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Advice for Dana White

By Zach Arnold | January 22, 2007

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Are you really interested in buying PRIDE?

Or are you blowing smoke?

Read my reasons why you shouldn’t touch PRIDE. It’s free, and it’s on-target. Plus, the police will appreciate you listening. 🙂

Topics: All Topics, Media, MMA, PRIDE, UFC, Zach Arnold | 6 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

6 Responses to “Advice for Dana White”

  1. StreitigKaiser says:

    Zach in direct response to your arguement: Why UFC has nothing to lose and everything to gain by buying PRIDE in brief.

    1. If UFC purchases PRIDE, they WILL NOT inherit its bad accounting, criminal connections and investigations. It is an international transaction that has to go through both the Japanese and US governments. White has to simply acknowledge that he is aware of the existing investigations and furnish a clean record to the government and the company is his with no strings attached. It will actually clean up the company if anything at all via Whites street smart business sense. He will no doubt fire anyone connected to the scandel regardless in an effort to replace the company personnel with his own or turn over subjects to the law as deemed necessary. If what you say is true about these supposed connections to a “Mr. I”, White could even stage a hostile takeover of the company with ease. It would be in his best interests to assist the investigation in order to easily seize the company at a very cheap price.

    2. The fight market in Japan may be collapsing but White most likely doesnt give a shit. He wants those all-star fighter contracts, hell he may well dissolve PRIDE just like he did to the WEF and rape all the contracts.

    3. I refer back to my second point, they could easily liquidate PRIDE and establish a new company in Japan under the UFC banner. White could promote it as cagefighting and being the next big thing in America. Yes, American pop culture is very influential abroad, I have seen it first hand. UFC has the money for it, their backers own casinos which brings new cash in by the millions each day. Money is not an issue any longer for the UFC.

    4. The videotape market is as easy as putting a band-aid over a cut. The UFC media machine is excellent, selling PRIDE dvds should not be an issue at all.

    5. All I have to say for this is Liddell vs. Silva and Heavyweight Division. Yeah, White talked trash on Silva after he couldn’t secure the fight, it does not mean he still doesnt want to see the fight happen. The talent pool for international fighters, especially Heavyweights, in PRIDE is immense and the achievable buy rates from purchasing such contracts is definitely worth the spending.

  2. sumdumbum says:

    Yes Zach, I’m sure you’re more aware of the legal ramifications of purchasing a foreign company than Zuffa’s gaggle of lawyers are

  3. Armen says:

    I don’t see how an outside American entity purchasing an organization previously headed up by corrupt Japanese folks, then flushing the staff and bringing in their own people, especially at the top, would leave the authorities to believe that anything that happened first time around with the Yakuza or whomever, might still be going on with the organization. Of course the investigation into the people involved before the purchase will go on. But beyond that, I am not sure how the scandal would impact a Zuffa-owned PRIDE.

    The arguments of a damaged brand still hold however.

  4. utlm says:

    A few comments:

    1. Obviously, there is *some* value associated with a back catalog of fight video available for highlights and DVD release. I don’t think this value is high. We’re not talking about the Beatles’ or Rolling Stones back catalog here. Having Cro Cop highlights for UFC 67 would have been nice, but not even close to being a deal breaker.

    2. Current contracts; again there is *some* value associated with these that might tempt the UFC to buy PRIDE (ala WFA), but I doubt they’d pay that much for them just on their pure value alone. This one assumes that the UFC would let PRIDE wither on the vine and then just steal their fighters over to America. If PRIDE is going out of business anyway, which this point assumes, then why would they bother buying PRIDE? So K-1 doesn’t get them? Maybe, but it still seems a high premium for a few fighters that do not mean much to casual US fans.

    3. I think the UFC is interested in PRIDE solely as a functioning business/brand. Obviously, PRIDE has been and can be a big moneymaker in Japan (assuming they can get back on TV). Either the UFC will let PRIDE function as a separate entity (ala WEC) or they may be planning joint branding — “PRIDE brought to you by the UFC”. Once the UFC name is established in Japan they could take over majority branding. However, I don’t see this as being likely; the most likely scenario I see is leaving PRIDE alone as a “competitor”.

