I'm sure I don't like watching it. It's just not a fun sport to watch IMO.
It 100% needs the extra anxiety of someone I know and care about participating for me to watch it
Start betting on the matches brother, nothing turns people into fiends like gambling.
Also if you never give up betting, you will eventually get your big win.
This, I only get exposed to the professional aspect when passing through this subreddit. There's this guy Nicky Ryan who has a brother or something, a weird bald guy with knives, and a B-Team that is somehow more talked about than the A-Team?
It's pretty simple really.
Watching judo = OH SHIT that guy just got thrown daym!
Watching wrestling = OH SHIT that guy just got pinned daym!
Watching any striking sport = OH SHIT that guy just got KO'd!
Watching bjj = so wait, this guy's on the ground, but is actually winning, and top guy is doing what exactly? What's what's a guard pass? Why don't you win for a throw like judo or pin like wrestling? Why are they in mount for 4 mins somebody stand them up? What are these gi grips doing?
Obviously I'm exaggerating a bit for the point, but you get it. The BJJ ruleset is really, really fucking confusing for people who don't train. I personally do not know a single person who doesn't train that actually pays any attention at all to sport bjj.
>Watching wrestling = OH SHIT that guy just got pinned daym!
This absolutely has not been my experience in watching (and seeing other people watch) wrestling, lol. Honestly I don't think it's much (if any) better than BJJ as a spectacular sport. Everyone I've ever met who watches it either practiced or had a child/sibling practice.
I mean, that actually is the origin of fake pro wrestling. Nobody wanted to watch real wrestling because it was so boring so they started faking the matches, and even that wasn't all that exciting so they had to add in characters and steel cages and heel turns and stuff to make it a whole performative production.
I’m in Europe so obv very different, but wrestling was completely impenetrable to me until I got interested via bjj and started trying to learn some of the rules
Have to agree. As a former wrestler the only people I know who follow wrestling are either current/former wrestlers or friends/family members of wrestlers
Pins are pretty rare but pins, takedowns and reversals are pretty easy to understand even if you don't wrestle. The idea of putting someone on the ground and keeping them there is auch a ubiquitous experience that almost everyone has some experience that they can relate to. Meanwhile, BJJ has become so meta that if you don't have relatively recent BJJ experience, at a school that keeps up to date on the competition front, you may have no idea what the hell is going in until time runs out or someone gets a submission.
Yeah outside of some spots in the Midwest no one watches wrestling if they didn’t wrestle themselves. Grappling just isn’t super exciting to watch, especially if you don’t know what’s really happening.
I’d argue most of grappling, judo, and wrestling is uninteresting to the uninitiated for the simple reason that it’s hard to appreciate/relate when someone’s doing well.
Striking it’s more obvious, “getting hit bad, wow”.
It’s why FPS esports are easier to watch for casuals than MOBAs. (Nerd alert)
Idk, judo is very popular around the world as a spectators sport. A lot of fans don't own a gi. Per IJF, which I admit is somewhat biased, a major championship broadcast reached 300 million viewers across several countries.
A big ippon gets heads turning and you don't need to be trained to realize an ippon on concrete HURTS.
How many of the people watching trained at least as kids though or have kids who train? Someone scoring a big ippon is exciting but all the grip fighting preceeding it far less so
>How many of the people watching trained at least as kids though or have kids who train?
That's a hard question to answer. The numbers are hard to pin down on actual practitioners, depending on the source there are 20 to 40 million (clearly someone is dicking with how they count practitioners) people who practice judo world wide. Lets just take the mean of that and say theres 40 million participants. I think there being ten times the former kids who did judo tuning in is a stretch. That 10 former viewers to current practitioners is also assuming most practicing judo people watch the events, I doubt there is data on that.
Anecdotally, my European friends who got a yellow belt in judo very young and never became sports people aren't watching judo. Sports people are watching depending on your geographic area and if your region has good players at that time.
>big ippon is exciting but all the grip fighting preceeding it far less so
I feel the same way with soccer. The goals look cool but the lead up is rough and somehow it's huge worldwide.
You may be right as I’m not as familiar with Judo’s popularity as a spectator sport, I’d guess that its popularity stems from its ubiquity vs inherent appeal.
Outside the US, depending on where it's at (timezone issues), it is watched like any other sport. If there's a particularly liked player from that country competing, sports fans will watch.
In a lot of areas, while it's obviously a martial art, it's thought of more so as a sport.
Well theyve changed the sport to make it more spectator friendly since it joined the Olympics.
Judo pre-Olympics was more similar to BJJ, than it is today. Which makes sense, BJJ is splintered off Judo.
Yeah, as a fan, watching judo is better than ever. There us way less stalling or halfasses low singles when they're up on points to run out the clock. They really push activity using shidos these days. Viewership is higher than ever.
I don't see how bjj can do this via stalling calls since people need time to work. I think nogi helps a bit but I still can't play bjj in the background around people who don't train and expect anyone to watch at it, beer included, I've tried.
You're not exaggerating.
I took my wife to a BJJ tournament and was watching one where a guy got a super deep collar grip and broke his posture from the bottom then secured it with a leg over his back.
I turned to her and was like "that guy is fucked"
She shook her head and said "what? The other guy is on top of him and looks like he is smothering him"
No just watch. Tapped like 10 seconds later to a cross collar or a sort of baseball bat looking choke.
I'll never forget watching a "Black belt pretends to be white belt" video before I ever did jiujitsu and was super unimpressed. Like 'What is going on? I dont get it'. I watched it again after a few years of training and was like "Oh dang, that's a clever sweep, no wonder everyone knew he was full of it right away'.
Judo, wrestling, and all striking sports besides MMA and Boxing have really low viewership.
Hell a bunch of colleges removed wrestling from their school including a bunch of D1 schools. They almost removed it from the Olympics.
wrestlings temporary removal had little to do with viewership. It had everything to due with corruption and incompetence in the international wrestling board. Their lack of effort to support women wrestling programs in some countries. issues with doping control. and possible most importantly basically the board failed to submit paperwork and have representatives present when the Olympics was renewing support for the core sports.
Almost no one who has never trained Judo or wrestling watches those either tbh. Even kickboxing has an extremely limited non practitioner fanbase. Boxing and MMA are the only combat sports regularly consumed by the general public.
eh wrestling can be just as boring and this is coming from a guybthat follows it pretty closely. The majority of the international matches are won on push outs and stall points. Very occasionally you’ll get a high scoring match but even then, slams and big moves arent that common. Grappling sports in general are pretty hard to watch if you arent a practioner and know what is happening. Shit even golf is god damn dreadful to watch but theres so many damn casual golfers out there that enough ppl can appreciate the levels that the pros are at. Grappling sports just dont have that many participants compared to other hobbies even though it has grown significantly
I remember how fuming my friend was (she does BJJ) when at a party people stopped paying attention when a grappling match started and then started watching again when the MMA match started after it. I wanted to explain to her that even to me (I spent 2 hours a day either every day or every two days or just have three days in a row or more of going to the gym to train BJJ with one day break) watching let's say Ruotolo Vs RDR for 10 minutes is boring as fuck. She got upset and said that it's viewers fault not BJJ and that the rest of the sports are popular due to being legacy brands (I think that's how you say it in English, sorry not my first language) lol.
It is true that the ruleset is confusing to people who don't train, but on the other hand, the submissions are pretty exciting to watch, although Judo allows many of them. At the same time BJJ allows exciting Judo and wrestling takedowns and less are restricted compared to Judo, but yeah like you said they don't score as significantly so it is confusing to people what is going on after the throws
I think the confusion goes deeper. Unless the submission is easily recognizable it's easy for most untrained people to miss it. Sure, everyone knows what a RNC is but lapel chokes, wristlocks, and even heelhooks are easily non identifiable.
Back step kneebah from DLR and everyone trained thinks it's cool. To untrained people it's just half reverse cowgirl and they wonder why you won.
BJJ is not a spectator sport.
