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Tuesday news review
By Zach Arnold | February 12, 2007
Today’s red meat article comes to us from The Sunderland Today in the UK, which is titled Doctor’s warning to ultimate fighters. It’s full of the political correctness and nanny-state politics you’ve come to love.
Also, there are many a Japanese women likely crying at the news of Masato marrying Shin Yazawa.
- MMA Weekly: Cage Rage 20 show results
- MMA News: Josh Barnett will do color commentary on PRIDE 33 event
- MMA Review: Who will Chuck Liddell face at UFC 71?
- IFL HP: Ask Don Frye
- The Walla Walla Union-Bulletin: Free tips to go see UFC in Las Vegas used to motivate people into fitness
- The Beverage Network: Xyience ready to do its own diva search and launch social networking web site
- Major Wager (Canada): MMA – the next big sports craze in America?
- SLAM! Sports: MMA – teen fighter turning heads (article about Chris Horodecki)
- Marketwire (PR): The Fight Network signs multi-year deal with Elite XC for live MMA telecasts
- The Maine Campus Online: An age-old classic is challenged (article from a long-time boxing fan)
- The Houston Chronicle: Frank Shamrock delivers stinging blows — from dressing room
- GEN (Genetic Engineering News): BIOGENETIX partners with King of the Cage
- The Daily Gut: Making pro-wrestling analogies out of American politics (now, someone go do an MMA version of this)
- China Combat: The sport of Shuai Jiao
- Jake Rossen – Showtime’s Reality Check
- Royal Burnell: A matter of time (Michigan faces the decision to either ban or regulate MMA)
- Point Spreads: BodogFIGHT to air first PPV event (USA vs. Russia) for free on ION TV
- The Regina-Leader Post: Sean Quinn has a plan to get the ultimate victory
Topics: All Topics, Japan, K-1, Media, MMA, PRIDE, Pro Elite, UFC, Zach Arnold | 39 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Just got the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer. Three things I found very interesting:
1. Elite XC is able to pursue TV on regular cable. They are only exclusive to Showtime for premium channels and PPV.
2. Elite XC has about $12 Million budget to play with this year. Part of that money was raised when Showtime bought into a part of the company. When you think about how much money will be needed to compete with the UFC, that is almost nothing.
2. Frank Shamrock owns less than 5% of the company, but he is still a partial owner.
Anytime an owner of a company also participates in the athletics…. It brings up so many conflict of interest issues.
And, as we’ve seen in professional wrestling forever and ever in America, active workers never succeed long-term as bookers/matchmakers/authority figures. The only examples of workers who succeeded (Gagne, Watts, etc.) were regional players, not national ones. And in the case of Watts, he was retired most of the time.
On The Underground Forum, a Lynchman spells out more of the details from the Wrestling Observer. As the number indicate, some things just don’t add up.
Plus, they want to run PPV, so all the people saying “At least it is free” will soon have to anti up for sub par talent on PPV. No thanks. I purchase the UFC, the better Pride’s, and even though i can afford it, refuse to buy any other PPV’s out of the principle of it.
Quick math – $5 million USD for 4% of a company… x 25… estimated value of the company before a debut show with no hard assets is $125 million USD.
Yet, Showtime is paying nothing for the rights footage to air the 2007 shows. Even the IFL just managed to get a better deal with MyNetworkTV on that front.
Unlike in pro-wrestling where we see wrestlers all the time afraid to go to court to challenge no-compete clauses in their supposed ‘independent contractor’ contracts (where, by theory, they are paid for perfoming and are not supposed to be ‘controlled’ employees), I could certainly see some fighters challenging the legality of this clause in court if it’s an independent contractor situation.
