Back in January 2023, there was some groundbreaking news for the Jiu-Jitsu/Grappling community as ADCC events were to be streamed via UFC Fight Pass.
This meant much more mainstream exposure for grappling as over 40 events throughout 2024; including ADCC Open, ADCC Trials, and the ADCC 2024 World Championships would be on UFC Fightpass.
Now it appears that ADCC is no longer on UFC Fightpass and is back on FloGrappling, which is the main streaming platform for grappling. The news has surprised many members of the grappling community, mainly because of Flograppling’s controversial reputation amongst some fans who complain about stream quality, the choice of some of its commentators and the constant advertisements during streams.
Mo Jassim, ADCC’s chief executive, announced the renewned partnership in FloGrappling’s official press release but did not explain why they had ended the UFC Fightpass deal:
“The rise of grappling has been monumental, and our team is thrilled to work with FloSports to showcase some of the best grapplers in the world. We look forward to delivering ever-improved event production and coverage for the global grappling community.”
ADCC organizer Seth Daniels explained the reasons for the change:
“Since so many people are posting their opinions of ADCC returning to Flograppling instead of UFC fight pass as originally announced I can give you the truth and reasons of why this decision was made.
1. Flo has the best technologies to run multi mat/ stream events.
2. Flo goes above and beyond in terms of coverage and marketing for ADCC and the athletes
3. 90% of the mistakes of 2022 ADCC were my team and my fault. I took on more than I was capable of and it broke me mentally. lye decided to turn over control of production to real professionals that can produce an event worthy of an entire year Flo subscription and the cost of a ticket. I’ve listened and read the thousands of comments from 2022 and am addressing everything including my horrible attitude I had during that week.
4. After 6 months of trying to make things work with fight pass it was clear that retuning to Flo was not only the right option but the only option.
5 I want to thank the Fight pass executives and teams that tried their hardest to make this venture happen and wish them the best in the future. ”
So what does this mean for the sport of submission grappling?
Staying on Flograppling means that there will be less mainstream exposure since UFC Fightpass was a much bigger platform. Is this a big step back for the sport? Only time will tell as BJJ/Grappling seems to be exploding in popularity recently with Joe Rogan, the number podcast in the world, constantly talking about BJJ and mainy celebrities are training and competing (Tom Hardy, Mark Zuckerberg, Wiz Khalifa etc…)
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