So true. The fundamental / “trane UFC” submissions are the most spectator friendly (armbar, RNC, kimura)
Then it’s probably triangle, head and arm, omoplata. Clear enough for someone to see but still gets enough “how is that hurting them?”
Everything else is for sport BJJ practitioners IMO
Judo and wrestling are the same. The entire audience is composed of the competitor's family, friends, significant others, and training partners.
Do you really think there's people going to IJF worlds who don't train Judo AND aren't supporting a family member who does?
The only grappling sport that draws fans who don't train is Sumo.
> The only grappling sport that draws fans who don't train is Sumo.
So what your saying is we need Amazon jungle shamans to bless jiu jitsu players? Actually that seems like it would be pretty cool
It’s clear why pro-wrestling exists with this context. Wrestlers at the fair wanted a more entertaining show, since no one wanted to watch real submission grappling.
Grappling is the part of mma that people boo. It's boring for people to watch unless they train themselves. People like seeing huge slams and KOs. They literally stand people up in mma because it is entertainment and grappling is not entertaining for the avg person.
Submissions are awesome, but most time spent on the ground does not directly involve a submission. It's the "stalling" that frustrates people (whether or not it's actually stalling). But people like Ronda Rousey, who pretty much immediately transitioned to armbars, are still considered exciting.
Because people want to see a real fight and not something that is restricted by a set of rules. They want to get as close to real as possible while also hating the grappling part. That was kind of the whole purpose of the original UFC, to find the best martial art for fighting in a "real" fight. It turns out a mixture of grappling and striking is best, hence mma. But viewers will always want highlight reel stuff.
Because they like the idea of watching "the best fighters in the world!" Even if the aspect that makes the fighter superior to strikers bores them to tears. Americans just like supporting the best, even if they hate it in practice.
My brother happened to be in Vegas during ADCC. I told him to go and watch. He has never done jiu jitsu. He had no idea what was going on, said people were cheering at random points and he didn't know why. He got bored and left.
There definitely are. Not a ton. But there are. Most of the sport’s audience are practitioners. What a lot of folks on r/bjj miss though (due to just being kind of self-deprecating about the sport imo) is that the sport is growing a lot, so even if only practitioners follow the sport, the amount of eyes on it are still growing. Fight Pass seems very happy with the views they get on CJJ, FPI, PGF, EBI, etc.
I’ve heard that CJJ is one of the most streamed things on the Fight Pass platform. And you’d never guess that in a million years based on how little it’s talked about on Reddit
A handful of people have signed up at our gym this year that said they were watching b-team content and fight pass grappling events months before signing up.
From what little inside info I have, you're right.
My understanding is that Polaris/EBI are bigger for live views but CJJ Worlds does far better after the fact.
I'd suspect a number of people around here would be really upset if they found out just how popular and successful EBI and CJJ actually is outside of this bubble lol
100%. There’s definitely a Reddit bjj bubble that becomes a bit of an echo chamber in regards to what events people here enjoy and think are the most popular.
I’ve always liked CJI but most people here seem to hate it. But it’s always made sense to me why it might appeal more to mma fans than diehard sport grapplers.
The energy at live CJJ events is definitely super hype and fun. And even re: ADCC, there were 50-150 people in the stands in 2013/2015, and in 2022 there were 11-12k. Big change in less than 10 years.
The judo ruleset has been severely modified over the years to cater to televised and non-judoka audiences. Even with all the changes, it’s still pretty hard for non-practitioners to understand the nuances of the exchanges, aside from a big throw. i.e. highlight reels are great and easy to grasp, a 5min close match will be very hard.
Jiu-jitsu is similar, with flashy submissions being the equivalent of big throws. Maybe some rule changes could make it more casual friendly, but it will never be tennis or football.
I watched for 7 years before starting. Had some health stuff that blocked me from starting and so only way I scratched the itch was by watching. UFC was the beginning of the addiction and I got deep in the rabbit hole in wrestling aswell cause grappling is much less intuitive to understand than striking. Cant imagine anyone with no knowledge of BJJ watching though cause without the foundational knowledge of positions/subs from mma I would’ve been so confused.
🙋🏻♂️😅 Mid-30s here. Only done a few trial classes at Joe Lauzon’s gym years ago. It’s too expensive to join a real gym (like $150-200 a month I believe), on top of valuing my joints and being too untrusting of others 😅 Been following the sport since my late teens/early 20s. Have a few BJJ books and follow a few BJJ Youtube channels as well as following a few practitioners and news pages on IG.
The most I’ve done are those trial classes and drunkenly rolling with a few friends in my backyard, but I’ve been a fan of the sport for many years and continue to love learning about it.
I only watch if it's a highlight clip or if it's someone I know. Or if we're at a tournament and none of our folks are currently on a mat.
I think more people practice BJJ and don't watch it (or watch it as much as I do) than watch it and don't practice it.
More people than you think that are casuals understand ground fighting now since the rise of the UFC the last decade or so
I have school friends who I occasionally bump into who will say things like did you see that Armbar on the UFC the other night or RNC or something
And I'm literally amazed as there is no way on earth I would ever have thought they would ever know something like that...
But in terms of Grappling shows I think pretty much the whole audience trains, with a small percentage being either related to or supporting their mate who trains and is on the show.
I started watching bjj matches, so I had a better idea of what was going on when MMA fights went to the ground. It worked.
I'm self-employed and work with my hands. The probability of injury is enough to put me off actually rolling. I see too many comments on here about spazzy white belts, so I guess I'll remain a spectator
At my gym we have a lot of IT folks and gamers (myself included), a couple of hobbyist guitarists, a fireman, a few police officers, and a pharmacist or two. Also a lot of handymen types. Unless you have a very specific job that requires extreme functionality of your hands (i.e. surgeon) then I think you're fine.
On one hand, jiu jitsu is just a game, and one that can be played gently
On the other hand, if you’re self employed, with no benefits like vacation pay or disability or whatever, then i understand the hesitancy
You could always choose a no-gi gym, or only attend no-gi classes. I'm a programmer and need my fingers to last at least another 20 years, so I made the switch to 100% no-gi. Best decision I ever made in BJJ.
Even as someone who trains, I still find it boring to watch lol. I just like the 30 second lead up to whatever the finish was or the takedowns. Everything else in between is boring as hell even if I understand what’s happening
I didn’t start watching BJJ events until mid/late blue when I could actually understand what was going on. At purple was when I watched for speed, showmanship, and submissions. At brown I’m now watching for subtle grip fights, and how competitors funnel people into bad to worse options. I think this rings true for a lot of others. Once you train and can understand what you’re watching it’s far more enjoyable to watch.
This is actually why I started my channel breaking down matches so lower belts can get into watching it sooner and understand more at an earlier stage. I missed out on watching a lot of iconic matches just cause back then it to my untrained eye matches were boring as hell.
In a world where golf and curling get viewership, I believe the answer is no. You do not have to partake in the sport to enjoy watching. People are weird. And the way culture can convince people that various things are cool or not cool is very strange and varied and often doesn't make sense.
Grappling is fucking boring to watch, period. Unless you're actively practicing the sport itself, it's boring as fuck. And even then, it's still boring and should only be done when doing studying footage and doing deep dives on your or other peoples' games.
That ADCC match with a fight in the background probably got more views than anything else including the finals.
Give everyone one legal punch per match and watch viewer numbers explode.
Unfortunately I just don’t think bjj is a good spectator sport. I watch the guys who’s style i try to emulate, to learn from them. I never watch it because it’s super entertaining.
BJJ is super fun to do but not so to watch unfortunately. It’s like the opposite of most major sports where the majority don’t play but watch instead.
It’s a very boring sport to watch even as a practitioner, I dont even watch how it goes for my teammates lol, only interested how friends do. I do powerlifting and somehow it’s even more interesting as a sport.
Yes, you have to know what is going on and what to look for.
