SBJ Unpacks: UFC helping Bud Light mount comeback

While Bud Light’s sales haven’t completely reversed their plunge from last year, UFC and Anheuser-Busch executives believe their sponsorship is providing stable footing and getting the brand back into fighting shape.

Anheuser-Busch deployed Bud Light to UFC this year in an opportunistic move to replace Modelo and claw back from a bruising 2023 sparked by the Dylan Mulvaney controversy. A-B is paying UFC nine figures over six years to be the official beer of the popular fighting property, representing UFC’s largest sponsorship.

Bud Light’s sales were down 28% year over year last December, according to data beverage industry analyst Bump Williams provided to The Wall Street Journal at the time. Dave Williams, president of the research company, told SBJ last week  that while the magnitude of deceleration in sales for Bud Light “has certainly slowed … the brand has yet to return to any level of consistent growth in off-premise [sales] on a national scale.”

Off-premise sales are those made in grocery stores, liquor stores, convenience stores and other retail outlets that are consumed away from the business. Modelo is now the nation’s top-selling off-premise beer. Bud Light remains No. 2, “but is feeling some heat coming from No. 3-ranked [and fast-moving] Michelob Ultra, which could threaten that position by the close of 2024,” Williams noted.

While Williams said it’s difficult to say exactly how much the UFC sponsorship is helping stem the bleeding, Bud Light is “going back to the playbook — they’re injecting humor and relevance [into its marketing] and identifying areas where consumers that they may not have been reaching before are watching or engaging — and trying to reach them that way.”

Williams said Bud Light already has seen positives in select markets, pointing to marketing and subsequent sales gains in Albany, N.Y., as one example.

Sphere of influence

As part of its UFC deal, Bud Light (and Budweiser) gets branding in the octagon on a weekly basis. Bud Light has used UFC President and CEO Dana White in a Super Bowl ad, enlisted popular fighter Dustin Poirier to be a brand ambassador and done retail activation at bars, where they set up co-branded beer taps, neon lights and coasters. Bud Light received ad placement at the Noche UFC event at the Sphere in Las Vegas in September, the first time the brand has taken part in an event inside the immersive venue.

On top of the exposure-related assets, UFC has been working to get Bud Light sold at events when pouring rights allow. For Noche UFC at the Sphere, for example, Bud Light draft beer was sold at the ceremonial weigh-in on Friday night outside the venue.

Matt Davis, A-B vice president of partnerships, said the company has “seen tremendous excitement and support of the partnership from our entire commercial system — from wholesalers to retailers to fans, and we’re only going to continue gaining momentum.”

Endeavor-owned agency 160over90 helped bring A-B and UFC together for the deal. Endeavor owns approximately 53% of TKO Group Holdings, which controls UFC and WWE.

In being part of the first sports competition to take place inside the Sphere, Davis said Bud Light “was impossible to miss.” He said it “was incredible to see how they custom fit a sporting event into an entertainment venue, with seamless integration of their sponsors, like Bud Light. Personally, I think this event illustrated the incredible potential of marketing, entertainment and sports coming together to bring fans truly incredible experiences, and Bud Light is proud to have been a part of driving that fan excitement.”

UFC’s perspective

When UFC signed the deal with Bud Light, White pushed back on questions about whether the move from Modelo to A-B was the right one for the property. During an interview with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, White said, “If you consider yourself a patriot, you should be drinking gallons of Bud Light.” While the move earned White some criticism from conservative circles at the time, it was welcomed within the halls of A-B, which had been looking to pivot away from the Mulvaney controversy.

According to Robby Miller, UFC vice president of global partnerships, UFC believes the partnership has gone “better than we could have possibly hoped for.” Miller pointed to the ways the sides have worked together this first year, including letting A-B activate different brands in global markets where Bud Light is not a priority. That’s included promoting Spaten beer in Brazil.

On top of the advertising that Bud Light has done with Poirier, it’s worked with several other fighters on the UFC roster on meet-and-greet events during fight week. At the fan village outside the Sphere, Bud Light had a punching station to test fans’ strength and a mock octagon that fans could walk into to get their photos taken.

UFC also has helped A-B promote Budweiser with the logo it gets on one side of the octagon, something the brewer was keen to do because Budweiser is in more global markets than Bud Light, Miller said. The sides also have partnered on a corporate social responsibility project with Folds of Honor to recognize and donate money to first responders and their families.

