Brazilian Jiu Jitsu I believe has a real potential to become a successful a popular sport despite what critics may say in my opinion. Beginning of this year, the IBJJF Europeans had over 3000 competitors. (I think it was 3500 in fact!) and that is tremendous growth over the years as I remember just 5-6 years ago the number was closer to 800.
These kinds of large successful events will inevitably attract sponsors despite the spectator unfriendliness. How can BJJ go mainstream? It is through comps like the Worlds and the Europeans. The Europeans I personally believe has the potential to become even bigger than the IBJJF Worlds though precisely due to the fact that they have separate Masters divisions.
The average age of pracitioner in BJJ is over 30 and many just dont feel in the same boat competing against a tough 21 year old when you are a 39 year old purple belt who hasnt trained for a while and has a huge load of other things going on in your life.
The Europeans is a comp where teams of guys can travel from all over Europe and compete with packed divisions (blue belt divisions hit over 100 competitors these days!). There is prestige and Lisbon is generally a warm and inexpensive location to visit in the beginning of the year. All things are set for a great event.
A lot has been said about IBJJF's lack of prizes in their events and of course we do get a lot of other positives that compensate for this most notably organization quality. I do think however nominal prizes would be cool if money is just too much. I dont think it would be hard to arrange something with the Sponsors for at an event like the Europeans and I think this too would give an additional boost. Afterall IBJJF benefits from the scale of the events (economies of scale) and profitability of the even would increase a lot if in a few years we see 5000 or 10000 players competing, bringing along their family in some cases.
These kinds of large successful events will inevitably attract sponsors despite the spectator unfriendliness. How can BJJ go mainstream? It is through comps like the Worlds and the Europeans. The Europeans I personally believe has the potential to become even bigger than the IBJJF Worlds though precisely due to the fact that they have separate Masters divisions.
The average age of pracitioner in BJJ is over 30 and many just dont feel in the same boat competing against a tough 21 year old when you are a 39 year old purple belt who hasnt trained for a while and has a huge load of other things going on in your life.
The Europeans is a comp where teams of guys can travel from all over Europe and compete with packed divisions (blue belt divisions hit over 100 competitors these days!). There is prestige and Lisbon is generally a warm and inexpensive location to visit in the beginning of the year. All things are set for a great event.
A lot has been said about IBJJF's lack of prizes in their events and of course we do get a lot of other positives that compensate for this most notably organization quality. I do think however nominal prizes would be cool if money is just too much. I dont think it would be hard to arrange something with the Sponsors for at an event like the Europeans and I think this too would give an additional boost. Afterall IBJJF benefits from the scale of the events (economies of scale) and profitability of the even would increase a lot if in a few years we see 5000 or 10000 players competing, bringing along their family in some cases.