The problem is that even though in some ways the non-compete clause can be considered restraint of trade and therefore a voidable clause of the contract, there is a somewhat legitimate counter-argument that can be presented that if the interest of the promoter is jeopardized by virtue of a fighter getting medically suspended due to a stoppage loss, bad cut, etc. in a bout while he is obligated to fulfill a contract within a certain period of time, there is a serious risk of breach of contract on the fighter’s behalf and it may be a precautionary step in ensuring that the terms of the contract are met. Of course, if the period prior to an event is too long in the mind of the courts, they can use the ‘blue pencil test’ to modify around some terms (such as the days prior that they can’t fight or whatnot) in order to make the conditions reasonable.
But really, it’s all in the wording in the contract and how they approach the relationship (if they discuss it as though the fighter only has to appear 3 times in a year on a card or if they are given power of agent to limit the exposure of the fighter on other cards and basically act as a pseudo-manager as well as promoter – it should be noted, however, that direct manager-promoter links are illegal and can be struck down in court). There are good cases to made by both sides and historically there have been mixed results with regards to restrictive clauses (such as non-compete and options) in combat sports (primarily Boxing). We’d have to actually see the real contract to have a general working idea of what a reasonable judge would assess for the case.
Actually, those shares are only part of Showtime’s ownership. They also were awarded more stock in the company when they agreed to put the show on their network. Showtime currently owns 15.7% of the company (second biggest owner). They have the option to buy future shares at $2 per share, and they could potentially increase their share of the company to 19.6%.
Compared to the main owner which is Santa Monica Capital Partners which owns 31.6%. Gary Shaw only owns 5.9%.
Plus, just because they purchased the shares at that price, doesn’t mean the company has that much money. The worth of these “shares” back when the company was created could have been much lower, which means they likely have no where near $100 Million in cash at this point.
For example, as of their October financials, Pro Elite only had a little over $8 Million on their balance sheet. Combined with the $5 Million from Showtime, and then some money spent, that is where the $12 Million in cash number is coming from.
So unless their investors continue to plug money into the company, or unless they can make profits with their PPV’s, they will continue to be pissing money.
It is kind of an interesting time for this sport of MMA. All these money men trying to make money in a market where exactly one company has made any real money in the past. And that company lost $40 Million doing so. I will be laughing when all these stupid investors lose their money, and only one real company is probably left to compete with the UFC.
” I will be laughing when all these stupid investors lose their money, and only one real company is probably left to compete with the UFC.”
I hope they succeed, and even if they don’t, I appreciate the fact that I can watch more MMA. It’s my favorite sport and its fun to see people change it up and present it in different ways. I really enjoyed the Showtime show, and purchased Showtime just to watch it. Eventhough they’re not on par yet with Pride or UFC, I enjoyed watching the event more than most recent UFC’s, or the Pride USA show. But then again I’m an MMA junkie and have collected tapes for a long time from all orgs…UFC, Pride, IVC, Pancrase, Rings, Shooto, Deep, KOTC, Gladiator Challenge, the old WFA, WEF, Hook & Shoot, etc etc. I like it all.
I don’t understand the whole wanting everyone to fail mentality. To me it seems like a cop out for ignorant people who don’t want to open up and learn the true history of the sport. I think Showtime talking about other organizations was a huge step forward for the sport of MMA, since that actually acknowledges that its a sport. UFC is the top dog, and will remain the top dog for a long time. I dont know why so many people have this blind allegiance to the UFC. To me its about the fighters and the fights…wherever they end up taking place.
I’ve gone to 10 UFCs in the last 4 years, but haven’t been compelled to go lately because the cards have gotten so watered down. I still watch every event that they do whether its on PPV or free TV. The product is worth my time, or worth $50, but its not worth those $500+ Vegas weekends anymore.
“I don’t understand the whole wanting everyone to fail mentality.”
Having 6 major companies is bad for the sport. It is worse than boxing. Wanting most of them to fail, so we have 2 top companies, would actually help improve the quality of the sport.
“I’ve gone to 10 UFCs in the last 4 years, but haven’t been compelled to go lately because the cards have gotten so watered down. I still watch every event that they do whether its on PPV or free TV.”
