I think we have seen a lot of bad business decisions and business practices, and luckily enough, they have been public companies, so we get to read their SEC Filings to see how bad their mistakes are. There are people who know how to make money with MMA, and those that study IFL and EXC’s shortcomings will only be able to learn and promote smarter.

It’s true enough that Cuban is positioning HDNet fights as a medium for broadcasting other promotions, so he’s making it a broad, diversified operation. However, as far as the actual MMA we’ve seen from them goes, HDNet Fights is still cutting corners and trying to coast on ex-UFC big names, rather than trying to legitimize their brand as a viable MMA promotion. They cannot succeed as an MMA promotion that way.

The mistake that most MMA promotions are making (especially the American ones) is to try to compete with the UFC right off the bat by grabbing big names; paying them exorbitant salaries; and trying to steal the UFC’s thunder from the get-go. Very few promotions are paying attention to how the UFC actually became successful—i.e. developing strong up-and-coming fighters and paying them very modestly while building the brand itself. It’s not a “popular” formula; but it works. According to the Zuffa model, it takes about 5 years and 30 – 40 million dollars to build a first-rate, international MMA promotion. And that 30 – 40 million has to be spent mostly on the brand. The UFC branded the Octagon, “as real as it gets”, the TUF show, etc. That’s really the way to do it. All the fan-based idiocy about paying fighters more money is meaningless if promotions themselves can’t stay in business.

Most of these failed promotions are into grabbing ex-UFC fighters (who washed out of the UFC) and well-known B-level fighters and paying them huge salaries, hoping their handful of famous fighters will carry the promotion through. That model won’t give a promotion enough durability to compete long-term. We saw the WFA go down. And then Bodog. Then the IFL. And now, EliteXC is against the ropes. It’s doubtful that Affliction or HDNet fights will last either, because they are cutting the same corners and trying to gimmick their way to instant success through ex-UFC talent.

You have to build the brand first. Spend the money on that and develop talented, hungry fighters who aren’t demanding $2 – 6 million a fight. Uninformed nuthuggers will scream about fighters making $10,000 a fight, but that’s really they way to build a survivable brand.

Most fans still look at the Pride heavyweights as the best in the world because the division was so thin, and Pride manufactured their own supermen by feeding their fighters cans.

I expect some of the new prospects from the UFC will dominate for some time because they are natural athletes with a solid base. They are well rounded with the exception of Lesnar. It’s no accident that Cro Cop, a Pride open weight champion, were dominated when fed top competition. Fans need to see through the illusion. Stars were made in Pride, and heavyweights were the weakest division but manufactured to look like the best.

Affliction has taken the weakest division in all of MMA and made it their centerpiece. They overpaid fighters who they thought they could build their promotion around. They were wrong. I think Affliction were too much of a Pride fanboy to recognize that heavyweights from Pride were smokes and mirrors. I can’t blame them, even Dana White fell for it.

I don’t think we will see the UFC become spread too thin. By 2008, they will have 11 Current or past World Champions, 12 TUF Champions, and a host of supporting fighters like Brock Lesnar, Josh Koscheck, and Wanderlei Silva. There is more then enough talent to put on 24 cards in a year. And I have a strong feeling that only half of those shows (one per month), will be on PPV.

The big question is what happens to the Heavyweight Division when Japan is half collapsed and Affliction is done. A lot of their Heavyweights will have to take a paycut in order to fight for the UFC. Will they really want to do that? I doubt it, which means the Heavyweight Division will nearly be dead.

But if you make it customary that \”freak show\” MMA is the answer, then surely that becomes the only way of survival. So we start bringing in all sorts of Monster\’s, granted Pride used to do this but at least they had a talent pool.

The big worry is Affliction, if they didn\’t have already created hero\’s such as Barnett, Arlovski and the cash-consuming Fedor….what would they be promoting?

Elite XC will survive, the mainstream T.V demands, blood, freaks, fighting and women (Gina)…..but if Affliction goes under thats the worry….

I predict in a years time.

Dream has consumed Sengoku
Only one big player in Japan.

Affliction is vague on its commitment, long term…no events planned.

Elite XC survives on maybe even a more regular basis, but CBS demands squash matches, WWE style programming, blood etc.

The UFC survive but we are on 2 PPV\’s a month, and the talent is spread thinly between them.