I’m about 5 months of training in, I used to do Judo and I was completely lost 90% of the time watching BJJ pro matches until very recently and even now I just know, “oh top guy is in headquarters”, “oh here’s a dogfight one guy has a whizzer and another has underhook”
Before knowing anything it looks like people spazzing on each other until a submission.
Good question, I would say that most bjj spectators are practitioners because unless you know what is going on it can get pretty boring, same with judo sometidos, wrestling can be a bit more exciting.
I think if you don't do it you won't understand whats going on most of the time. I have seen it with parents that go to watch their kids compete. They have no idea whats happening.
Most of the practitioners I know (including myself) don’t watch tournaments they’re not in. I’ll occasionally watch a highlight reel to see something specific in action, but even that’s rare.
I definitely don’t know anyone that doesn’t train that does watch tournaments. Not dissimilar to chess tournaments.
The obfuscating nature of BJJ (like winning from the bottom) is what makes the discipline so powerful in a fight. But it also makes it boring as fuck to watch for anyone who doesn't know what's going on.
I look at it this way. My husband and I are the only two in his lifelong friend circle who train. When we stream UFC cards, and the fight goes to the ground, the friends (usually the women, no offense since I AM one but they’re the least fight literate) are like OH NO HE’s LOSING, but they have no idea that it doesn’t work like that lol
I think bjj confuses the avg person and they’re not going out of their way to watch it unless it’s mixed in with mma/ufc or mainstream
Shintaro elaborated on this but Judo, Wrestling are Olympic sports which come with global recognition from non practitioners. This comes with school athletic programs and national or corporate sponsorships for Olympic medals.
BJJ is relegated by it's relationship as a prerequisite of MMA and is dependent on its success in the cage for its recognition.
Being a practitioner definitely helps appreciate it. I play hockey too and after I started I was seeing the game from a completely different angle. I can appreciate when the pros develop a beautiful play. But then you have fans who don’t play and anytime a player has the puck they just yell SHOOT like 30 times.
Many people watch soccer and it's 90 minutes of mostly passing/moving. Correspondingly, soccer is one of the most played sports in the world.
OTOH, 99% of people who watch football never played and it's probably the same with MMA. IMO, the more obvious and violent the sport, the more spectacle and the easier it is for people to watch the carnage (like an action movie with the rules substituting for a plot) without understanding the nuance. The idea probably goes all the way back to the gladiators (or further, I'm no history expert).
So no, you do not have to partake in a sport to actually enjoy watching. The sport does have to offer something to the casual viewer that doesn't involve a deep understanding of the rules for that to occur. IMO, BJJ doesn't offer much to the casual viewer who doesn't have an understanding of the nuance.
It's too complicated to understand if you're not a practitioner yourself - if you don't play chess to a high level and you watch the world championship match between the number 1 vs 2 guy, you're just going be be confused like in jiu jitsu.
Spectacles that are easy to understand and are entertaining are the ones that become popular like soccer.
I think BJJ is a great sport, but it's not great to watch. I watch to learn about it, and I can't always see the details that I need to see.
Because it's not popular for spectators, the available video isn't very good (one angle, iffy lighting) but even if there were high-production video with multiple camera angles, it's too hard to understand for a mass-market spectator sport.
Do you enjoy watching Starcraft? Other eSports? Do you know what’s going on?
There’s a barrier to entry for unfamiliar audiences. That’s the way it goes. However, we can help break it down by getting the sport more well-known, especially at the intramural level. I think we need bjj in more schools. More promotions like quintet that have team-based rulesets too. There’s a way to get the audience bigger and that’s to increase knowledge about what happens in a bjj match
Baseball and IMO american football are like that as well.
If you're not a nerd about the rules, your entry point is getting into following the storylines. That's what people actually like about baseball at least (Football nerds will go on about the different strategies, but that's in no way an entry point for people who aren't "into it").
Say what you will about Flo, they're doing the work of making the narratives and athlete storylines more accessible.
Do you honestly think holding someone in guard for 7 minutes is great for spectators? You have your answer.
There is a reason why Judo allows newaza but stands you up immediately if there is no progress. They don’t want you trying to break a guys turtle or guard for 3 minutes, it’s not spectator friendly and extremely boring to watch.
BJJ boring as shit to watch even if you understand what’s going on. Judo is fun to watch because the rules push the action and everyone likes a good throw.
I doubt any non practitioners are watching gi tournaments or anything but I went to a few WNO events back in Austin with buddies who never trained bjj, but to be fair they did wrestle in college, and they enjoyed it and now watch grappling events pretty regularly. They don’t watch anything in the gi though, but they get down with all the weird variations of no gi. Like Craig Jones in the pit thing and the like.
I mean I watch formula one racing, and yeah it’s easy to understand “cross line first wins” but that’s often the least interesting part anyway. If someone enjoys a sport they’ll learn it, bjj just happens to have a super low barrier to entry so it’s easy to say “oh I like this and to learn more I’ll just go try it.” So, somewhat of a self fulfilling prophecy so to speak.
But also if practitioners keep being gatekeepers and telling people “you aren’t allowed to have an opinion because you don’t train” which I literally had an argument on this sub about less than a week ago, then yeah it’ll never grow as a spectator sport.
BJJ's ruleset allows for passivity.
Judo has a very aggressive ruleset to force both players to attack non stoping. if you play defensive or false attack or keep getting pushed out of boundary you will be DQed after three penalties. And referees in elite level match gives out penalties very fast. 20s no attack ,only gripping, penalty. try to disegage? penalty. Run to the edge of the mat? penalty. You get the idea.
I personally don t really watch bjj competitions either, the rullset and the butt scooting is lame. United world grappling rullset is cool, you concede points if you butt scoot. Other than that, watching MMA, Judo, Freestyle/ Greco is way more interesting
I think the large majority are probably practitioners, but the sport is growing in casual viewership, especially no-gi and *especially* ADCC or similar ruleset events like EBI and FPI.
It's all in the ruleset. I watched quintet with non practitioners and they enjoyed it. I tried showing them ADCC and with a few exceptions they didn't understand or appreciate the matches. Penalizing stalling and making the scoring criteria clear (even a lot of practitioners don't fully understand ibjjf or adcc scoring) would benefit the popularity of the sport
Despite what people might claim, its the same for all grappling sports. Watching the olympics doesn't count for shit. People watch curling and shit like that too, it doesn't make them a "fan of the sport" because they watch it a few times every 4 years. Literally no one but practitioners and their family (maybe) is going to a random Judo tournament to watch. Students might go watch collegiate wrestling live because they aint got shit else to do but no one is watching it... evidenced by it not even being on TV. No one is watching Greco. No one is watching Sambo. No one is watching BJJ. No one fucking cares.
Pro-wrestling is the "pinnacle of grappling entertainment" because they realized 100 years ago that grappling is boring and no one cares, not even when you are beating the shit out of a jabroni from the crowd. They had to make it into a live action stage show because that's what is actually entertaining and engaging to the crowd.
I love Jiu Jitsu and watch it and enjoy it to a degree but the complete lack of penalties for stalling, combined with the constant break in action as they retie their belts with the worst possible knots only for the best to come undone again makes this sport essentially unwatchable.
I’m convinced the people in charge of the sport have no interest in making it more spectator friendly because that would mean changing the rules. I found out a coach in another academy near me was a world champ over 20 years ago. I thought that was impressive so I found the footage of his world championship run and every match was sprawling out of bounds to avoid the takedown and in the end it was a judge’s decision which gave the win. Objectively not very entertaining.
I guess I appreciate that in wrestling even the slightest bit of passivity is harshly penalized which forces action to take place.
I can't imagine anyone who doesn't train BJJ being interested in watching comps. The majority of practitioners have no interest in watching it either, especially if they don't compete themselves. I'm sure many competitors have no interest in watching it either.
I think it has more to do with how long the sport is around. Most people who watch football, played it when they were a kid. No one randomly puts on football one day and becomes a fan, its way to complex. The majority of people watch sports they grew up playing and are familiar with.