You complain about the watered down UFC shows, yet praise the Showtime shows, which had exactly ZERO Top 10 fighters between Heavyweight and Featherweight? That makes no sense.
MMA Critic has clearly latched onto what he thinks is the superior product or has been told is the superior product and now snipes from the bell tower at every other organization. It’s some strange form of elite smugness that he spouts out, as if he had ANYTHING to do with the success of the organization.
The exact same sort of criticism/skepticism you’re dogpiling onto every other org was at one time lobbed at the UFC son. It’s unfortunate that these other upstarts didnt have the ability to extort the company away from its founding owners for a ridiculous markdown and then use politically shady ties to propel it forward.
Your pro-UFC and anti-EVERYTHING ELSE bias is sickening…go lay down somewhere you *$#*ing fanboy.
“You complain about the watered down UFC shows, yet praise the Showtime shows, which had exactly ZERO Top 10 fighters between Heavyweight and Featherweight? That makes no sense.”
If you noticed I said that I still watch and enjoy every UFC show, it’s just not worth attending live anymore with the ticket prices being what they are now, and having the cards not be as stacked.
Check out the card for UFC 52, then look at the recent cards. It’s night and day. I also said that Elite XC wasn’t up to par with Pride or the UFC. Dude, you’re grabbing at straws.
The concern about having too many promotions in MMA is legitimate. It’s just like pro-wrestling – the more promotions that fail, the bigger the black eye it is for future investment in the sport.
The thing that a lot of promotions fail to understand about UFC’s success is that the company (from its SEG days to it’s current state) has had a history to build upon. The IFL has no real history, and neither does Elite XC. PRIDE’s history is also a history plagued with scandals.
So, yes, the concerns about too many promotions and too many potential failures is a legitimate issue to debate because it could negatively impact the perception of the industry to the public in general.
Those much more serious issues aside, the Don Frye piece is absolutely hilarious!
I agree with zack. A lot of you kids are way to obsessed on promotions and predicting when they will fail and how they will not equal the UFC. Do you even like to watch fights or just bitching about all other orgs? Too many orgs might be a bad thing but you can’t enjoy the sport? Even if Pride has scandals in Japan it doesn’t take away from their terrific match ups. Even if the IFL is losing money does it take away from big fights like lindland/horn? Aren’t you excited to see a big time boxing promoter trying to get MMA to work. To me it’s a great time to be a fan and I don’t see why you would want to bitch and moan just to say I told you so in a year and half. Grow up and let’s talk about some FIGHTS!
There is an argument that can be made that paying attention to the business end of MMA is just as important as watching the fights and being concerned about the creative/matchmaking direction of an organization. Often times, it’s financial problems or scandals or outside-the-ring events that effect what happens in the ring.
PRIDE’s totally fallen off the radar as a serious player since losing the Fuji TV deal. It is eerily quiet in Japan in regards to the 2/24 Las Vegas show, a show that features several fighters that neither the Americans nor Japanese have ever seen on a mainstream level before.
Elite XC is another story to pay attention to re: the financials, the Wallid Ismail lawsuit, and how successful they will be considering that the MMA talent pool right now is still pretty shallow in America.
The IFL certainly becomes an interesting story to watch with their new MyNetworkTV deal and whether or not that will translate to better business at live shows. While the honest answer is that the IFL needs to completely overhaul and change their local events promoting strategy, nonetheless having a bigger TV deal will help them out on various levels if they play their cards right.
BodogFIGHT has all the money in the world, but yet no one really seems to know what angle they are coming from.
But ultimately, with all these great stories comes great risk. An oversaturated market place will kill the golden goose faster than anything else will. And once the golden goose is killed and failures take place, then people will be a lot more gunshy to invest in MMA. And that’s a proposition that, as we’ve seen in pro-wrestling with WWE, is bad news long-term. So, it is important to find that balance between analyzing the business end of the spectrum and also being a fan of the fights.
