If you want to start up a business and make money online, the MMA business niche could be a great option.

MMA fans are loyal and passionate. In addition, the growth of MMA shows no signs of slowing down.

People are still learning about the benefits they can experience from training in MMA. So introducing them to this niche creates the perfect opportunity to make a very profitable niche website in MMA training.

Highlights

  • Very passionate following that advocate for this niche and convert high on MMA training products
  • Large market potential as MMA carves its own sub niche within the martial arts niche
  • Sheer brutality of the cage fighting sport make for great shock factor marketing

The story

I’ve always enjoyed boxing and like to watch UFC with my friends. Fight parties are one of my favorite activities and the multiple levels of fighting make cage fighting unbelievably entertaining. Some express concern about the sheer brutality of the sport. However, once a fight starts, everyone is glued to the screen. You just can’t look away.

I signed my young sons up at a local MMA gym and they immediately loved it. My oldest son had a few karate lessons, but the MMA classes were next level. They had gear because they were actually sparring. And not just each other. I would regularly watch my son spar with the instructor and he loved it.

One day, I noticed my local rec center had boxing training classes, and I decided to sign up. These were mostly non-contact, but went very hard on the technique and conditioning of boxing. Eventually, these classes evolved to MMA training classes and immediately became three times as difficult. It would feel like my body was literally breaking in half at times. I couldn’t get enough of it.

Something like “MMA for women” could be a great sub niche.

What is Mixed Martial Arts?

Mixed martial arts (MMA) sometimes referred to as cage fighting,is a full-contact combat sport based on striking, grappling and ground fighting, incorporating techniques from various combat sports and martial arts from around the world.

MMA is a hybrid form of martial arts that combines the most effective forms of martial arts. Typically, these include boxing, muay thai, and brazilian jui jitsu (BJJ). These three forms cover strikes with the hands, feet, elbows, and knees, as well as ground fighting. Sometimes, fighters add other forms like wrestling or karate.

MMA is proven to be the most effective form of fighting by cage fighting and the growth of UFC. Many martial arts that are rooted in theory and include complicated moves that are defeated when matched against MMA. Many MMA training classes also include a little sparring which gives the trainee practical fight experience.

MMA training has become more mainstream for fitness and self-defense. It’s relatively easy to learn because the moves are simple and practical. Even if you don’t spar, the training for MMA is the best kind of training you can endure and will likely give you a great chance in a self-defense scenario. Even if you are only more conditioned than your attacker. 

What I like about this niche

The MMA niche has a huge market potential because it’s growing as its own sub niche within the martial arts niche. Some of the other forms of martial arts find MMA to be barbaric. This extreme polarization has allowed MMA to essentially create its own category within another category.

Polarization also creates a cult-like following that are extremely passionate about MMA. This kind of passion allows your customers to advocate for your website without much convincing on your side.

This niche also has many products to promote from equipment and gear to online classes with recurring membership fees. Many people are looking to get into MMA as beginners or just want to train at home. This gives you a diverse target audience with varying goals that you can help them achieve. 

Another thing I find very interesting about this niche is the initial shock factor. Anyone seeing this sport for the first time stops and watches because it’s in our human nature to be intrigued by violence and risk. This dates all the way back to the gladiators fighting to the death. You can take advantage of this in your marketing.

What I don’t like about this niche

The MMA niche is largely influenced by actual fighters who have experience and usually have some wins. Even smaller influencers in the niche have won tiny local tournaments in small towns. This could make it difficult if you have no fighting experience.

Another thing I don’t like about this niche is that it is in the inherently dangerous, combat niche. Anything in the combat niche poses a risk because somebody could get themselves killed by following your advice. Somebody could get a false sense of confidence after learning MMA at home, and get beat up at a club because they “think” they can fight. This doesn’t necessarily make you liable, but the risk is still there because it’s the combat niche.

Niche pros and cons at a glance

I think the benefits of MMA’s market potential and extremely passionate following outweigh the inherent dangers of the combat niche. 

Pros

  • MMA has a huge market potential and is continually growing as its own sub niche of martial arts.
  • Cult-like following because of MMA polarization in the martial arts world.
  • Tons of products to promote because people have different interests in MMA.
  • People are naturally intrigued by violence which is helpful for shock factor marketing.