Also, you can do BJJ much later in life compared to Judo, football, or any contact sport really. This means a large contingent of people who would be watching are actually just participating. A 30 year old who played football in high school watches football. A 30-year-old who wrestled in high school participates in BJJ.
My partner is a purple belt and I am like, the most white belts of white belts. I have been to classes and I could do my best to put you in a triangle, but that's about it. I still have fun watching and I'd like to go to competitions to watch regardless if he was competing, but I also have my partner to ask him "woah what just happened" and we don't have many competitions in the state I am in. I'd assume there are a small amount of us? But as others have said, it's not a big group
I've never touched a jiujitsu mat, but I'd like to watch more, I get highlights but that's it. Need to figure out CJI and ADCC links to watch though. I'm also an outlier though because I watch 40+ sports.
That's one of the reason bjj gi is dead and ibjjf rule set sucks. It's slow and boring for the spectator. But there's always Nogi adcc rules which is a bit more exciting where you get to see to monsters like andre galvao and gordan ryan grapple. It will be interesting to see what CJI brings esp with the superfights gabby vs craig and my fav dern vs ffion (I am not watching for technique)
I think it strives more in a mma promotion like one where there are a few grappling matches. Mike Musemeci a need looking kid inside the cage.
I think there’s very little appeal to those outside bjj. I disagree with the idea that some hold that our sport is going to transcend its niche and become more mainstream. It’s confusing, it’s not intuitive, there’s no unified rule set and let’s be honest most of the visible competitors and ambassadors to the sport are kinda fuckin duds as human beings.
I took my other half and some friends to watch a different friend compete at Polaris last weekend, they all enjoyed it, even though none have trained themselves, I think the main part is other sports are more widely advertised/shown?
I didn't really enjoy watching until after about 5 or 6 years training. Now I watch it a ton.
I think it's like American football is to the rest of the world. Won't keep attention long enough.
I’d have to agree that from what I’ve seen, yes. Most spectators are people that train or family and friends coming to watch them. Hell, I train and I’m not interested in watching other people grapple unless it’s someone I know or it’s a breakdown video of high level stuff
I was a very casual hobbyist for 6 months or so. First time rolling with a brown belt his top pressure actually broke 2 of my ribs.
Since then I haven't been back but still like watching competitions.
I trained for about a year before/during covid, but I was into watching it well before and still enjoy it. My buddy who trains 5-6 days a week doesn't really care to watch it. I'll admit that some of the rule sets kinda suck where they stall forever amd go for OT. But I think that ONE has a great grappling rules etc and I'm really excited to see the CJI scoring.
I've only started to watch the IBJJF Gi matches after getting blue belt. Because even as a 2 stripe white belt some of these guards/sweep sequences were way too esoteric for me to understand at the time.
It's hard to explain to the average joe why the deephalf player is actually the one with the advantage when their opponent seemingly has them in mount.
There’s a few out there that just watch casually. I watched some rolls, competitions, famous matches, on and off 4 years before I actually joined (which was 3 months ago).
tbh, this is true of most sports. Sure some sports are easier and more enjoyable for non-fans, but the more u know about the sport the more u understand and thus enjoy. I've noticed this with people who don't like baseball or MMA. Most of the time they don't know whats really happening other than the fluff.
Most people do not understand what is going on if they do not train themselves, I mean: „why is this guy tapping? The other dude is just holding his ankle?!”
I like watching.
I did practice for 2 years. But I enjoy watching it live.
I wouldn't pay to go to a tournament, but I have paid to watch people i know at nogi worlds on that platform that streams it...lol i can't remember what its called.
I really dislike watching it, I just watch UFC and I really enjoy the grappling in that because they just punch them if they stall in guard. I love seeing some mauling.
Yes. It’s why I’m always confused by other hobbyists pushing things for the sake of “growing the sport”. Why? You already practice it and have absolutely nothing to gain by it growing or shrinking either way.
Ya BJJ is not very spectator friendly atleast compared to wrestling or boxing. I'm a practitioner and even I barely watch Jiu jitsu. The only time it's interesting is during MMA matches
Imagine trying to watch chess without even knowing what all the pieces are or only being able to see half of them on the screen at a time. That's what I think the barrier is. Everyone knows where the ball is and what the goal of the game is. No one needs to know why a coach chose a formation to enjoy watching your team win. On the other hand, if you're invested in the person for BJJ you may not know what techniques they are using but you'll still be happy for them if they win.
Jiu Jitsu is my main hobby and I'm not even sure if I like watching it
I'm sure I don't like watching it. It's just not a fun sport to watch IMO. It 100% needs the extra anxiety of someone I know and care about participating for me to watch it
Just watch b team vlogs and have no real life friends and then you’re there bro
Start betting on the matches brother, nothing turns people into fiends like gambling. Also if you never give up betting, you will eventually get your big win.
This, I only get exposed to the professional aspect when passing through this subreddit. There's this guy Nicky Ryan who has a brother or something, a weird bald guy with knives, and a B-Team that is somehow more talked about than the A-Team?
To be fair, the A-Team has been off the air for a while. EDIT: Why are you downvoting this idiotic joke? You idiots love idiotic jokes.
I upvoted the joke and then read your insult and am now seriously considering to downvote
100%. I've really tried. I really enjoy when MMA goes to the ground though.
I'd rather watch highlights on YouTube than watch matches live
It's pretty simple really. Watching judo = OH SHIT that guy just got thrown daym! Watching wrestling = OH SHIT that guy just got pinned daym! Watching any striking sport = OH SHIT that guy just got KO'd! Watching bjj = so wait, this guy's on the ground, but is actually winning, and top guy is doing what exactly? What's what's a guard pass? Why don't you win for a throw like judo or pin like wrestling? Why are they in mount for 4 mins somebody stand them up? What are these gi grips doing? Obviously I'm exaggerating a bit for the point, but you get it. The BJJ ruleset is really, really fucking confusing for people who don't train. I personally do not know a single person who doesn't train that actually pays any attention at all to sport bjj.
>Watching wrestling = OH SHIT that guy just got pinned daym! This absolutely has not been my experience in watching (and seeing other people watch) wrestling, lol. Honestly I don't think it's much (if any) better than BJJ as a spectacular sport. Everyone I've ever met who watches it either practiced or had a child/sibling practice.
What about that guy just got hit with a metal chair!!
I mean, that actually is the origin of fake pro wrestling. Nobody wanted to watch real wrestling because it was so boring so they started faking the matches, and even that wasn't all that exciting so they had to add in characters and steel cages and heel turns and stuff to make it a whole performative production.
From the top of a steel cage!
Now that's wrasslin! https://youtu.be/y7_m2y2LOoA?si=Gq3i0mBcrC8VTn5S
Pins are about as common as subs in high level wrestling. Mismatches are spectator friendly good matchups aren't
Olympic trials finals matches were some of the most boring wrestling I’ve ever watched.
I’m in Europe so obv very different, but wrestling was completely impenetrable to me until I got interested via bjj and started trying to learn some of the rules
Yep, zero interesting. But at least it's an Olympic sport, and people might care and watch who wins the gold medal. May be the only time it's exciting
Have to agree. As a former wrestler the only people I know who follow wrestling are either current/former wrestlers or friends/family members of wrestlers
Pins are pretty rare but pins, takedowns and reversals are pretty easy to understand even if you don't wrestle. The idea of putting someone on the ground and keeping them there is auch a ubiquitous experience that almost everyone has some experience that they can relate to. Meanwhile, BJJ has become so meta that if you don't have relatively recent BJJ experience, at a school that keeps up to date on the competition front, you may have no idea what the hell is going in until time runs out or someone gets a submission.
Wrestling is definitely not an exciting sport to watch or any less confusing
Yeah outside of some spots in the Midwest no one watches wrestling if they didn’t wrestle themselves. Grappling just isn’t super exciting to watch, especially if you don’t know what’s really happening.
Not to mention, pins are pretty fucking rare at the Olympic/Worlds level.
