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Fight Network conference call
By Zach Arnold | December 7, 2007
At 2 PM EST/11 AM PST today, The Fight Network held a conference call with referee “Big” John McCarthy to announce that McCarthy has signed a deal with the channel to become the “John Madden of MMA” (those being the words of Fight Network officials).
It was a interesting conference call because of several remarks or missteps made (that were entertaining), including the following:
- The Fight Network CEO claiming that TFN is the only major network worldwide covering all facets of combat sports. This is quite the misstep, given that Samurai TV started going full-steam ahead in 1996 in Japan. The CEO went onto say that the goal of TFN is to become “the ESPN of combat sports.”
- Kevin Iole’s blog posting at Yahoo Sports revealing McCarthy’s retirement two days before the actual conference call was mentioned, shockingly, in a positive light by the TFN officials. They pointed out that Iole’s post got 90 comments and 100% of them were positive about McCarthy.
- McCarthy said that he had to choose between signing with The Fight Network or staying active as a referee because the various state athletic commissions look at someone in the business as part of the media being a conflict of interest.
- The moderator for the conference call took questions from Damon Martin (MMA Weekly), Jeff Comstock (Bloody Elbow), Dave Meltzer (Yahoo Sports), and Eddie Goldman (No Holds Barred/ADCC News). Comstock was announced as a Fight Opinion writer and Meltzer was called “Metzer.” Meltzer used the Q & A for a mini-soapbox session, stating that MMA’s big weakness is that there are not uniform rules for MMA across the globe in the various top promotions. Dave also expressed angst about ‘company champions’ being promoted as opposed to ‘real champions.’
- The word ‘retirement’ was not mentioned once in regards to McCarthy’s signing with The Fight Network.
Topics: Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 4 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
The Fight Network concept is a crappy idea… So I don’t see how BJM benefits from this much. I guess if he is doing what makes him happy, then more power to him.
But even as a hardcore fight fan, I can only take so much fighting in a given week. A 24/7 station devoted to it is over kill.
I disagree with 45 Huddle. My only problem with The Fight Network is that if I got it on cable here in Boston, I’d never pick up my books anymore.
The Fight Network is one of the most successful pay-cable channels in Canada.
They’ve done an excellent job in creating programming and attracting an audience.
Put it this way, LeafsTV: which is the pay tv channel for the richest franchise in the NHL has nowhere near the subscription base that TFN does, so they must be finding some type of audience.
So, point 3 there, was one of the commissions unhappy with the interviews etc that he had been doing with TFN on After the Bell? That’s a weird comment to make.