What's a UFC win worth on Twitter?
Johny Hendricks listens as Georges St. Pierre, of Canada, is interviewed following their UFC 167 welterweight title in Las Vegas. St. Pierre won by controversial split decision. (Nov. 16, 2013) Credit: AP
The UFC was one of the early pro sports leagues to integrate Twitter into its marketing and promoting of events and fighters.
Many things go into determining how many followers a fighter has -- from performance in the cage, to engagement on Twitter, to sponsorship campaigns, to existing profile/status in the UFC, to at least a dozen other things.
So here's a question: how much is a UFC win worth in Twitter followers?
Using UFC 167 as the event of measure, with a time span of Friday, Nov. 15 to 12:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 18, here's a look at how each fighter grew on Twitter.
First, the winning fighters, in descending order from main event to first prelim.
| FIGHTER | NOV. 15 | NOV. 18 | GAIN |
|---|---|---|---|
| Georges St-Pierre | 833,299 | 848,391 | 15,092 |
| Rashad Evans | 313,221 | 315,973 | 2,752 |
| Robbie Lawler | 15,413 | 16,154 | 741 |
| Tyron Woodley | 22,408 | 25,534 | 3,126 |
| Ali Bagautinov | 9,759 | 10,037 | 278 |
| Donald Cerrone | 109,101 | 110,298 | 1,197 |
| Thales Leites | 2,827 | 2,956 | 129 |
| Rick Story | 44,333 | 44,678 | 345 |
| Erik Perez | 23,308 | 23,567 | 259 |
| Jason High | 11,022 | 11,176 | 154 |
| Sergio Pettis | 10,961 | 11,060 | 99 |
| Gian Villante | 3,191 | 3,209 | 18 |
| Average gain | 2,015 |
And now for the losing fighters:
| FIGHTER | NOV. 15 | NOV. 18 | GAIN |
|---|---|---|---|
| Johny Hendricks | 106,568 | 120,619 | 14,054 |
| Chael Sonnen | 382,186 | 383,050 | 864 |
| Rory MacDonald | 68,337 | 68,667 | 330 |
| Josh Koscheck | 177,911 | 178,112 | 201 |
| Tim Elliott | 1,961 | 2,000 | 39 |
| Evan Dunham | 31,838 | 31,913 | 75 |
| Ed Herman | 14,478 | 14,607 | 129 |
| Brian Ebersole | 17,309 | 17,387 | 78 |
| Edwin Figueroa | 1,752 | 1,758 | 6 |
| Anthony Lapsley | 339 | 369 | 30 |
| Will Campuzano | 800 | 893 | 93 |
| Cody Donovan | 1,940 | 1,985 | 45 |
| Average gain | 1,329 |
What does any of this prove? Nothing really, especially with such a small sample size. But it did make for some interesting number-crunching here on Monday afternoon.
This makes the third time in 72 hours Hendricks lost to St-Pierre, first via split decision in the actual fight (you know, the thing that really matters), and then again in fan vote to share the EA Sports UFC video game cover with Jon Jones. Of course, many people believe Hendricks won the fight Saturday night.
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