Georges St. Pierre vs Wayne Gretzky: Laughter and a new challenger
Remember when Dana White said Georges St. Pierre was more famous than Wayne Gretzky outside of Canada? It wouldn’t be the first time a businessman has made an outlandish statement for marketing purposes.
Wayne Gretzky was recently shown in a NASCAR broadcast while the commentators were bringing up examples from other sports of particularly dominant players. He’s been shown in tennis and other sports broadcasts for the same purpose. His name is mentioned in songs and documentaries get made about him . Random people in British pubs, Macanese casinos, and offshore oil rigs know who Wayne Gretzky is- he’s the guy who was really good at that weird hockey sport.
Has MMA grown to a point where it has more followers worldwide than hockey? Possibly- hockey is only a major sport in a few countries, while MMA has small but growing and rabid fan bases all over the world. But you don’t need to follow hockey at any level to know who Wayne Gretzky is anymore than you need to follow cycling at any level to know who Lance Armstrong is. If people know a little about sports, there’s a decent chance they’ll know about Wayne Gretzky.
And here’s the disconnect between established sports like hockey and cycling versus new sports like MMA: outside of MMA fans, people don’t know who Georges St. Pierre is. People know who Wayne Gretzky is because people know what hockey is. People don’t know what MMA is, so the possibility of them knowing who GSP is is low. It may seem incredulous to us, but try asking people you know. Outside of your friends who do follow MMA, people don’t know who GSP is. They may have picked up some vague notion of him from being forced to listen to you talk and the fact that you have GSP posters plastered all over your house, but they probably can’t pick out his name without a lot of prompting.
Ask yourself this: how many people in Brazil knew who Anderson Silva was before the Spider signed a deal with Ronaldo’s promotional company? MMA is not established enough for its athletes to be recognised outside of its direct fan base.
We’ll propose an out of left field answer to the question of most famous Canadian athlete: Steve Nash. With the explosion in popularity of the NBA over the past decade (particularly in the Pacific Rim which holds billions of people), Nash has been a hero to untold millions of young people. Basketball has truly gone global- the sport is legitimately popular on every continent on a level that few other sports besides soccer can touch. Of course, people might not know that Steve Nash is Canadian, but that’s irrelevant to the fact of his fame. GSP got mobbed in the Philippines, but he was travelling around with Manny Pacquiao. Nash draws a crowd by himself wherever he goes.
We’d like to see an intrepid street reporter finding out how many random people know of Steve Nash, Wayne Gretzky and Georges St. Pierre. If nothing else, it would be amusing.
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