Cons

  • MMA is largely influenced by actual fighters with fighting experience.
  • The combat niche is inherently dangerous and poses a liability risk.

Who may be a good fit for this website niche:

  • You have no fighting experience and want to document yourself learning MMA.
  • You are an experienced fighter and want to teach others how to do MMA.
  • You are interested in self-defense and want to prove why MMA is the best form of self-defense.
  • You’re a fan of UFC and want to break down the news and events surrounding the sport.
How to find obscure niches

Niche market research

The MMA niche market is part of the martial arts industry, but is carving it’s own sub niche within the industry.

Niche market worth

The martial arts industry is collectively valued at $5B. 

Niche estimated growth

The MMA niche alone, is expected to reach $565M by 2022. It is also expected to grow by $348.4M from 2020-2024. Our conservative estimate could see the MMA niche by itself, reaching $800M by 2024.

Customer information

Statistics

$5.8 billion market growth by 2024

Estimated growth:

14K

Amazon products

Influencers

Here are the top influencers in the MMA niche. Browse their websites, especially UFC, to learn more about the MMA world. Then, network with them and their followers to gain even more knowledge in this niche. Also, search for ways to expand upon this topic even more on your own niche website. This is where it helps to be innovative.

UFC 

https://www.ufc.com/ The UFC is the largest growing sport and has brought MMA to the masses. K-1, Pride, Strikeforce and other MMA fighting has existed, but UFC is by far the largest now.

MMA Fighting

https://www.MMAfighting.com/ This website is all about the news and events surrounding UFC. Networking with the contributors of this site would be great for promoting your own site.

BJ Penn

https://www.bjpenn.com/ This website also covers UFC-related news and networking with the contributors would be a great way to get promotion.

Execution

Domains

I like these domains for the execution of this MMA niche website. At the time of publishing this article, these brandable domain names are available for a discount.

  • indyMMA.com
  • MMAchristian.com
  • matMMA.com
  • babeMMA.com
  • koreanMMA.com
  • MMAamerican.com
  • fxMMA.com
  • paleoMMA.com
  • MMApoetry.com
  • americaMMA.com
  • gamingMMA.com
  • MMAjoe.com
  • medicineMMA.com

The Blog Plan

I would structure this website to drive the visitor to a CTA which will prompt them to enter their email address. 

The homepage should drive visitors to the CTA or blog posts. 

The blog posts should drive visitors to other blog posts or the CTA.

I would experiment with different types of CTA, but I really like the thought of a  MMA quiz. I explain a little more about my site structure in the following tabs. 

Pages and Menu Setup

  • Home
  • Blog 
  • About
  • Contact
  • CTA

Home

Homepage is setup to hit pain points of visitor not being confident.

Here is a suggested outline:

  • 1-2 sections hitting the pain point of why they are not confident. This would be either not being in shape, not being able to defend themselves, not being assertive, etc. 
  • Call to action (CTA)
  • Section explaining what MMA is and how it can improve their life.
  • Section for blog posts.
  • CTA

Blog

The blog will need to focus on thoroughly explaining:

  • What is MMA
  • Why MMA can help improve the users quality of life
  • Products, gear, and resources to learn and train MMA
  • Techniques, Tips, and Tutorials for MMA training
  • Commentary on current UFC news

About

Should be a typical About Page explaining who you are and why you put together this website.

What is this site about, Why you created it, what you help people accomplish, who you are.

Contact

Regular contact page that people can contact you if they have questions. Not much content needed here. Just a small sentence saying, “Fill out the form to get ahold me.” Or something similar. And the form of course. 

CTA

This can be a free resource to help the visitor better understand how MMA can help them. It could also be a resource of 10-20 things that will help them to learn or train the basics of MMA like stance, punches, kicks, etc. 

I also like the idea of making a quiz called something like the, “Which MMA style should I learn?” quiz. Then, ask for the user’s email after the quiz either a ?gate? page or the results page. Another quiz idea for fun is, “Which MMA fighter are you?” quiz.

Categories

MMA

This category explains everything related to MMA. This will help your visitors learn more about MMA as a full topic so they don’t have to leave your site if they have more generic questions.