    What ownership of both the UFC and PRIDE gets Zuffa is, even if they may be run as “separate” companies is obviously not only the ability to have an “MMA Super Bowl”, but also the ability to control contract payouts on a large scale.

    I think this is the big thing here. Zuffa will have a virtual stranglehold on big money MMA orgs if they buy PRIDE (other than the sideshow HERO’S promotion) and they’ll have the ability to control fighter purses, if need be. They’ll be able to retain fighters on smaller contracts simply because there isn’t another big money option any longer. Welcome to the MMA monopoly. We could get interesting fights and well-paid fighters….or maybe not. We’ll see.

  5. I would disagree on many of the points Zach makes. While Pride’s financial backers are shady, a change of ownership clears the taint from that area. While I assume a few employees would also be flushed as well because of the scandal, there’s a good chance that PRIDE would continue to operate with it’s existing staff, getting rid of the issues with Zach’s point #3.

    I admit i can’t attest to point #2 as an expert. But to say that there is no money to be made running a fight show in Japan now and for the forseeable future seems simply ludicrous. I agree that point #4 is a sound one, one that had to be made because that was a big reason for WWE to buy WCW. But it doesn’t matter either way. Who gives a shit?

    As for #5, this goes into the idea that people aren’t on the same wavelength as the UFC as far as it’s purpose. People assume that the UFC would buy PRIDE for the same reason they bought the WFA … to strip it of valuables and toss it aside. But I imagine PRIDE would be used similar to the WEC. In my mind Pride would be a feeder and lock-up system for foreign fighters with limited US appeal. While PRIDE makes Zuffa money, it also locks up a large number of fighters who would otherwise be showing up in EliteXC and other competition events.

    Anyways, I don’t think you can boil things down this much. There are obviously many compelling reasons and arguments for why Zuffa would buy Pride that are just as good as Zach’s. So lets sit and wait and see what happens. I figure we’ll have the true answer by June anyways.

  6. Armen says:

    I would also venture to guess that the success PRIDE has with their next two shows in the US would have a large impact in any possible interest Zuffa would have in PRIDE.

    I have mixed feelings about Zuffa becoming the de facto monopoly owner of “major league” MMA worldwide. On the one hand the fighters might get the short end of the stick but on the other, you wouldn’t have the ridiculous splintering of titles and sanctioning bodies like you have in boxing. How great would it be to know who the consensus top fighters were in each weight class? Even if Zuffa maintains three separate promotion identities, the possibility and likelihood of crossover fights or cross-promotions in limited amounts is high.

    Lastly, as a counter to the situation fighters could be in if there was a “Zuffa monopoly” on major MMA promotion, you could look at the model the players’ unions have established in the other major sporting leagues. With a fighters’ union, a lot of those issues might be addressed. Also, it might finally make sense and be worth the effort to put something like that together if it was on the scale of UFC+WEC+PRIDE.

  7. The Gaijin says:

    A mma fighters union is a pretty big pipe dream. If you think about it most of the smaller name fighters lack the bargaining power to make certain demands with respect to salaries and are easily replacable components. The problem with the fight game is that fighters careers are of such sort and uncertain duration that they will take the money when and if its on the table, so its tough to pass up pay cheques.

    The other big problem is that the big name guys that have the greatest ability to make the demands or push unions forward really have no reason to lobby for union representation. Why on earth would Chuck or Tito want to sacrifice the ability to make $1+M per event to ensure that other people’s salaries go up??

    Don’t forget that the fighters who already pay a lot of money for training, management etc. would likely not be too fond of having to turn over more money for union dues.

    I admit that I am relatively unknowledgable on US collective bargaining and employment law, but by Canadian standards most fighters qualify as “independent contractors”. As well that would mean that most if not ALL mma organizations would have to agree to dealing with fighter union’s and controlled salaries…

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