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Bellator signs 3-year TV deal with MTV2, not FX
By Zach Arnold | December 14, 2010
Press Release
MTV 2 AND BELLATOR AGREE TO 3-YEAR PARTNERSHIP
Rising Mixed Martial Arts Organization Features Top Stars In Exciting Tournament Format; MTV2 To Debut Live Matches in March 2011
New York, NY, December 14, 2010 – Bellator Fighting Championships, a growing force in the world of mixed martial arts, has a new television home, MTV2. It was announced today jointly by Bellator Chairman and CEO Bjorn Rebney and Eric Conte, SVP, Programming and Production, MTV2. The three-year deal will commence in 2011.
Featuring some of the sport’s top stars, Bellator brings a unique format of world-class fighting to fans with 12-week, eight-man tournaments in respective weight classes. MTV2, which features the highest concentration of M12-24 and M12-34 in television, will telecast two of these LIVE tournaments per year, plus a collection of special feature events. The first tournament will premiere in March 2011.
“MTV2 is the perfect home for the intense mixed martial arts action of Bellator,” Eric Conte, SVP, Programming and Production, MTV2. “MMA is at the top of our audience’s wish list, and partnering with Bellator to bring live events and specials to MTV2 made complete sense since our viewers are so hungry to see more MMA on-air.”
“We are thrilled to partner with MTV2 which has such a strong audience of hard-to-reach young guys,” said Rebney. “With a timeslot on a prominent nationally-distributed cable network aimed at young men, we now have the perfect platform to showcase our exciting, action-packed tournaments and fighters.”
Bellator which is Latin for “Warrior,” is based in Chicago, IL and was founded in 2008 by Rebney. The stable of fighters include some of the most exciting in the sport including Eddie Alvarez, Hector Lombard, Joe Warren, Ben Askren, Zoila Frausto and Roger Huerta, once featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Bellator events are held in venues all across the country. Their fights have previously aired on Fox Sports Net, NBC, bi-lingual channel Mun2, ESPN Deportes, and the Score.
About Bellator Fighting Championships
Bellator Fighting Championships is a Mixed Martial Arts promotional company headquartered in Chicago. Bellator’s Founder/Chairman & CEO, Bjorn Rebney, is an experienced fighting sports and entertainment professional with a deep commitment to the purity and integrity of the sport of MMA and its athletes. Bellator Fighting Championships’ executive team is comprised of top industry professionals in the areas of live event production, television production, fighter relations, venue procurement, sponsorship creation/development, international licensing, marketing, advertising, publicity and commission relations. For more information go to www.Bellator.com
About MTV2
MTV2 is a man’s best friend, available in nearly 80 million homes and with the highest concentration of males 12-24 and 12-34 on TV today. A vibrant mix of music, lifestyle and action sports programming, MTV2 has reflected the habits and behavior of young people since its launch in 1996. MTV2 is part of MTV Networks, a unit of Viacom, one of the world’s leading creators of programming and content across all media platforms.
Topics: Bellator, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 22 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Just a press release and no commentary on it? I would’ve liked to know how you felt MTV2 compared to FX and how good a deal this was.
According to Rebney, he always wanted the MTV2 deal ahead of the FX deal!!! I’m not even making that one up. He really said that.
I can’t imagine MTV2 is going to pay enough money to help support Bellator moving forward. And MTV has a long time reputation of cutting up content so much that it isn’t even a shell of it’s former self.
1) Will they show complete rounds?
2) Will it be live?
3) How long will the program be?
I thought the FX deal was really good, even if the money thing didn’t make sense. This deals worries me that it won’t even be MMA. I wouldn’t be shocked if they put in sound effects for the punches like “The Contender” did.
http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2010/12/14/1876000/bellators-bjorn-rebney-on-losing-money-his-new-mtv2-deal-and-the
1) Yes
2) Yes
3) 2 hours
The way he was talking, I don’t have 100% faith the the fighting itself won’t be manipulated. He keeps on saying they will be adding more. Makes me wonder what twist MTV will put on this.
Either way, this is a bad channel for MMA. It’s not even one of the Top 75 channels. How do I know this? Because the top channels are all on HD on most carriers. This channel isn’t carried in HD by anybody. I wonder if they even send out a HD feed, or if there just isn’t enough viewership to pull it off.
