maybe a 60/40 split. And, as expected, no small amount of these young men wear the brands of the sport; Affliction and Tapout t-shirts are a dime-a-dozen at any MMA gathering.
Even as audiences—in Shrewsbury and nationally—tend to be largely white, there’s still a melting-pot quality to their allegiances. With information on fighters only a few clicks away on a smart phone, fans are plenty knowledgeable, rooting on crowd-pleasing combatants from around the world. If a Japanese or Korean or Mexican fighter brings the goods, fans are more than happy to cheer on that international fighter against an American opponent.
Between the PPV bouts, fans can watch a ton of the sport on TV (mostly on Spike TV and Showtime), but every three or four weeks, they come together for the mutual enjoyment of combat sports and, yes, alcohol, which can make even the most drab fights more interesting. While those who abhor the inherent violence of cage fights will never see the appeal, there are thousands of people in St. Louis who’ll disagree. And now you know where to find (or avoid) them.
