Participation of the Social Media and São Paulo Population with Regard to Mixed Martial Arts

Abstract

The exposure of Mixed Martial Arts is evidenced by the recent popularization of this type of sports in Brazilian social media. The success of well-paid Brazilian boxers such as Anderson Silva, Junior Cigano, José Aldo, Vitor Belfort, Minotauro Nogueira, Wanderlei Silva and others and their admittance in the UFC cart place Brazil, the cradle of this type of sports, as one of the main countries of the sports modality. Between 2009 and 2014, fourteen UFC events of the most important MMA championship were hosted in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Fortaleza and Jaraguá. TV transmission of events is not the only type of contact between MMA and the population, since soap-operas, sports sites, news journals and films also feature these athletes in their pro-grams. Although commercial companies contract them as advertisers, it is not known whether the social media have a basic role in the insertion of MMA among the sports preferred by people from the city of São Paulo, Brazil. A quality exploratory research with interviews revealed that insertion in the social media favored its receptivity by the population.