I saw a few commercials but they were few and far between. Plus the commercials were not great in my opinion. None of them made me say "Ohh damn that looks badass".
Lastly, I disagree about the "sports" game angle. Reason being is people always talk about "casual" gamers and the "hardcore" gamers. Madden sells plenty of copies BECAUSE of the casual crowd. While most the "hardcore" crowd complain about the gameplay.
So the lack of purchasing from the game can't be because it is a "sport" game. Hell most casual fans would not even consider EA MMA a sport, they would consider it a "fighting game". Most of the ones who have it right now even still try to play it as a fighting game and not a sport.
So while we the MMA fans know it is a sport. The average Joe, like my dad for instance look at this as a "fighting game". My dad loves Fight Night series and when I told him about this he was like "Isn't that the karate fighting game". So your standard 12 to 14 year old who sees a commercial for UFC, Strikeforce, Pride, etc know nothing different between the different organizations. All they know is that it is a "fighting game" like the real fighting.
A casual fan I would not even see them naming many UFC fighters. Hell you could make a argument that most people only know the very very well known ones such as Chuck Liddell, Brock Lesnar, Anderson Silva, and Frank Mir. But you name Dan Hardy, Sonnen, Brandon Vera, etc to a casual gamer and they will know them no better than Jake Shields.
Now don't get me wrong, UFC carries more weight for sure. But enough to warrant the big lack of sales. I just don't see that being the case. I think it is more to a marketing issue. My lady does marketing for 14 locations of her job and hell they do more marketing than what I have seen out of EA MMA.