Hey Zach. Just out of interest are you going to state for the group you made a f*ck up in publishing a rumour that Liddell was out ‘for a year’? I questioned it at the time.
I enjoy the site for the media round ups and op-ed pieces – but please don’t publish (even if it’s in a poll) dodgy news.
Rohan:
As far as I know he did make the correction to the news. And in all fairness the early reports coming out of the show did IN FACT say that he tore his MCL/ACL and was out for 1 year. I read some of the reports too – it’s hard to walk the line b/w coming out with the news as soon as it his and reporting early news that turns out to be overblown. It was a mistake, the information was corrected – let it go!
The Shuai-Jiao article and accompanying links to YouTube videos is great.
Having 6 major companies is bad for the sport. It is worse than boxing. Wanting most of them to fail, so we have 2 top companies, would actually help improve the quality of the sport.
The problem with this thinking is the idea that MMA is always going to be dominated by promotion/sanctioning body combinations like its pro wrestling. People, please. Think about this. The second a major pro fighter decides to leave and starts fighting under his own promotional banner on HBO or Showtime, that sorta thing flies out the window. I know its a real cute idea to believe that somehow, without the UFC, Chuck Liddell or Matt Hughes wouldn’t draw squat, but the UFC’s PPV numbers without one of those guys or Tito on the card last year (read: Rich Franklin) were way, way down in comparison. The bigger those guys become as stars, the more they can demand. And the premium channels, which have vast sums of money to spend on people fighting, can afford them just as well as PRIDE or the UFC can, assuming that they believe they can make money.
I mean, do people really think that HBO is looking at UFC as a long term partner as much as they are an eventual competitor, should MMA on their network be successful?
@Mr. Roadblock
Thanks ! I’m glad to see people are interested in Shuai Jiao !
I’ll probably write more about it in the future then.
Why would HBO see the UFC as competition? If they have them on board, then they are an asset.
A fighter like Ortiz leaving the UFC to do a show with a rogue promoter would be real difficult in the MMA world. With the majority of the talent under deals, he wouldn’t have any competition. And MMA is so much different then boxing. The general public see’s boxing as a complete mess. They see MMA as the UFC. Huge difference. That public perception would be extremely hard to change.
I am shocked (not really) that none of the major MMA news sites haven’t picked up on the biggest news story of the day.
The IFL issued a Form S-1. This form basically states that around 19 Million of the oustanding 50 Million shares of IFL stock will be sold. The form (which is over 150 pages long) does not say who is selling the stock, but does say it is people who have not directly been involved in the company. Which means not the main figures of the company. And in all likelihood, these people are selling because the stock price is around $14, and after the year end financials are released, the stock will be luck if it is $4 per share. Even experts have said the stock is beyond over priced. It is almost out of control. It is at the same price as the WWE, which actually makes money and is worth over a billion.
This does not mean the IFL is a sinking ship, but it does mean if any of the MMA fans own stock, they better sell it ASAP. With bad financials and shares made public, it will only dilute the value of the stock.
The form does specificially say that the selling of these shares will go to the owners of those shares, and not to the company (which makes sense).
I have no calculated to see how much of the company shares will not be public. I would assume that the main players still have a total of 51% of more, but I have not done the math.
Reading the document, I also noticed something interesting. When the IFL sold their initial shares, they raised $22 Million (after expenses). There are around 50,000,000 shares. However, they have the ability to have up to 70,000,000 shares. So there is room for another public offering. However, that offering would dilute the value of the current stock, and cause other issues. Yet, it is still a small backup if the company has no way of obtaining a line of credit or start to make a profit in time.
Why would HBO see the UFC as competition? If they have them on board, then they are an asset.
The UFC on their network is a “test run” by their own admission for the viability of MMA as programming. The other REAL SPORT that HBO generally has as programming other than tennis is boxing, which happens to feature two people beating each other up. HBO pays enormous amounts of money to the top boxers in the world to be exclusive to their network and fight on PPVs HBO (formerly TVKO) promotes. As of right now, HBO doesn’t really get much of anything from the UFC, because the UFC is in no position to need HBO’s production crews, cameras, or PPV systems when they have all of that themselves already.