Tip/Techniques

This category includes all resources and techniques for MMA. After going through broad technique, you can go into more detail about each technique.

News

This category includes all commentary about current UFC news.

Gear

This category includes reviews and tutorials for products and gear related to MMA.

Traffic Sources

FB groups

These Facebook groups have large numbers of people interested in MMA. I like that these groups have a large number of people and are already focused on our niche. I can continually find large groups of people that love MMA and focus on different aspects such as training or UFC discussion.

Forums

These forums get a good amount of traffic because MMA has such a huge, passionate following. These forums are worth browsing through and establishing yourself as a participant. I would pick one of these because they seem to be the most popular ones. I could’ve found more MMA forums through my research, but this is a great start.

Subreddits

You can find a few subreddits for MMA, but these are the most popular. They are both very active and worth targeting for the promotion of your niche site.

SEO

MMA by itself is going to be a difficult keyword to target because you’re competing with UFC and everyone that’s related to that world. The goal for our SEO strategy would be to target a specific audience within the MMA niche and choose keywords that speak to them.

For example, your marketing could target people who are interested in learning MMA at home for the benefit of getting in shape. This mix of MMA and fitness keywords would help me rank higher for those types of keywords and bring me more traffic.

Even when targeting a specific category within the MMA niche, you will still need to ensure your SEO is in good shape because the growth of this niche will likely bring about more competition in the future. I really like the difficulty of some of these keywords though. They’re worth going after for sure.

Keywords

  • Money keywords
    • Can MMA be self taught?
    • How MMA fighters train
    • Will MMA get me in shape?
    • Will MMA help in a street fight?
    • Can MMA help lose weight?
    • MMA for self defense
    • MMA without sparring
  • Long-tail keywords
    • Can MMA fighter beat boxer?
    • MMA when showboating goes wrong
    • Will MMA overtake boxing?
    • Can MMA fighters smoke weed?
    • MMA like game for android
    • MMA is safer than boxing
    • Can MMA fighters wear contacts?
    • Will MMA ever be an olympic sport?
    • What MMA fighters eat
    • How MMA fighters cut weight

Monetization Method

This website will be monetized with affiliate marketing to promote Amazon and Clickbank products.

Amazon Product Examples

RDX MMA Gloves for Grappling Martial Arts Training, D. Cut Open Palm Maya Hide Leather Sparring Mitts, Perfect for Cage Fighting, Combat Sports, Punching Bag, Muay Thai and Kickboxing

https://amzn.to/3aYfAsh These simple MMA gloves are the start for anyone interested in MMA. I have a pair of these and they work great for training. Easiest purchase you can make.

Combat Sports 100-pound Muay Thai Punching Heavy Bag

https://amzn.to/37ZUMPb This is a Muay Thai Heavy Bag and is for the person who is very serious about MMA training. They will also need a mount, stand, gloves, etc.

QMUK MMA Grappling Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Wrestling Mixed Martial Arts Judo Training Kick Boxing Dummy

https://amzn.to/2WQZ7xL This is a cool dummy for training BJJ or grappling. This is for the person who is serious about groundwork and wants to improve. I want one of these for myself.

Clickbank Products

Alpha Home Workout System

Cool training program to get you in fighting shape at home.

Combat Fighter and Combat Shooter

Fighter training program to learn self-defense from a former special operations soldier.

First Strike

Fight training program from a special forces operator that’s similar to the previous program, but seems to target a different audience.

Earning Potential

Assuming you can get one Clickbank sale per day and a few Amazon products sold with the customers making a few extra purchases you can make $2100 per month on the conservative side. 

You also have the potential to make even more money by selling your own MMA training videos and courses.

You could also explore more MMA-related affiliate products to add even more income to your niche website. 

MMA Business NIche Summary

The mixed martial arts niche is a great topic to start a niche website. I love the passionate following and the high-converting products you can promote. Here is a summary of the highlights:

  • Very passionate following that advocate for this niche and convert high on MMA training products
  • Large market potential as MMA carves its own sub niche within the martial arts niche
  • Sheer brutality of the cage fighting sport make for great shock factor marketing

It also has some great brandable domain names and many easy places to find traffic. I would love to start it myself, but I’d rather focus on finding even more profitable niches to share with you.