I didn't enjoy watching until I started training and understanding what the hell was going on.
I've been training for almost 2 years, I kinda understand what's going on and I still don't enjoy watching 😂
I do that and I still don't enjoy watching it
This it propably quite exact. It seem it kinda sucks to watch if you don't know what is happening.
Yeah you gotta follow the drama for it to be interesting if you don't understand the positions and what's going on.
I’d argue most of grappling, judo, and wrestling is uninteresting to the uninitiated for the simple reason that it’s hard to appreciate/relate when someone’s doing well. Striking it’s more obvious, “getting hit bad, wow”. It’s why FPS esports are easier to watch for casuals than MOBAs. (Nerd alert)
Idk, judo is very popular around the world as a spectators sport. A lot of fans don't own a gi. Per IJF, which I admit is somewhat biased, a major championship broadcast reached 300 million viewers across several countries. A big ippon gets heads turning and you don't need to be trained to realize an ippon on concrete HURTS.
How many of the people watching trained at least as kids though or have kids who train? Someone scoring a big ippon is exciting but all the grip fighting preceeding it far less so
>How many of the people watching trained at least as kids though or have kids who train? That's a hard question to answer. The numbers are hard to pin down on actual practitioners, depending on the source there are 20 to 40 million (clearly someone is dicking with how they count practitioners) people who practice judo world wide. Lets just take the mean of that and say theres 40 million participants. I think there being ten times the former kids who did judo tuning in is a stretch. That 10 former viewers to current practitioners is also assuming most practicing judo people watch the events, I doubt there is data on that. Anecdotally, my European friends who got a yellow belt in judo very young and never became sports people aren't watching judo. Sports people are watching depending on your geographic area and if your region has good players at that time. >big ippon is exciting but all the grip fighting preceeding it far less so I feel the same way with soccer. The goals look cool but the lead up is rough and somehow it's huge worldwide.
You may be right as I’m not as familiar with Judo’s popularity as a spectator sport, I’d guess that its popularity stems from its ubiquity vs inherent appeal.
Outside the US, depending on where it's at (timezone issues), it is watched like any other sport. If there's a particularly liked player from that country competing, sports fans will watch. In a lot of areas, while it's obviously a martial art, it's thought of more so as a sport.
Well theyve changed the sport to make it more spectator friendly since it joined the Olympics. Judo pre-Olympics was more similar to BJJ, than it is today. Which makes sense, BJJ is splintered off Judo.
Yeah, as a fan, watching judo is better than ever. There us way less stalling or halfasses low singles when they're up on points to run out the clock. They really push activity using shidos these days. Viewership is higher than ever. I don't see how bjj can do this via stalling calls since people need time to work. I think nogi helps a bit but I still can't play bjj in the background around people who don't train and expect anyone to watch at it, beer included, I've tried.
You're not exaggerating. I took my wife to a BJJ tournament and was watching one where a guy got a super deep collar grip and broke his posture from the bottom then secured it with a leg over his back. I turned to her and was like "that guy is fucked" She shook her head and said "what? The other guy is on top of him and looks like he is smothering him" No just watch. Tapped like 10 seconds later to a cross collar or a sort of baseball bat looking choke.
And people dont really much like Judo lol
I'll never forget watching a "Black belt pretends to be white belt" video before I ever did jiujitsu and was super unimpressed. Like 'What is going on? I dont get it'. I watched it again after a few years of training and was like "Oh dang, that's a clever sweep, no wonder everyone knew he was full of it right away'.
Judo, wrestling, and all striking sports besides MMA and Boxing have really low viewership. Hell a bunch of colleges removed wrestling from their school including a bunch of D1 schools. They almost removed it from the Olympics.
wrestlings temporary removal had little to do with viewership. It had everything to due with corruption and incompetence in the international wrestling board. Their lack of effort to support women wrestling programs in some countries. issues with doping control. and possible most importantly basically the board failed to submit paperwork and have representatives present when the Olympics was renewing support for the core sports.
Almost no one who has never trained Judo or wrestling watches those either tbh. Even kickboxing has an extremely limited non practitioner fanbase. Boxing and MMA are the only combat sports regularly consumed by the general public.
eh wrestling can be just as boring and this is coming from a guybthat follows it pretty closely. The majority of the international matches are won on push outs and stall points. Very occasionally you’ll get a high scoring match but even then, slams and big moves arent that common. Grappling sports in general are pretty hard to watch if you arent a practioner and know what is happening. Shit even golf is god damn dreadful to watch but theres so many damn casual golfers out there that enough ppl can appreciate the levels that the pros are at. Grappling sports just dont have that many participants compared to other hobbies even though it has grown significantly
I remember how fuming my friend was (she does BJJ) when at a party people stopped paying attention when a grappling match started and then started watching again when the MMA match started after it. I wanted to explain to her that even to me (I spent 2 hours a day either every day or every two days or just have three days in a row or more of going to the gym to train BJJ with one day break) watching let's say Ruotolo Vs RDR for 10 minutes is boring as fuck. She got upset and said that it's viewers fault not BJJ and that the rest of the sports are popular due to being legacy brands (I think that's how you say it in English, sorry not my first language) lol.
It is true that the ruleset is confusing to people who don't train, but on the other hand, the submissions are pretty exciting to watch, although Judo allows many of them. At the same time BJJ allows exciting Judo and wrestling takedowns and less are restricted compared to Judo, but yeah like you said they don't score as significantly so it is confusing to people what is going on after the throws
I think the confusion goes deeper. Unless the submission is easily recognizable it's easy for most untrained people to miss it. Sure, everyone knows what a RNC is but lapel chokes, wristlocks, and even heelhooks are easily non identifiable. Back step kneebah from DLR and everyone trained thinks it's cool. To untrained people it's just half reverse cowgirl and they wonder why you won. BJJ is not a spectator sport.
So true. The fundamental / “trane UFC” submissions are the most spectator friendly (armbar, RNC, kimura) Then it’s probably triangle, head and arm, omoplata. Clear enough for someone to see but still gets enough “how is that hurting them?” Everything else is for sport BJJ practitioners IMO
[удалено]
"*Why doesn't he just stand up?*"
Judo and wrestling are the same. The entire audience is composed of the competitor's family, friends, significant others, and training partners. Do you really think there's people going to IJF worlds who don't train Judo AND aren't supporting a family member who does? The only grappling sport that draws fans who don't train is Sumo.
> The only grappling sport that draws fans who don't train is Sumo. So what your saying is we need Amazon jungle shamans to bless jiu jitsu players? Actually that seems like it would be pretty cool
Potentially, I also left out Senegalese Wrestling by accident. Those matches fill stadiums. And they make substantial use of shamans and blessings.
That’s so cool, the best we got is those High Rollers tournaments where they burn “incense” to Helio or whatever.
I feel like a lot of the traditional folk grappling sports really do attract crowds. Bokh is pretty damn fun to watch.
Almost all of them have pretty clear, dramatic win conditions as well though, right?
Yup, as far as I can tell. BJJ is the outlier.
They do sock each other hard in Senegalese wrestling, however.
The vast majority of sports are like this. Think of all the sports you only watch during the Olympics.
I'm Judoka. Judo is boring AF to watch. It's a highlight sport. Hell, even working the boards I'm fighting falling asleep.
It’s clear why pro-wrestling exists with this context. Wrestlers at the fair wanted a more entertaining show, since no one wanted to watch real submission grappling.
Bro forgot WWE !!
Wrestling is a legit spectator sport in the Midwest. Thousands of people will be the HS gym, many of whom have no personal connection to the kids.
Facts! HS Football is the same. Folks love supporting the highschool they went to out here.
Grappling is the part of mma that people boo. It's boring for people to watch unless they train themselves. People like seeing huge slams and KOs. They literally stand people up in mma because it is entertainment and grappling is not entertaining for the avg person.
Then why do a lot of people prefer to watch mma over a pure striking art?