In other words, the more money MMA makes, the more interest traditional sports outlets like the big 4 networks, HBO, and Showtime, along with the big time fight promoters (Shaw first, and inevitably Arum and King) will have in entering. No matter what happens, the UFC is going to be doomed to fail at some point. Either the market collapses because there’s too much fighting on TV for people to follow and no linearity in titles, or the market will outgrow what the UFC provides right now, and a system far more like boxing (with worldwide unified rules and independant fighter promotion) will kick in. I’m betting on the latter happening. If you have some imagination that none of this will take place and that the UFC will be able to build a brand like the WWE, you’re completely forgetting that MMA is a real sport with uncontrollable outcomes, and pro wrestling isn’t.
Don Frye rules.
D. Capitated,
I think the ‘De La Hoya syndrome’ that exists with boxings upper elite is a direct result of boxings organizational structure, not the other way around. Yes a select few highly marketable fighters are going to eventually out grow the need for a promoter but we are talking about the upper 1% of fighters and that fact alone wont be enough to change the MMA landscape.
1. When does HBO ever show Tennis? I have never seen a live tennis match on HBO ever.
2. No company besides the UFC has made a profit on the big stage of MMA. To blindly think that the boxing promoters will be able to dominate this sport is laughable. When they see Gary Shaw fail, they will stay far away. It is a completely different ball game. They are in a sport that has no name brands. In MMA, they are competing against a specific name brand that almost every casual fans looks at as the major leagues.
3. I have to laugh at all the MMA fans wanting to see a free promoter system like that is in boxing controlling the sport. It is a FAILED concept. It failed in boxing, and it would fail in MMA. The UFC knows this, the fighters know this, and the general public knows this.
4. There are more similarities to the Pro Wrestling format then any other type of “real” sport out there. It is all about the name brand in the end, and that is what the fans will see. The WWE and UFC, by default in the minds of the masses, automatically equal “The Best”.
It should be noted, however, that Boxing’s promoter system (at least in the cases of the top promoters like King & Arum and historically Mike Jacobs) actually does have an organizational-style format with the fight options that they put into contracts (although it was banned by the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act) for future promotions. The options essentially create a stable of fighters (top contenders and champions, mainly) that are indentured to the promoter just like someone who signs a contract with the UFC as their exclusive promoter until the conditions of their contract expire. The big problem with Boxing’s stable model, however, is the manager/promoter role that King & Arum have to a number of their top fighters (IE: Carl King was Don King’s manager by proxy for all of his contracted fighters so he was given double the salary, even if it was illegal as it was a method to bypass the 33% cap that was in place for years against managers and promoters). In MMA, however, there have been no scandals (that I know of) where the manager/promoter conflict has come into play, especially considering that if Zuffa did that, the Fertittas faced losing not only the UFC but also Station Casinos (gaming license, etc.).
As a sidenote, I think it’s always funny that doctors condemn combat sports for repeated concussions to the brain, whereas I don’t see the heavy berating for American Football or Futbol (Soccer) for similar concussions that are caused during the sporting activity (from sacks and head drops in Football or headbutting the ball in Futbol).
1. When does HBO ever show Tennis? I have never seen a live tennis match on HBO ever.
Wimbeldon.
2. No company besides the UFC has made a profit on the big stage of MMA.
K-1 doesn’t turn a profit? PRIDE never did? These are claims based on what, exactly?
And wow, the fact that no one has ever made a profit on the big stage of a sport that only had something remotely close to a unified rules system in this country about 6 years ago is really amazing. The sport has been hugely popular in the US for how long, exactly? Hughes/Gracie last May? A whopping 9 months.
