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The IFL has new ownership
By Zach Arnold | May 4, 2006
By Zach Arnold
After a somewhat rocky debut on April 29th in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the IFL announced in a press release that the company has merged with Paligent Inc., a former biotech company. In short, the IFL is under new ownership before their first TV show (scheduled for May 21st on Fox Sports Net).
Topics: All Topics, IFL, MMA, Zach Arnold | 6 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Well, thats….interesting. The fact that they have sold part of the Company before they even have the first TV show out means that: A) they need money and B) are very good talkers. Not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. I could have sworn that Comic Book Guy was swimming in money.
the current owners still have 95% of the stock in the new company it was simply a way to go public through the backdoor.
The real news here is that the IFL will soon become a publically traded company on the stock market.
This is huge news if it means IFL has the cash flow to lose money for 3-5 years. If they can proceed with that ability they can invest in top name talent and with some marketing saavy should easily be able to pass UFC. UFC is oversaturating the market with a watered down product all while raising prices. UFC is going to lose its hard core fan base and the new fans will tire of UFC when it loses its novelty and they grow tired of watch scrubs fight to painfully boring decisions. The last 2 UFC events 59 and the TUF special were horrendous. UFC 60 looks awful. Zuffa is ripe for the picking. If Strikeforce or IFL can get some eyeballs on their shows and sign some top names they’ll be in good shape. I know WFA planned on doing its own reality show last year with Tito before UFC out bid them for his services.
If a competitor can get on free TV for a year or so with some big name fighters ie Quinton Jackson and some exciting up and comers it could be the number 1 promotion in the U.S. Strikeforce is in a unique spot with its K-1 connection. If K-1 sends over some stars such as Brock Lesnar UFC is in huge trouble.
Its not out of the realm of possibility that the ultimate plan of the Fertittas is to gain as much name recognition for the UFC as possible and when it peaks to sell it off to a company impressed by past earnings but not cognicent of recognizing the brand has jumped the shark. Thats the smart business move and I could see the UFC being dumped in approx 2 years for a boatload of money.
That is an interesting point. It would also explain why UFC stacks its cards with fighters making less than $10k/fight. UFC spends at most about $400k per card. They make a couple mil at the gate and a couple mil on PPV then DVD sales. When you sell a business the value of the business is determined by future earning potential, generally for 3 – 5 years. If Zuffa can show it makes 4-5 million per show and does 10 shows per year it could sell UFC for at least 150 million dollars.
LMAO, the amount of conspiracy theories on this site would make Jeff Monson blush.
You know what else makes sense as far as Zuffa running shows stacked with low paid fighters? The long term profitability of Zuffa.
Also the idea UFC is even close to “jumping the shark” with so many money match-ups left for this year and has the dominant brand in North American MMA is just laughable.
As for the IFL having a “somewhat rocky debut” – I’d say drawing less than 1000 paid to an arena the UFC used to put 5x that number in when the company was dying on its arse in 2000 is a bit worse than “somewhat rocky”. The first IFL show was a colossal failure at the box office.
And Roadblock is simply delusional in saying “Zuffa is ripe for the picking” when they are pulling 350,000 to 400,000 buy rates. And while Quinton Jackson may be a “big name” fighter to the hardcore audience the simple fact is Pride PPVs do insignificant business compared to UFC shows and the company simply don’t have the presence in the US. Quick question – do people call it “Ultimate Fighting” or “Pride Fighting”? Fact is, Forrest Griffin is a MUCH bigger deal than Jackson and given a few more weeks so is Michael Bisping.
Anointing Strike Force and the IFL as the supposed usurpers of the UFC after precisely two events between them (one a massive success and the other an utter failure) is just ludicrous.