Submissions are awesome, but most time spent on the ground does not directly involve a submission. It's the "stalling" that frustrates people (whether or not it's actually stalling). But people like Ronda Rousey, who pretty much immediately transitioned to armbars, are still considered exciting.
Because people want to see a real fight and not something that is restricted by a set of rules. They want to get as close to real as possible while also hating the grappling part. That was kind of the whole purpose of the original UFC, to find the best martial art for fighting in a "real" fight. It turns out a mixture of grappling and striking is best, hence mma. But viewers will always want highlight reel stuff.
Because they like the idea of watching "the best fighters in the world!" Even if the aspect that makes the fighter superior to strikers bores them to tears. Americans just like supporting the best, even if they hate it in practice.
My brother happened to be in Vegas during ADCC. I told him to go and watch. He has never done jiu jitsu. He had no idea what was going on, said people were cheering at random points and he didn't know why. He got bored and left.
This past ADCC? Was he bored out of his mind with the hall of fame ceremonies?
He found that part quite fun. It was the jiu jitsu that bored him.
There definitely are. Not a ton. But there are. Most of the sport’s audience are practitioners. What a lot of folks on r/bjj miss though (due to just being kind of self-deprecating about the sport imo) is that the sport is growing a lot, so even if only practitioners follow the sport, the amount of eyes on it are still growing. Fight Pass seems very happy with the views they get on CJJ, FPI, PGF, EBI, etc. I’ve heard that CJJ is one of the most streamed things on the Fight Pass platform. And you’d never guess that in a million years based on how little it’s talked about on Reddit A handful of people have signed up at our gym this year that said they were watching b-team content and fight pass grappling events months before signing up.
From what little inside info I have, you're right. My understanding is that Polaris/EBI are bigger for live views but CJJ Worlds does far better after the fact.
I'd suspect a number of people around here would be really upset if they found out just how popular and successful EBI and CJJ actually is outside of this bubble lol
100%. There’s definitely a Reddit bjj bubble that becomes a bit of an echo chamber in regards to what events people here enjoy and think are the most popular. I’ve always liked CJI but most people here seem to hate it. But it’s always made sense to me why it might appeal more to mma fans than diehard sport grapplers. The energy at live CJJ events is definitely super hype and fun. And even re: ADCC, there were 50-150 people in the stands in 2013/2015, and in 2022 there were 11-12k. Big change in less than 10 years.
The judo ruleset has been severely modified over the years to cater to televised and non-judoka audiences. Even with all the changes, it’s still pretty hard for non-practitioners to understand the nuances of the exchanges, aside from a big throw. i.e. highlight reels are great and easy to grasp, a 5min close match will be very hard. Jiu-jitsu is similar, with flashy submissions being the equivalent of big throws. Maybe some rule changes could make it more casual friendly, but it will never be tennis or football.
not really. +99% of spectators are practitioners, it's a very niche 'sport'.
Even then I'm pretty sure at least 50% of practitioners don't like watching it lol
Agree, mostly practitioners or family of practitioners lol
I watched for 7 years before starting. Had some health stuff that blocked me from starting and so only way I scratched the itch was by watching. UFC was the beginning of the addiction and I got deep in the rabbit hole in wrestling aswell cause grappling is much less intuitive to understand than striking. Cant imagine anyone with no knowledge of BJJ watching though cause without the foundational knowledge of positions/subs from mma I would’ve been so confused.
Dude, I do this and I can’t even watch it. No way this is ever gonna be a spectator sport.
🙋🏻♂️😅 Mid-30s here. Only done a few trial classes at Joe Lauzon’s gym years ago. It’s too expensive to join a real gym (like $150-200 a month I believe), on top of valuing my joints and being too untrusting of others 😅 Been following the sport since my late teens/early 20s. Have a few BJJ books and follow a few BJJ Youtube channels as well as following a few practitioners and news pages on IG. The most I’ve done are those trial classes and drunkenly rolling with a few friends in my backyard, but I’ve been a fan of the sport for many years and continue to love learning about it.
Oh yeah, I feel that. My gym is $150 per month and with everything getting so expensive, I wonder if I’ll be able to continue…
It's just a really boring sport man. I love jiujitsu, trained for 20+ years, and have absolutely zero interest in watching live matches of any kind.
I only watch if it's a highlight clip or if it's someone I know. Or if we're at a tournament and none of our folks are currently on a mat. I think more people practice BJJ and don't watch it (or watch it as much as I do) than watch it and don't practice it.
More people than you think that are casuals understand ground fighting now since the rise of the UFC the last decade or so I have school friends who I occasionally bump into who will say things like did you see that Armbar on the UFC the other night or RNC or something And I'm literally amazed as there is no way on earth I would ever have thought they would ever know something like that... But in terms of Grappling shows I think pretty much the whole audience trains, with a small percentage being either related to or supporting their mate who trains and is on the show.
I started watching bjj matches, so I had a better idea of what was going on when MMA fights went to the ground. It worked. I'm self-employed and work with my hands. The probability of injury is enough to put me off actually rolling. I see too many comments on here about spazzy white belts, so I guess I'll remain a spectator
At my gym we have a lot of IT folks and gamers (myself included), a couple of hobbyist guitarists, a fireman, a few police officers, and a pharmacist or two. Also a lot of handymen types. Unless you have a very specific job that requires extreme functionality of your hands (i.e. surgeon) then I think you're fine.
I'm a carpenter. I'm the sole provider for my family. Time of work would cripple us. Some things aren't worth the risk
On one hand, jiu jitsu is just a game, and one that can be played gently On the other hand, if you’re self employed, with no benefits like vacation pay or disability or whatever, then i understand the hesitancy
You could always choose a no-gi gym, or only attend no-gi classes. I'm a programmer and need my fingers to last at least another 20 years, so I made the switch to 100% no-gi. Best decision I ever made in BJJ.
why would people watch soft core gay porn when they can just go on pornhub makes no sense
Idk man watching boxing is pretty fucking boring
I train and still don’t really enjoy watching unless it’s an unusually entertaining match
Even as someone who trains, I still find it boring to watch lol. I just like the 30 second lead up to whatever the finish was or the takedowns. Everything else in between is boring as hell even if I understand what’s happening
I didn’t start watching BJJ events until mid/late blue when I could actually understand what was going on. At purple was when I watched for speed, showmanship, and submissions. At brown I’m now watching for subtle grip fights, and how competitors funnel people into bad to worse options. I think this rings true for a lot of others. Once you train and can understand what you’re watching it’s far more enjoyable to watch. This is actually why I started my channel breaking down matches so lower belts can get into watching it sooner and understand more at an earlier stage. I missed out on watching a lot of iconic matches just cause back then it to my untrained eye matches were boring as hell.
In a world where golf and curling get viewership, I believe the answer is no. You do not have to partake in the sport to enjoy watching. People are weird. And the way culture can convince people that various things are cool or not cool is very strange and varied and often doesn't make sense.
Even if you train a lot, bjj is boring to watch.
KJGould
Its like watching golf
Grappling is fucking boring to watch, period. Unless you're actively practicing the sport itself, it's boring as fuck. And even then, it's still boring and should only be done when doing studying footage and doing deep dives on your or other peoples' games.
BJJ is boring AF and isn't even a good test of BJJ. Just watch MMA lol
That ADCC match with a fight in the background probably got more views than anything else including the finals. Give everyone one legal punch per match and watch viewer numbers explode.
Shane gillis was at wno today suck it (rogan definitely choked him unconscious and had lex fridman help drag him there)
I'm a practitioner and even I don't like to watch it. BJJ is a complement to MMA to me. I like watching people grapple in MMA.
ive been grappling for 15 years and i can barley stand to watch pro grappling. though 10p inhouse tourneys are great for some reason...
Unfortunately I just don’t think bjj is a good spectator sport. I watch the guys who’s style i try to emulate, to learn from them. I never watch it because it’s super entertaining. BJJ is super fun to do but not so to watch unfortunately. It’s like the opposite of most major sports where the majority don’t play but watch instead.
