With talk about the digital revolution leading to a fundamental restructuring of the linear digital strategy of many sports governing bodies, those who work for or with less mainstream sports can be forgiven for feeling a little left out of the ensuing excitement. Particularly when potential revenues for the big boys of the sports world from this revolution are discussed.

The number of new, dynamic broadcast methods has, simply put, offered a road map for the biggest sports in the world to get bigger. The NFL has already set a precedent with their live-stream deal with Twitter. And football in the UK, Europe and the US is already experimenting with new formats. 

However, the recent purchase of UFC for just a tick over £3.1 billion is proof that while this revolution offers great opportunity to the truly global sports of football, the NFL, the NBA and Tennis, it offers even greater opportunity to less mainstream sports. This is because it gives them a license to be flexible in a way which bigger sports, currently dictated by big money broadcast rights deals, cannot.

While UFC’s rise came on the back of a slightly different technology and fad in ‘The Ultimate Fighter” reality television show in the 2000s, the flexibility of not being tied to any digital rights deals enabled the founders to be creative in their endeavours to become a lucrative product – which it has done with some gusto, reaching its current level of success in just over two decades.

Currently, UFC is an anomaly because too many sporting bodies, particularly when the sport concerned is less mainstream, rely on the fundamental appeal of the sport when instead they should be concentrating on being as accessible as they can. 

Many see it like the chicken or the egg scenario. Which comes first, the loyal and rapidly growing fan base or the expanded and flexible digital offering? 

In this day and age however, it is quite straightforward. 

A sport cannot have a loyal and rapidly growing fan base without a digital strategy aimed at using flexible and dynamic media to reach new fans in new formats on new platforms.

Some sports are slowly cottoning on to what can be achievable through a wider (and in most cases free) digital offering. America’s college basketball, Women’s golf, European basketball and England’s domestic cricket are all testing the waters with live offerings and are reaping significant benefits including growing audiences and growing awareness. But other sports are yet to come up for air and realize what this new digital environment can enable them to do.

Unfortunately for the minnows of the sporting world, the big boys such as the various governing bodies of world football are fully aware of the shift in the digital landscape. And while they may not be immediately bringing their most popular and most in-demand products such as the Premier League or La Liga competitions to their free digital offerings, they’re currently working around broadcast rights restrictions and televising matches that aren’t bound by the rights restrictions including the National Women’s Soccer League in the US (Orlando Pride) or the women’s La Liga football competition in Spain (Atletico Madrid). 

In time, once the huge benefits are realized, you can guarantee that the most lucrative products will be put to the online market and the less mainstream sports would have lost the opportunity to go where few could before them.

While it could be seen as naive to not be associated or impacted by the financial success or failure of a sport that is less mainstream (and could be still in its infancy) and suggest that it should be spending huge amounts of money on expanding flexible digital strategies, just look at the success of the UFC.

It built its product first and foremost, and boy did the people come.