To blindly think that the boxing promoters will be able to dominate this sport is laughable. When they see Gary Shaw fail, they will stay far away. It is a completely different ball game. They are in a sport that has no name brands. In MMA, they are competing against a specific name brand that almost every casual fans looks at as the major leagues.
You’re assuming that Gary Shaw and Showtime will absolutely fail, or that others won’t believe they can move it. There are no name brands *yet*, but if growth continues, how will there not be major name fighters? Can you explain this?
3. I have to laugh at all the MMA fans wanting to see a free promoter system like that is in boxing controlling the sport. It is a FAILED concept. It failed in boxing, and it would fail in MMA. The UFC knows this, the fighters know this, and the general public knows this.
How did it fail in boxing? De La Hoya/Mayweather sure looks like a catastrophe, having sold out months in advance. The public wants to see the best athletes, and the best athletes will want the biggest pay.
4. There are more similarities to the Pro Wrestling format then any other type of “real†sport out there. It is all about the name brand in the end, and that is what the fans will see. The WWE and UFC, by default in the minds of the masses, automatically equal “The Bestâ€.
The similarities exist in a sport still basically in an embryonic stage. I can’t believe people think that sudden influxes of money from fans won’t change the structure of power in the sport at all. Will Dana White and Joe Silva also live forever?
It should be noted, however, that Boxing’s promoter system (at least in the cases of the top promoters like King & Arum and historically Mike Jacobs) actually does have an organizational-style format with the fight options that they put into contracts (although it was banned by the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act) for future promotions.
Ding ding ding! And most networks that televise boxing have preferred or exclusive contracts with promoters. Versus only televises fight cards put on by Main Events. HBO has more than 75% of its TV slots this year given to Golden Boy Productions, basically in return for Oscar’s exclusive status with the network. Showtime works most often with former network matchmaker Gary Shaw (which explains EXC, and he also runs ShoBox) and occasionally with Don King. The lesser promoters typically go with ESPN2. Exceptions are Muhammed (who is in bed with Fox) and a couple northeastern promoters who work with Comcast’s CN8 primarily.
The key difference is the use of independant sanctioning bodies, which are inevitable to form in MMA. The key for that will be a unified rules set, which you can anticipate happening sooner rather than later, and probably following the UFC’s lead. At which point, the massive crossover for IFL/BoDog/Strikeforce/ROTR/EXC along with the Japanese promotions will probably see de facto world titles built up that offer the ability to defend them also on UFC shows, as they’ll be independent of the organization. Its going to happen. When it does, I’ll probably laugh at a good number of people who think its an impossibility. At that stage, all these organizations simply become promoters for the sport and occasionally have world champions on. There’s already the Worldwide Cage Network, and I would anticipate it being associated or being extremely similar.
I was talking about the North American market. And even Pride loses money per show in the US market.
The fact that the first Showtime broadcast only got 365,000 viewers is a sure sign that they don’t have a big audience. Showtime was expecting boxing like viewership, even for the first show. Their first PPV will be no different. They are already on the path to failure.
The De La Hoya vs. Mayweather talk is such a joke. Oscar is one of the last big draws left in the sport, and he is ready to retire. They have no younger fighters who are able to get close to 1 Million PPV buys at this point. And that is why the sport is dying.
There was an influx of money into the tech field in the 1990’s. Doesn’t mean many people didn’t lose their shirts. There are only so many consumer dollars for this sport. Just simple math will tell you that a lot of these companies will fail. And the odds are it won’t be the UFC.
“I was talking about the North American market. And even Pride loses money per show in the US market.”
So the “big stage” is a market that has proven to be extremely lucrative in the last year only? (I’d argue it started w/UFC 57, although one could definitely argue UFC 52, coming off TUF 1 or the Royce/Hughes fight which took it to another level.)
Did Prides one and only US show definitely lose money on the US market? Even if it did, you’re going off one show. Were you even a fan of MMA back when Zuffa UFC ran their first PPV w/UFC 33? That show was a disaster.
Some of my favorite UFC’s were in the late 30’s but that doesn’t mean they were financially successful.
