Well, UFC is already making money on that. I’m betting these other guys aren’t though. You should check out the Xbox Live Video Marketplace with your Xbox 360. You can buy UFC fights in high def online with it.

So basically Proelite now own 100% of Cage Rage or just the investors share?

Interesting to note as well that Andy Geer lent Cage Rage £90k

A few things there raise my eyebrows a little

They can’t just leave. Showtime has invested tons of money into the project. They also stand the best chance of spending money in the long term to keep it. Showtime has a 2 decade history in boxing.

The problem of dealing with Showtime/CBS is that they don’t have much to speak of in terms of basic cable. They have CSTV, which I really don’t think has very good distribution anywhere, and which is already narrowly defined as college sports (although they’ve broken that already for Gold Cup replays etc related to their Telemundo content).

Maybe if CBS wants to rebrand that network…

Not gonna happen anytime soon. College sports are a much bigger deal than MMA likely ever will be.

The problem is the way EXC and especially IFL are spending money, they’re never going to make it to the internet HDTV ppv era. The money the EXC is spending on that website is particularly insane. Fortunately they have the advantage of Showtime’s support, and so long as Showtime is happy with the content and believes in its ability to move subscriptions they can probably sustain losses for the forseeable future.

I’m not an expert, but feel is we’re still atleast 5 years from any kind of pentration in that market, probably further. Jeremy, I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on the time frame we’re talking about here.

This is a good point, aside from the “once you can,” are you saying that you can’t yet? I mean, I’m already hooked up, get with the 21st century

Hell, I’m typing this post on my home machine that’s hooked to a media server, both are hooked up to my home entertainment system. Oh, and I’m not at home, I’m actually in another country, using an encrypted tunnel to access my home system. I can’t be alone, surely there are some other technophiles around here.

I don’t know which I would choose, but I think that another good option for ProElite would have been to hook up with Vivendi. You have Universal’s HD channel starting to get decent penetration in the market, you have USA Network for basic cable, and you have NBC for network material.

USA Network would be the big one though, it’s probably the largest penetration basic cable network in the country. They already carry combat sports material, and they would be a good outlet for a later night hour long show containing highlights from ProElite’s now MASSIVE library of events.

You could basically ape UFC’s approach at every level that way, but you’d still have to connect with someone for PPV.

The problem of dealing with Showtime/CBS is that they don’t have much to speak of in terms of basic cable. They have CSTV, which I really don’t think has very good distribution anywhere, and which is already narrowly defined as college sports (although they’ve broken that already for Gold Cup replays etc related to their Telemundo content).

Maybe if CBS wants to rebrand that network…

I’ve been heavily revising this post, so if any of the names are screwed up, please forgive me, it’s a typo and I’m too busy at the moment to go back and reverify..

Interesting note on the writer’s guild. Here’s a list of 5 MMA reality shows in development:

http://mmapayout.blogspot.com/2007/09/5-new-reality-shows-in-development.html

Anybody know of others?

The writer’s guild contract is about to come up again. The networks are greenlighting reality shows left and right to fill out their schedules because they’re afraid that the writers will strike.

September 18th, 2007 at 6:53 am
lynchman : everything you heard is wrong.

ive heard lower than 40, but not *MUCH* lower. dana white even had a slip where he said the number, honestly i dont remember it, but it was in the high 30s. 40 is a good guesstimate.
==================
Maybe you are correct, but I have had a few different folk, inside Zuffa and out, all hit home at a little under 30 million, with part of that being the paying off of some debt.

If Dana said a higher number, I would love to hear it. No reporter has ever come up with a quoted price from him. If he said it publicly, I am pretty sure it would be online.