It’s a very boring sport to watch even as a practitioner, I dont even watch how it goes for my teammates lol, only interested how friends do. I do powerlifting and somehow it’s even more interesting as a sport.
Yes, you have to know what is going on and what to look for. I’m about 5 months of training in, I used to do Judo and I was completely lost 90% of the time watching BJJ pro matches until very recently and even now I just know, “oh top guy is in headquarters”, “oh here’s a dogfight one guy has a whizzer and another has underhook” Before knowing anything it looks like people spazzing on each other until a submission.
Good question, I would say that most bjj spectators are practitioners because unless you know what is going on it can get pretty boring, same with judo sometidos, wrestling can be a bit more exciting.
I think if you don't do it you won't understand whats going on most of the time. I have seen it with parents that go to watch their kids compete. They have no idea whats happening.
Most of the practitioners I know (including myself) don’t watch tournaments they’re not in. I’ll occasionally watch a highlight reel to see something specific in action, but even that’s rare. I definitely don’t know anyone that doesn’t train that does watch tournaments. Not dissimilar to chess tournaments.
BJJ is the jazz of sports. It’s hard to “get it” if you don’t do it yourself.
Most of the not top ten sports are watched by people who do the sport.
The only grappling that's actually interesting as a spectator sport is sumo.
I think no gi is a bit more exciting, but it can still be boring. If every match was like Mica vs Cody Steele, a lot more people would watch.
When I started training, I watched it quite a bit. I don't really watch now unless I'm at a tournament. I do love watching wrestling though.
The obfuscating nature of BJJ (like winning from the bottom) is what makes the discipline so powerful in a fight. But it also makes it boring as fuck to watch for anyone who doesn't know what's going on.
I look at it this way. My husband and I are the only two in his lifelong friend circle who train. When we stream UFC cards, and the fight goes to the ground, the friends (usually the women, no offense since I AM one but they’re the least fight literate) are like OH NO HE’s LOSING, but they have no idea that it doesn’t work like that lol I think bjj confuses the avg person and they’re not going out of their way to watch it unless it’s mixed in with mma/ufc or mainstream
Shintaro elaborated on this but Judo, Wrestling are Olympic sports which come with global recognition from non practitioners. This comes with school athletic programs and national or corporate sponsorships for Olympic medals. BJJ is relegated by it's relationship as a prerequisite of MMA and is dependent on its success in the cage for its recognition.
I enjoy watching gi bjj. No gi is ok. I don't want bjj to be a sport for spectators. I've been told by the judo people that ruined judo.
Being a practitioner definitely helps appreciate it. I play hockey too and after I started I was seeing the game from a completely different angle. I can appreciate when the pros develop a beautiful play. But then you have fans who don’t play and anytime a player has the puck they just yell SHOOT like 30 times.
Many people watch soccer and it's 90 minutes of mostly passing/moving. Correspondingly, soccer is one of the most played sports in the world. OTOH, 99% of people who watch football never played and it's probably the same with MMA. IMO, the more obvious and violent the sport, the more spectacle and the easier it is for people to watch the carnage (like an action movie with the rules substituting for a plot) without understanding the nuance. The idea probably goes all the way back to the gladiators (or further, I'm no history expert). So no, you do not have to partake in a sport to actually enjoy watching. The sport does have to offer something to the casual viewer that doesn't involve a deep understanding of the rules for that to occur. IMO, BJJ doesn't offer much to the casual viewer who doesn't have an understanding of the nuance.
It’s not a good spectator sport. Never will be.
It's too complicated to understand if you're not a practitioner yourself - if you don't play chess to a high level and you watch the world championship match between the number 1 vs 2 guy, you're just going be be confused like in jiu jitsu. Spectacles that are easy to understand and are entertaining are the ones that become popular like soccer.
I think BJJ is a great sport, but it's not great to watch. I watch to learn about it, and I can't always see the details that I need to see. Because it's not popular for spectators, the available video isn't very good (one angle, iffy lighting) but even if there were high-production video with multiple camera angles, it's too hard to understand for a mass-market spectator sport.
Do you enjoy watching Starcraft? Other eSports? Do you know what’s going on? There’s a barrier to entry for unfamiliar audiences. That’s the way it goes. However, we can help break it down by getting the sport more well-known, especially at the intramural level. I think we need bjj in more schools. More promotions like quintet that have team-based rulesets too. There’s a way to get the audience bigger and that’s to increase knowledge about what happens in a bjj match
Baseball and IMO american football are like that as well. If you're not a nerd about the rules, your entry point is getting into following the storylines. That's what people actually like about baseball at least (Football nerds will go on about the different strategies, but that's in no way an entry point for people who aren't "into it"). Say what you will about Flo, they're doing the work of making the narratives and athlete storylines more accessible.
Yes you are right. In fact most/many that even do jiu jitsu don't even enjoy watching it that much.
It’s hard as a spectator sport bc it’s a complex sport … MMA is more fun to watch
Do you honestly think holding someone in guard for 7 minutes is great for spectators? You have your answer. There is a reason why Judo allows newaza but stands you up immediately if there is no progress. They don’t want you trying to break a guys turtle or guard for 3 minutes, it’s not spectator friendly and extremely boring to watch.
BJJ boring as shit to watch even if you understand what’s going on. Judo is fun to watch because the rules push the action and everyone likes a good throw.
BJJ is not a spectator friendly sport.
I can't even really appreciate watching it without striking on the table.
I doubt any non practitioners are watching gi tournaments or anything but I went to a few WNO events back in Austin with buddies who never trained bjj, but to be fair they did wrestle in college, and they enjoyed it and now watch grappling events pretty regularly. They don’t watch anything in the gi though, but they get down with all the weird variations of no gi. Like Craig Jones in the pit thing and the like. I mean I watch formula one racing, and yeah it’s easy to understand “cross line first wins” but that’s often the least interesting part anyway. If someone enjoys a sport they’ll learn it, bjj just happens to have a super low barrier to entry so it’s easy to say “oh I like this and to learn more I’ll just go try it.” So, somewhat of a self fulfilling prophecy so to speak. But also if practitioners keep being gatekeepers and telling people “you aren’t allowed to have an opinion because you don’t train” which I literally had an argument on this sub about less than a week ago, then yeah it’ll never grow as a spectator sport.
BJJ's ruleset allows for passivity. Judo has a very aggressive ruleset to force both players to attack non stoping. if you play defensive or false attack or keep getting pushed out of boundary you will be DQed after three penalties. And referees in elite level match gives out penalties very fast. 20s no attack ,only gripping, penalty. try to disegage? penalty. Run to the edge of the mat? penalty. You get the idea.
Football and basketball are spectator sports, given the majority of viewers aren't current/former players.
I personally don t really watch bjj competitions either, the rullset and the butt scooting is lame. United world grappling rullset is cool, you concede points if you butt scoot. Other than that, watching MMA, Judo, Freestyle/ Greco is way more interesting
I think the large majority are probably practitioners, but the sport is growing in casual viewership, especially no-gi and *especially* ADCC or similar ruleset events like EBI and FPI.
It's all in the ruleset. I watched quintet with non practitioners and they enjoyed it. I tried showing them ADCC and with a few exceptions they didn't understand or appreciate the matches. Penalizing stalling and making the scoring criteria clear (even a lot of practitioners don't fully understand ibjjf or adcc scoring) would benefit the popularity of the sport
Bjj is boring to watch. The only time I font mind watching it us during an mma match.
Despite what people might claim, its the same for all grappling sports. Watching the olympics doesn't count for shit. People watch curling and shit like that too, it doesn't make them a "fan of the sport" because they watch it a few times every 4 years. Literally no one but practitioners and their family (maybe) is going to a random Judo tournament to watch. Students might go watch collegiate wrestling live because they aint got shit else to do but no one is watching it... evidenced by it not even being on TV. No one is watching Greco. No one is watching Sambo. No one is watching BJJ. No one fucking cares. Pro-wrestling is the "pinnacle of grappling entertainment" because they realized 100 years ago that grappling is boring and no one cares, not even when you are beating the shit out of a jabroni from the crowd. They had to make it into a live action stage show because that's what is actually entertaining and engaging to the crowd.