We’ll see how this all plays out in a couple years, I just don’t understand how people have such blind allegiance to a company like the UFC.
I was at UFC 30…. Zuffa’ first UFC. Atlantic City Baby!!! What a crap hole.
I have never shown a blind allegiance to the UFC. I just think they are the only company in the clear for the next few years. I’m just making a score card and seeing which MMA companies fail. And like I have said before, I still think the UFC needs competition. And one company will probably become their direction competition. And I like that. However, the rest will either become feeder systems or lose too much money. The investors won’t stay around for ever. And the consumer dollars can’t buy 25 PPV’s a year.
As for the US market, yes it is the most important one. Japan is a sorry state for MMA and Pro Wrestling right now. It isn’t like it use to be. The only market that is really good for MMA is in the US, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
MMA Critic, UFC has proved in the past 18 months that fans will pay for watered down boxing like cards on PPV. Cards that have one big fight and a lot of sausage filler. UFC is making $20+ million per event between PPV and the live gate. That is a much, much larger take than boxing promoters get. Boxing promoters get a million if they are lucky when the bills are paid. It stands to reason that if a promoter were to give two top fighters $5 mil each (or even less) and put on a card (let’s use popular fighters today to guage it though the names of who is hot in 6 months or a year or two could be different) Chuck Liddell vs Fedor. Chuck gets 5 mil, Fedor gets 5 mil and the bunch of jabronies on the undercard get 250k combined. That fight is going to do mega-bucks on PPV.
All this loyalty, all these guys who love Dana and love the UFC love money. UFC is the money right now in MMA. It is the stability. But when a new big swinging dick comes along and over pays for talent they will jump. And the opportunity to overpay for talent is there because Zuffa is taking a huge piece of the pie for themselves. You give some of that pie back to the boys and you’ll get top fighters.
Right now Zuffa/UFC is the sanctioning body and the promoter. In boxing you have promoters who pay fees to a sanctioning body to use their belts to sell fights. This very well may happen in MMA. You could see an IFL vs Pride champ on Showtime or HBO; or UFC vs IFL or PRide on one of those networks or My Network, Spike or ABC.
I honestly hope that what happened to boxing never happens to MMA. But I also can’t blindly hope UFC survives and everyone else fails because UFC has been doing what boxing promoters do since they got popular with the reality show. Go back and look at the pre-TUF cards. When there were 6 PPVs per year. Look at the card for UFC 52 Couture/Liddell II. That was the end of an era and we didn’t realize it. I didn’t realize it, some people did. That was THE FIGHT everyone was talking about. Hughes/Trigg was the co-main event, that had a buzz. GSP/Mayhem was off the charts, Salaverry fought Riggs to see who would be a top challenger at 185, Babalu fought Travis Wiuff and Lindland fought Lutter in another match to see what the top level of 185 looked like. You might not ever see a UFC card like that again.
The fact that the first Showtime broadcast only got 365,000 viewers is a sure sign that they don’t have a big audience. Showtime was expecting boxing like viewership, even for the first show. Their first PPV will be no different. They are already on the path to failure.
Showtime doesn’t do super numbers for their TV programs anyhow. I doubt 10,000,000 people watched Adamek/Dawson either. The point is that they have a lot of money. Once talent becomes available, there’s no reason to believe they won’t be able to afford some of it. They had Mike Tyson, for crying out loud.
The De La Hoya vs. Mayweather talk is such a joke. Oscar is one of the last big draws left in the sport, and he is ready to retire. They have no younger fighters who are able to get close to 1 Million PPV buys at this point. And that is why the sport is dying.
Why is a joke? The gate is gigantic. The buys will be huge, and probably exceed a million. A guy like Miguel Cotto is a couple big fights away from being a major draw as well. Even in as it “dies”, its continuing to make tons of money. HBO isn’t about to drop its boxing programming or divert most of the funds to MMA until it ceases to make them cash, though I’m sure that’s a wet dream of many here.