Miller said the benefits of the partnership are going both ways.

“One of the things that we value so much about A-B is that they’re global — our sport is global; we have a massive U.S. footprint, but we have 700 million fans around the world,” said Miller. “The opportunity to work with a global powerhouse like A-B has been incredibly rewarding for us and is helping us reach new fans in new markets. As we continue to grow, that’s a really important factor for us.”

The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors and San Jose City Council will each vote this afternoon on whether to approve a non-binding term sheet with the Earthquakes outlining the MLS club’s plans to build a soccer complex that includes four private training fields and a performance center, along with four turf fields for public use, on a 26-acre portion of the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds. The land is located at the southernmost edge of the fairgrounds along Umbarger Road in San Jose -- seven miles from the team's home stadium, PayPal Park.

The term sheet stipulates that the Earthquakes would put $12M toward the construction of the public fields (which they would also manage) and pay all costs associated with the construction of their own fields and training facility, which are estimated at $50M. The city of San Jose would contribute $6M toward the construction of the public fields. Meanwhile, the club would enter a 25-year ground lease with Santa Clara County for the 12 acres on which its private fields and facility would sit. Rent would start at $240,000 per year and increase by 2.55% annually. 

Architecture firm HOK is behind the design of the Earthquakes’ practice facility, which is one of several sports-related projects that could be built at the fairgrounds in the coming years. Elsewhere on the site, Major League Cricket plans to construct a 15,000-person stadium , while San Jose State Univ. has a deal to build a track-and-field facility on nine acres.

FIFA and Sony’s Hawk-Eye Innovations are launching the Football Technology Center , a joint venture tasked with further automating the detection of on-field actions for data collection and officiating aids. Among the stated goals for the use of AI and other tech through the FTC is to improve officiating, performance and fan engagement. Examples include generating event data automatically — such as goals, passes, etc. — and further hastening the decision-making process for offsides. The two sides have worked together since 2017, including on the development of the Semi-Automated Offsides Technology that debuted at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

The Big Ten's new West Coast contingent of schools is helping Big Ten Network to a 9% viewership gain this season, BTN President Francois McGillicuddy tells me. That would be the best gain for any college football media partner behind only ESPN/ABC, which added the SEC broadcast TV package this season .

“Our consumption in the Pacific Time Zone has definitely changed this year,” said McGillicuddy.

Among BTN's five best audiences this season, Washington shows up twice. The Huskies' game against Eastern Michigan in Week 2 (1.1 million viewers as part of a regionalized window alongside Michigan State-Maryland) has been its best audience on BTN to date, and the cable network's third-best game this season. At No. 4 this season for BTN is Washington-Indiana in Week 9 (1.07 million).

BTN essentially gets two football games for each member institution, and inventory has increased with the addition of Washington, UCLA, USC and Oregon. BTN gets Oregon-Maryland this weekend, and at least one more Ohio State game is on the way (potentially against Northwestern at Wrigley Field). Those games come on the heels of its best game of the season in Week 9 -- Michigan State-Michigan at 1.73 million viewers -- which also is BTN's best prime-time CFB game ever.

In addition to the year-over-year viewership increase, McGillicuddy said the demos are “telling a pretty substantial story.” BTN is up 22% among men 18-49, and women 18-49 have jumped 17%.

“What are really two key demos for advertisers, we’re just seeing very strong growth versus last year,” said McGillicuddy. “Clearly, expansion is a part of it, and a fact that now we’ve got our games being paid attention to in the Los Angeles market and the Seattle market and the Portland market.”

Gridiron + hardcourt = big November lineup

Last year, BTN aired 66 events during the month of November. This year, that number is 92 (up nearly 40%). Most of that is due to the addition of some late-night basketball, as BTN gets a number of men’s hoops tripleheaders.

BTN also will have the most inventory of women’s basketball it’s ever had -- along with USC phenom JuJu Watkins. “We really want to try and do everything we can to build on the excitement from last year,” said McGillicuddy, referencing Iowa and Caitlin Clark. “Don't know whether we'll be able to continue at that level, but we think we can continue to grow interest in the sport. ... What we were able to be a part of last year in terms of women's sports, both for volleyball and basketball, was tremendous."

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