Being sick the past two weeks afforded plenty of time to lounge, uncomfortably, in front of the television. Given that the U.S. Open and the U.S. Women's Open were played at Pinehurst, N.C., during that span, I got to hear over and over (and over and over and over and over) the USGA's public service announcements about growing the game.

It got me thinking about the UFC's long-term strategy with essentially a show a week and sometimes multiple shows in different parts of the world on the same night.

When UFC president Dana White first spoke of the possibility, it sounded as if the concept would be the hardcore fight fan's dream. It quickly proved to be something significantly less, however.

Unlike virtually every other sport, there is no offseason in the UFC. From January through June, July through December, there are fights all the time, in a country or on a continent near you.

On Saturday, the UFC will host two fight cards. One in Auckland, New Zealand, will begin in the early hours of Saturday morning Eastern time and will be streamed live on the UFC's digital streaming service, Fight Pass.

The other show, in San Antonio, will be broadcast on Fox Sports 1 beginning Saturday afternoon Eastern time.

It's going to be about 12 hours or so of fights on Saturday, and yes, there will be a small handful of diehards who will watch both events in their entirety live.

That number, though, will be incredibly small, a number probably far less than one percent of the total fan base.

And though many would hail that as a disaster for the UFC – how can it be good for a company if less than 1 percent of its core audience watches both shows in their entirety, the reasoning goes – it's hardly that.

View photos Nate Marquardt headlines a UFC Fight Pass main card in Auckland, New Zealand, also on Saturday. (Getty) More

The dirty little secret here is that the seeming overload of shows the UFC is staging here, there and everywhere was not designed for the hardcore fan base.

The fights are there to be watched for anyone who wants to see them, and the reason these shows are being held is that the UFC, just like the USGA, wants to grow the game.

The USGA's marketing plan to get people playing golf will mean more greens fees and golf ball and golf club sales for courses and manufacturers than if those people never turned their attention toward the sport.

Similarly, the seeming glut of shows the UFC is staging will serve its purpose if it persuades some who watch infrequently or not at all to become casual fans who may, every now and then, buy a pay-per-view.

Of course, it would be better for the hardcore fans if there were fewer shows, not more. Imagine what UFC 175 would be like, for instance, if both the Cub Swanson-Jeremy Stephens match and the B.J. Penn-Frankie Edgar fight were put onto its main card.

Four or five years ago, when the UFC was putting on far fewer shows, that likely would have happened. But because of the exceptional number of shows, Swanson-Stephens is going to headline the Fox Sports 1 card from San Antonio, while Penn-Edgar III will headline The Ultimate Fighter Finale in Las Vegas on July 6, the day after UFC 175.

The success of a pay-per-view show is rarely due to hardcore fans. Promoters in both boxing and mixed martial arts can count upon a reliably consistent number of serious fans to purchase every pay-per-view show. But the difference in one show selling 150,000 pay-per-views and another doing 500,000 is the amount of casual fans it's able to reel in.

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