I hope you guys take him up on his offer! Would make a good show.

I popped it in a couple replies to various posts you made, but I totally get if you havent gotten it yet.

I’d love to have you on to go over some of the things you’ve written, and the Fedor situation in general. Please email me at carmichaeldave@hotmail.com at your convenience.

Thanks.

Good piece.

I want to make clear one main thing, and I have been working very hard chasing this thing around because I think it is tremendously important.

The quotes that you got from Sherdog and Cofield’s radio show when I was on are accurate. I’m just not sure they paint the entire picture of my point.

As you stated, the media is used as a tool at times. Whether it is X ballplayer in the middle of a contract negotiation leaking that “several other teams are interested”, to a Washington politician leaking information under the title “a source close to the White House”, etc…..these things happen.

Everyone assumes who/what my source was, and as a fellow journalist you know that’s something you just never, ever disclose without permission.

But just because I am not ignorant to the gamesmanship, doesnt mean I shouldnt report it. I got the leak, probed as far as I could, and reported it. Obviously, if some guy off the street told me something, you would never hear about it. As I said on Cofield’s show, I get stories on my desk every week that I don’t report, because I don’t have full confidence in the source. Many times, the source is accurate, and I miss breaking the news. That’s fine, if I reported everything I heard I’d be a gossip host, not an MMA/sports radio host.

There is no “activism” here. If you’re familiar with my Dana/Fedor interview from a couple months ago, you would know I’ve been very vocal about this subject, and challenged Dana as much/more than anyone else.

In addition, when M-1’s denial came out, many in the media flipped a switch and took that as gospel as well. The funny thing to me?? The VERY NEXT DAY there was a press conference with half the MMA media world online with the UFC president, and not ONE PERSON asked about the 6/30 offer. Pretty strange that people jumped ship off my report, but no one bothered to ask the horse.

MMA media is a strange bird, and after covering all kinds of sports, including the Sacramento Kings for 4 years, I have never seen anything like it.

Just because I have a working and friendly “relationship” with Dana White, I am labeled a sycophant. I had Scott Coker on tonight talking about the Fedor signing, and I’ll bet NO ONE ever mentions me being pro-strikeforce. Tom Atencio practically camped out on my show, and both he and I shared a car with our mutual friend Scott Smith for the ride to and from Sacramento for Smith/Lawlor II. I wrote about the whole thing. No one accused me of cozying up to a promoter, or a fighter as well (who is one of my best friends).

You HAVE to have relationships in this business, but it should never get in the way of your objectivity. I went on Sherdog (which I often leak stories to) in order to give MMA fans an open forum to talk about my story with the guy who wrote it. I got my ass kicked for an entire day, but in the end I think most people learned a thing or two, including me.

Notice I didnt post the story on my blog, I don’t have one. I have a LOCAL radio show, I get nothing from people outside of Sacramento listening, other than good MMA talk. The local ratings cannot measure anything out of my market, nor do sponsors care about web streams. I have zero to gain from this, other than sharing the news, and being a part of the MMA media world. Again, I used another site (and frequently do) to share the news, and they got all the hits, attention, etc. Which is great.

Dana White and the UFC are so polarizing, that anyone who doesnt roll behind a keyboard/camera/mic and just fillet them is a “shill”.

I have zero issue with the report I filed. I trusted, and still trust the source. People also forget that the Combat Sambo and PPV cut were also confirmed by M-1. Only the accounting of the numbers was questioned.

I’ve made this offer to Snowden, and I’ll make it to you. I’d love to continue this subject either by email (carmichaeldave@hotmail.com), or on my radio program. I think its an important debate, not just in the world of journalism, but the growing world of MMA journalism.

Revenue is not always the sole driver in employee salaries. It also depends on what stage of the typical business life-cycle the UFC is in — which is most likely still in the growth phase as evidenced by Zuffa’s attempted expansion into Europe and recent talks of Japan.

Salaries are lower in the startup and growth stages than they would be in later stages of the life-cycle.

As to how management treated players–you are correct, it wasn’t always great. That said, the salary/payout comparison coupled with the passage of time is just not comparable. Baseball revenues were miniscule until the national TV entered the picture–which wasn’t all that long ago.

Enormous revenue already exists for Zuffa, leaving the “passage of time” analogy empty. It amounts to nothing more than, talent should wait for payouts for the passage of time, not for any reason other than the passage of time. They are not waiting on a growth in revenue (the revenue already exists).

http://insidefights.com/2009/07/27/aleksander-emelianenko-comments-on-ufc-contract-system/

“You can deal with UFC, I know that they have flexible contract system. All these talks about “strict” contract terms with signing with UFC, come ONLY from Vadim Finkelstein, who wants to push his owns business projects through Fedor’s fights”