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Thursday trash talk (3/13/08)

By Zach Arnold | March 13, 2008

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MMA Junkie reports that NBC & Strikeforce are close to announcing a TV deal.

The Fightworks Podcast will be at the BJJ Pan-Ams on March 30th in Carson, California. Join Caleb and his super-high listenership of 600,000 for breakfast that day at R & R Soul Food Restaurant.

Friendly reminder — make sure to listen to the latest edition of Fight Opinion Radio.

Onto today’s headlines.

  1. Tim Leidecker: M-1 team challenge event coming up in Holland
  2. The Los Angeles Times: MMA films have a chokehold on action
  3. MMA Mania: ‘Never Back Down’ movie review
  4. MMA Canada: Rating the new MMA film ‘Never Back Down’
  5. Miami Herald: Sean Faris steps up in Never Back Down
  6. The London Free Press (Canada): Thursday ticket – ultimate warrior
  7. Broadcasting & Cable: Sports Industry sees opportunity in recession (note the part in the article about UFC)
  8. MMA Junkie: With lessons learned, Hermes Franca wants back in UFC
  9. MMA Analyst: Dear Fedor… you are slowly losing a fan
  10. MMA Opinion: Reflections of a Ken Shamrock fan
  11. The Union of Grass Valley (CA): Kickboxer Lisa Jeanson may make the move to MMA
  12. MMA California: Stagr/Gladiator Challenge ticket promotion
  13. Press release: Ricardo Almeida jiu-jitsu school grand opening in Hamilton, New Jersey
  14. Matthew Yglesias: John McCain enters the Octagon (with a run-in from Luke Thomas the political junkie)
  15. Luke Thomas: Fact checking Gary Shaw

Topics: DREAM, Media, MMA, Pro Elite, StrikeForce, UFC, Zach Arnold | 10 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

10 Responses to “Thursday trash talk (3/13/08)”

  1. Chuck says:

    About what Gary Shaw said about MMA years ago, big deal! That was years ago, and he probably forgot he said anything about. Naw, who am I kidding? He’s denying it. Believe it or not, I would take Dana White’s word over Gary Shaw’s. Gary Shaw probably changed his mind when he saw how much money UFC and PRIDE made and he wanted in. He’s doing a pretty good job with ProElite for now.

  2. Dave says:

    I don’t know about doing a good job with ProElite.. They lost how much money?

    The CBS deal kind of came out of nowhere, and could possibly save them, but they were hemorrhaging funds for a long time.

  3. IceMuncher says:

    The CBS deal is a time-buy. At this point it’s just as likely to turn out badly for them as it is to turn out well.

  4. Zach Arnold says:

    The CBS deal is a time-buy. At this point it’s just as likely to turn out badly for them as it is to turn out well.

    We did talk about the deal with Jeremy Lappen on the radio show…

  5. Jeremy says:

    While the fourth quarter numbers still have not been released, Pro Elite lost over 20 million in 2007.

    It looks like the CBS/Elite deal is not a straight up time buy, but it is not that far from it. As I understand, the deal pays very little upfront, with any real Elite income coming from advertising.

  6. Jeremy (not that Jeremy) says:

    I presume that it’s essentially the same as their Showtime “deal.”

    There’s some money, but it’s not payable upfront, and it comes with ownership strings that really make it more of a contingent investment than revenue.

    The fact that they have to pay for production costs isn’t good. I think it was an interview with the IFL where the new guy in charge was talking about the problem of promotions basically buying in to TV contracts because on net they were money losers since they were paying production costs themselves etc. It certainly is a true statement. Even if you’re “getting paid” you can still be losing money on the deal, and it may not ever come back to you in real revenue.

    Strikeforce? Really? Why?

  7. D. Capitated says:

    Strikeforce got the deal because they’ve had pretty damn good houses every time without TV apart from a single PPV and because they are probably willing to give NBC the ability to run the production aspects unlike certain other organizations.

  8. D. Capitated says:

    It looks like the CBS/Elite deal is not a straight up time buy, but it is not that far from it. As I understand, the deal pays very little upfront, with any real Elite income coming from advertising.

    How is it “not that far from it”? They’re paid a fee and make money off of advertising, which makes them not unlike numerous other sporting events in the world. A time buy is a time buy is a time buy. They aren’t buying the time.

  9. Jeremy (not that Jeremy) says:

    If you are paying to produce content and you’re giving it to a network FOR FREE, with your content airing during timeframes when advertising revenue is extremely lean, and you’re only getting paid when that revenue goes over a certain dollar mark, then it’s basically a time buy.

    The difference is, in a time buy, you get to keep the ad slots to sell yourself (except the ones reserved for the locals), so you pay a fee up front, pay for production, and you keep any ad sales revenue.

    So yeah, it’s not far from it.

  10. Perhaps pro elite knows it has to lose money to make money. Lots of businesses lose tons of money over the first few years of operation, and their stock papers all clearly state this as expected. I’ve always said if you’re gonna make it in MMA you better be prepared to burn around 50 million dollars before the company manages to turn a corner.

    On the other hand, I think ProElite has burned A LOT of money in a stupid fashion … some of it’s promotional buys have been questionable, and it’s dumped MASSIVE amounts of money into the ProElite website which just sucks huge monkey balls. It’s the worst kind of .com venture

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