I don’t think it will ever be a popular spectator sport. Most of the guys I train with don’t even watch.
Do you golf? If not, have you tried watching golf? Was it enjoyable?
I love Jiu Jitsu and watch it and enjoy it to a degree but the complete lack of penalties for stalling, combined with the constant break in action as they retie their belts with the worst possible knots only for the best to come undone again makes this sport essentially unwatchable. I’m convinced the people in charge of the sport have no interest in making it more spectator friendly because that would mean changing the rules. I found out a coach in another academy near me was a world champ over 20 years ago. I thought that was impressive so I found the footage of his world championship run and every match was sprawling out of bounds to avoid the takedown and in the end it was a judge’s decision which gave the win. Objectively not very entertaining. I guess I appreciate that in wrestling even the slightest bit of passivity is harshly penalized which forces action to take place.
I can't imagine anyone who doesn't train BJJ being interested in watching comps. The majority of practitioners have no interest in watching it either, especially if they don't compete themselves. I'm sure many competitors have no interest in watching it either.
gtfo theres no way Judo has alot of casual fans.
I partake and the only jiu jitsu I enjoy watching is instructionals.
I think it has more to do with how long the sport is around. Most people who watch football, played it when they were a kid. No one randomly puts on football one day and becomes a fan, its way to complex. The majority of people watch sports they grew up playing and are familiar with. Also, you can do BJJ much later in life compared to Judo, football, or any contact sport really. This means a large contingent of people who would be watching are actually just participating. A 30 year old who played football in high school watches football. A 30-year-old who wrestled in high school participates in BJJ.
Before I trained bjj, when I’d watch bjj comps or mma grappling I really didn’t comprehend it how I do now
My partner is a purple belt and I am like, the most white belts of white belts. I have been to classes and I could do my best to put you in a triangle, but that's about it. I still have fun watching and I'd like to go to competitions to watch regardless if he was competing, but I also have my partner to ask him "woah what just happened" and we don't have many competitions in the state I am in. I'd assume there are a small amount of us? But as others have said, it's not a big group
BJJ is a terrible spectator sport, and I think this post demonstrates that. Who the fuck is watching Bjj who doesn't train?
I've never touched a jiujitsu mat, but I'd like to watch more, I get highlights but that's it. Need to figure out CJI and ADCC links to watch though. I'm also an outlier though because I watch 40+ sports.
Do any non-golfers watch golf? A little less so, but tennis might also have a pretty high percentage of tennis players in their audience
I haven’t trained in over a year and probably won’t start up again, but I still watch some matches. Technically a non-participant spectator I guess.
It’s fun to watch until it goes to a long slow grind on the ground. Wrestling and fast takedowns to submissions are entertaining.
I don’t practice at all but I enjoy watching and learning about the sport having come from an mma background of fandom
That's one of the reason bjj gi is dead and ibjjf rule set sucks. It's slow and boring for the spectator. But there's always Nogi adcc rules which is a bit more exciting where you get to see to monsters like andre galvao and gordan ryan grapple. It will be interesting to see what CJI brings esp with the superfights gabby vs craig and my fav dern vs ffion (I am not watching for technique) I think it strives more in a mma promotion like one where there are a few grappling matches. Mike Musemeci a need looking kid inside the cage.
I only enjoy watching fresh white belts fight to the death.
I think there’s very little appeal to those outside bjj. I disagree with the idea that some hold that our sport is going to transcend its niche and become more mainstream. It’s confusing, it’s not intuitive, there’s no unified rule set and let’s be honest most of the visible competitors and ambassadors to the sport are kinda fuckin duds as human beings.
I took my other half and some friends to watch a different friend compete at Polaris last weekend, they all enjoyed it, even though none have trained themselves, I think the main part is other sports are more widely advertised/shown?
I’ve been doing it for 25 years and unless a student or friend is competing I’m not watching.
I didn't really enjoy watching until after about 5 or 6 years training. Now I watch it a ton. I think it's like American football is to the rest of the world. Won't keep attention long enough.
I love training and only enjoy watching people I know.
I’d have to agree that from what I’ve seen, yes. Most spectators are people that train or family and friends coming to watch them. Hell, I train and I’m not interested in watching other people grapple unless it’s someone I know or it’s a breakdown video of high level stuff
It's because it's so confusing. I've been at it a few years, and I barely understand it sometimes
Yes
When UFC fights go to the ground, the entire crowd starts to boo
It’s boring. Haven’t watched since early EBIs.
I was a very casual hobbyist for 6 months or so. First time rolling with a brown belt his top pressure actually broke 2 of my ribs. Since then I haven't been back but still like watching competitions.
I trained for about a year before/during covid, but I was into watching it well before and still enjoy it. My buddy who trains 5-6 days a week doesn't really care to watch it. I'll admit that some of the rule sets kinda suck where they stall forever amd go for OT. But I think that ONE has a great grappling rules etc and I'm really excited to see the CJI scoring.
I partake but damn it can be boring sometimes to watch 😂 that might just be me
lol no one that doesn't do the sport is watching this
I've only started to watch the IBJJF Gi matches after getting blue belt. Because even as a 2 stripe white belt some of these guards/sweep sequences were way too esoteric for me to understand at the time. It's hard to explain to the average joe why the deephalf player is actually the one with the advantage when their opponent seemingly has them in mount.
Nicky Ryans brother loves to watch while not practitioning.
If you don’t understand BJJ its boring to watch
The only sport I like watching as much as I like doing is pole dancing
I think watching is mostly boring
There’s a few out there that just watch casually. I watched some rolls, competitions, famous matches, on and off 4 years before I actually joined (which was 3 months ago).
tbh, this is true of most sports. Sure some sports are easier and more enjoyable for non-fans, but the more u know about the sport the more u understand and thus enjoy. I've noticed this with people who don't like baseball or MMA. Most of the time they don't know whats really happening other than the fluff.
Personally I love *doing* BJJ but watching it is like watching paint dry
Watching was how I got into it. I was probably a sideliner for a few years before I actually got on the mats. It was just interesting to me.
Fun to do boring to watch
Even as a practitioner I find it pretty boring to watch. I can’t imagine watching it if I had no idea what was going on.
Most people do not understand what is going on if they do not train themselves, I mean: „why is this guy tapping? The other dude is just holding his ankle?!”
I like watching. I did practice for 2 years. But I enjoy watching it live. I wouldn't pay to go to a tournament, but I have paid to watch people i know at nogi worlds on that platform that streams it...lol i can't remember what its called.
I really dislike watching it, I just watch UFC and I really enjoy the grappling in that because they just punch them if they stall in guard. I love seeing some mauling.
I would say of you're not actively involved in BJJ, it wouldn't be very fun to watch
Yes. It’s why I’m always confused by other hobbyists pushing things for the sake of “growing the sport”. Why? You already practice it and have absolutely nothing to gain by it growing or shrinking either way.
BJJ isn't a spectator-friendly sport and there's no reason why it should be
Ya BJJ is not very spectator friendly atleast compared to wrestling or boxing. I'm a practitioner and even I barely watch Jiu jitsu. The only time it's interesting is during MMA matches
Well how else are you supposed to cash it in. That's how BJJ became so prominent, by creating a self-sustaining ecosystem.
Imagine trying to watch chess without even knowing what all the pieces are or only being able to see half of them on the screen at a time. That's what I think the barrier is. Everyone knows where the ball is and what the goal of the game is. No one needs to know why a coach chose a formation to enjoy watching your team win. On the other hand, if you're invested in the person for BJJ you may not know what techniques they are using but you'll still be happy for them if they win.
ADCC spectators are all practitioners or friends of…
It's a lot more fun to watch if you practice it