Realistically, if the shows are live how much can they really do? Sound effects would be goofy but ultimately doesn’t change the fact that you get to see the whole fight.
Never underestimate what MTV can do to anything. There is nothing quality about any of their channels.
Sound Effects forced me to turn off The Contender. Once your ear knows what it is, it makes the fights unwatchable.
I thought the “adding more” was reference to the fact that they would be doing some type of Bellator reality show, since that’s all that MTV/MTV2 does these days.
“It’s not even one of the Top 75 channels”
Everything else aside, this is incorrect. It’s about 50th-60th. Also the vast majority of cable networks are specialized. Networks like the Hallmark Channel, Lifetime, Comedy Central, The History Channel, Fox News, MSNBC, The Food Network, G4, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, AMC, etc., may all get better ratings than MTV2 but they are not places that will ever air MMA. FX gets really good ratings, but after looking into it, they were probably well out of reach, and were likely offering to pay almost nothing for Bellator to air in a late-night slot like TNA Wrestling was doing at one point.
Anyway I’m taking a wait-and-see attitude here. From what I hear it doesn’t sound like a bad deal. Considering the financial shape of Bellator, I doubt they would sign a long-term deal where they were guaranteed to be fucked, and at the same time if it’s a live show, they aren’t going to be editing it to pieces. Yes MTV2 can do what they want with the way it’s produced, but they can’t change the rules, the refereeing, or the judging of the fights and so basically they can’t really change the fights themselves, unless they want to shorten them or something (will have to wait to see on that one).
Now you are arguing over 50th vs. 75th? Splitting hairs, you think?
1) The channel is not popular enough to get a HD feed on basically every major channel.
2) The MTV demographic is too young and too female for MMA. Not to mention there aren’t enough eyeballs.
3) Who cares what channels go after the MMA demographic. Obviously none of them care to taken on Bellator, which is why they are on a 3rd rate channel.
This is a horrible TV deal. There isn’t much wait and see. They are on a 3rd rate station that nobody cares about. After every season, Rebney promises bigger TV deals. If anything, they are running in circles at this point. They are incapable of getting out of the 3rd rate TV deals. So even if they survive for the next 3 years…. How many fans will they have left? Not many….
1) This is utterly meaningless. MTV2 is still very easy to find. I watch very little television but I know where to find MTV2. It’s right next to its sister channel on Direct TV and a lot of Comcast outlets, whereas Fox Sports Net is actually a bunch of regional outlets that even cumulatively are well below MTV2, and are prone to pre-empt programming for other sports.
2) MTV is actually pretty balanced (just as guys aren’t going to watch My Super Sweet 16, girls aren’t as prone to watch a bunch of Jackass spinoffs). MTV2 is not as balanced. It even has gone out of its way to target the male demographic (with varying degrees of success). In fact they may have overpaid for Bellator specifically because MMA reels in young males. As for youth, that’s completely absurd. There is no “too young” for MMA unless we’re talking about kids under 13. MMA is one of the youngest skewing types of programming there is that isn’t aimed at children. You realize that most television watchers on almost all networks have a median viewer age of over 45 right? That MMA attracts a median age viewership in their 20s is actually a good match for MTV2. I don’t know what their median viewership age is, but I assume it’s fairly similar to MTV’s, which is about 21-22.
Anyway, FSN was a horrible TV deal. Bellator was spending $400,000 to produce a show and getting $80,000 back from it. With MTV2, I don’t know the details but it’s extremely safe to assume that it is superior to that. I’ll wait and see how this works out for them financially. If you’re privy to the financial details of the deal, feel free to let us know.
Zach – any thoughts on the Head Kick Legend article regarding Tyson and his PRIDE contract?
Total pie in the sky fantasy, but interesting nonetheless.
This is interesting and almost certainly involves UFC.
The current UFC/Spike deal ends in 2011 if I’m not mistaken.
I wonder if they’re heading to FX w/ occasional shows on Network FOX.
MTV2 is owned by Viacom which also owns Spike. You have to imagine the goal is to keep Bellator and UFC from having head to head competition for ratings. But this gives Viacom a fall back option if/when UFC jumps ship.
There’s no way that being on MTV2 is better than being on FX. Being on FX is better than being on Spike in many ways because FX has some shows that have an audience, ‘Always Sunny in Philadelphia’, ‘Sons of Anarchy’, ‘Justified’ where Spike only has UFC.