There was an influx of money into the tech field in the 1990’s. Doesn’t mean many people didn’t lose their shirts. There are only so many consumer dollars for this sport. Just simple math will tell you that a lot of these companies will fail. And the odds are it won’t be the UFC.
Tech companies who provide a physical product to the consumer and fight promoters who promote a sporting event are in very different industries and the correlations between them are minimal at best. Furthermore, many top companies in the 1980s are no longer the giants they once were, and companies as late as those arriving this decade have made huge imprints. Google, Myspace, and Youtube are billion dollar companies. Meanwhile, what happened to IBM’s place in the PC market? How many people use OS/2? Packard Bell? AOL? Compuserve? Prodigy? Apple grew, died, and came back. There have been numerous small revolutions in the way the computer industry has gone, and Microsoft, even now, is hardly incapable of being knocked off the top of the mountain. But the UFC isn’t? Please.
An additional note:
And the consumer dollars can’t buy 25 PPV’s a year.
Since you like to discuss how MMA is like pro wrestling and apparently will continue to be like it forever, a quick reminder. At the peak of pro wrestling’s popularity, there were approximately 28-30 PPVs a calendar year between the three largest promotions in the US, along with the occasional indie PPV like Heroes of Wrestling. Now, while that’s clearly changed, there’s a lot of reasons for it, but even in pro wrestling, who’s fanbase often trended younger and poorer than MMA, that was actually sustainable for a couple years, and the fact that it ultimately dropped to just 16 or so was more the result of mismanagement and poor decision making on the part of various promotions. I don’t anticipate 25 PPVs a year being a realistic standard for MMA TV, and I highly doubt that when the smoke clears 5-10 years from now, that there will be much more than 12 megacards a year on PPV. But I also think the market for MMA will be more centered around the US than it is now and that you’ll see TV outlets pick up more major fight cards (as they are doing right now), which again totally changes the dynamic.
A guy like Arturo Gatti is also a good example of a fighter who can sell cards on his name alone. Same with Pac-Man and a lot of the Latino fighters…the promoters who do well got smart and the one’s who didnt suffer.
Just because the HW boxing scene is a mess doesn’t mean the entire promoter system has failed. Oscar De La Hoya as a promoter (not just a boxer) is proof that with a good gameplan, industry knowledge and good promoting that the promoter system can be successful.
The MMA Critic Says:
February 12th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
On The Underground Forum, a Lynchman spells out more of the details from the Wrestling Observer. As the number indicate, some things just don’t add up.
Plus, they want to run PPV, so all the people saying “At least it is free†will soon have to anti up for sub par talent on PPV. No thanks. I purchase the UFC, the better Pride’s, and even though i can afford it, refuse to buy any other PPV’s out of the principle of it.
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That would be me.
So clearly 2007 will be Pro-Elite’s hardest year, with little or no income outside of the live gates. I am sure they are expecting to lose money this year.
2008 will make things easier with Showtime helping on some expenses, but they will still be making less per ppv buy than the UFC or Pride. This certainly makes me wonder how they feel they can outbid them for fighter’s services.
100,000 buys for the StrikeForce/Pro-Elite Shamrock/Baroni card would be a big success. But assuming that those two companies are spliting the rev, each would make around 1 million. Pro-Elite would then get 700k with Showtime taking the other 300k.
I am guessing Shamrock will also be getting a ppv percentage as well.
I can see Pro-Elite making a go of it, but if they are going to continue to pay fighters more than the market value, I am having a hard time seeing how they will make money.
If they got 100,000 PPV Buys….
$40 X 100,000 = $4 Million
– Cable Companies get $2 Million
– Showtime gets $600,000
– Pro Elite & Strikeforce somehow split the $1.4 Million. With a fighter like Frank Shamrock getting $1.5 Million a fight, that is still a major loss when costs are considered.
And I highly doubt they are going to be getting 100,000 PPV Buys.