I agree…. FX is better then SpikeTV. And the demographic is perfect for MMA. Unlike MTV2 which has a teenage girl demographic.
If the UFC can go to FOX & FX instead of SpikeTV, I would see that as a superior deal to SpikeTV.
I never really thought this deal with Bellator had anything to do with the UFC, but you make a good point. Has me thinking….
The fact that Viacom owns Spike and MTV2 have ZERO, NOTHING, ZILCH to do with anything. It’s such a non-issue it’s not even funny. I would be shocked if Sumner Redstone even knows Bellator exists. Networks have a huge amount of autonomy on what they can show as long as they are profitable and not highly controversial. It doesn’t matter if they are airing competing products. It happens all the f***ing time. It’s even routine for media conglomerates to have their studio division produce a show that ends up airing on a competitor’s broadcast network.
Being on FX is much better for a cable drama than being on Spike. When Spike makes UFC the backbone of their network, gives them tons of free range and promotion and lets the UFC have 100% complete control over their fight broadcasts, I think it makes more sense than whatever FX would be offering the UFC.
TV networks producing a show and selling it to a rival is completely different thing than what we’re discussing here. It’s apples to oranges.
UFC has basically maxed out on Spike. Yes, Spike lets UFC have the run of the roost and that’s good to a degree. You can also argue that Spike is overexposing UFC.
FX potentially could introduce UFC to new fans. And or remind casual fans who like a show like ‘Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ about upcoming fights.
If the FX deal has crossover dates on Big FOX then that’s something Spike can’t offer.
It could be a mythical thing this FX deal. But it could be a landing spot for UFC. Newscorp may have been talking to Bellator to make UFC take notice and come to the table in a more reasonable way. With the Spike deal coming to a close, UFC is going to take those meetings to drive up the price if nothing else.
When it comes to the amount of autonomy different channels have when it comes to their programming within these giant media conglomerates, there is still no meaning whatsoever to the fact that two under the same umbrella would air competing MMA promotions (and I use the term “competing” loosely when it comes to Bellator and the UFC). They seriously will not care. I used to follow the television industry as a hobby for a decade. It seriously does not work that way.
I’ll agree that the same channel isn’t going to air both Bellator and the UFC, since the UFC would make it a condition that they are exclusive, but that doesn’t mean that the UFC is coming to FX. I would be shocked if that were the case. I seriously doubt Bellator had any sort of offer from FX anyway unless it was a latenight highlight show thing or something totally unfavorable like that.
I think 6 months from now would be a perfect time to have a strikeforce vs. bellator card. Some “kids” who aren’t mma fans now will become then, and will relate with them better than the long term guys like us who started with either Pride or The UFC.
IMO the first fight should be Hector Lombard vs. Mayhem Miller. Miller is already a staple of MTV and Strikeforce and Lombard is Bellator’s MW champ.
I know he has the beef with Nick Diaz but IMO this is a better opponent.
It would also be a damn good fight.
Now that Rebney has his own “good” TV deal what do you want to bet his attempts to piggyback on Strikeforce for co-promotion suddenly fall by the wayside?
I still think he’ll be all over it. Good deal or not this could very well turn into an upgraded version of Bully Beatdown.
Speaking of MTV2, looks like they are doing a second season of Lucha Libre USA. But I do agree that all MTV channels suck. Oh well, we’ll see what happens…
I wouldn’t have expected you to say anything positive at all about this deal 45 Huddle, so you are playing your cards just like we all thought you would.
On topic, them getting on MTV2 sounds just as crazy as the UFC getting on Spike back in the day.
Sad part is, in Oklahoma on Cox Cable, MTV2 is a no go.
“I wouldn’t have expected you to say anything positive at all about this deal 45 Huddle, so you are playing your cards just like we all thought you would.”
When they said Bellator was going to go on FX, I said it was the 2nd best TV deal in American MMA History. Calling a spade a spade.
“On topic, them getting on MTV2 sounds just as crazy as the UFC getting on Spike back in the day.”
Not even close. The UFC was following WWE RAW which had over 3 Million viewers every program and hit the exact same demographic.
MTV2 has no major programs, the wrong demographic, and no real lead-in for Bellator.
To even compare to two deals is truly being blind to reality.