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Fedor, Werdum, and Strikeforce
By Zach Arnold | August 3, 2009
So Fabricio Werdum is off the 8/15 San Jose show, but hey – look at the bright side — Strikeforce now has Fedor.
Obviously, Showtime plays a major role in terms of who Strikeforce books and what the network wants to see. So, how much did they pony up to get Fedor? Remember, it was Showtime that was pushing the Affliction show hard during Strikeforce telecasts, so clearly the network knows who Fedor is and wanted him.
As for the whole “co-promotion” deal that M-1 always angles for, well it makes a lot of sense with Strikeforce and none with UFC. Why should UFC pay 50% of any show they promote with Fedor on the card when 95% of the people watching UFC buy it because of their loyalty to the brand? (Alan disputes the loyalty factor here, but when your floor is 325,000 buys a show… People arguing that there is no brand to a loyalty are forgetting that most of the ‘stars’ headlining these shows were created or pushed by the UFC marketing machine.)
Strikeforce, however, doesn’t rake in the cash like UFC, so splitting costs and revenues 50/50 is a pretty easy pill for them to swallow. Plus, we know that for a company like Strikeforce with a limited-size office that running a lot of Challenger shows requires resources if you aren’t dealing with sold shows (i.e. guaranteed money). We’ve seen M-1 run a lot of strange shows in Seattle and KC and so forth. If M-1 wants to continue doing that, Strikeforce can just piggyback on it and Showtime will provide the TV money to do it for the smaller shows. It makes some sense.
I would have published Strikeforce’s statement on the Fedor signing, but I’m not on their mailing list so I’m not all cool like that or whatnot.
If you’re a UFC fan who is bummed out about not seeing Fedor in the cage… chances are, and history seems to indicate this, eventually he will end up facing a UFC-or-go-home situation. The positive take on Dana White’s side here is that he’s watched Fedor’s stock incrementally go up in the States without having to pay a dime for it. Plus, look at all the promotions Fedor has fought for that have gone out of business. Now, you can say that Strikeforce will be the exception to the rule, but unless they start getting a lot of heavyweights to build up depth in a division without a lot of depth in the first place, eventually there will be no other real option other than UFC. So, if you’re in Dana White’s position, just step back and watch the circus and see what happens from there.
All of the chips have moved on the table to the Fedor option for Strikeforce. How much money is left for the promotion?
As for prognostications that this move is a gamechanger, well… Fedor hasn’t been a game-changer since PRIDE died. What the move does allow is for Fedor to still be able to fight in Japan because Strikeforce will co-promote with others. Remember, Scott Coker has a long history with Kazuyoshi Ishii, so the idea that we could see Fedor on NYE in Japan is not out of the realm of possibility. In fact, it makes a lot of sense. If Strikeforce can get into the mix with K-1, then we could certainly see Fedor vs. Barnett in Japan and we could see some K-1/DREAM talent coming stateside shortly.
Topics: M-1, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 81 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I doubt 95% of the people buy shows out of loyalty. They buy for headliners. For the nothing shows like UFC 99 they’ll buy because they’re UFC fans. But anything beyond that the numbers shift in a big way.
As for the co-promotion being valuable here, does anyone know what it actually entails yet? I’ll reserve judgement till some facts come out.
The nothing shows like UFC 99 do 4 times the business either of the Affliction shows did.
That is Zach’s point. Fedor does not draw in the U.S. Because nobody outside the hardcores know who he is.
You’re right though that Brock, GSP, Chuck and a couple other guys bring their own bonus audience.
There is no loyalty to a brand, there is loyalty to stars. UFC has the biggest stars in the US so that’s why they get the great buyrates. If every big name fighter jumped to another company tomorrow, then that company would pick up UFC’s buyrates. Like someone said about the UFC’s temper tantrum over the video games, if the UFC put out a video game with none of the stars and the selling point was only the UFC brand name, then nobody would buy it. You’re an idiot if you have more loyalty to a brand instead of loyalty to fighters you enjoy watching.
You can see the real “brand loyalty”, if such a thing exists, by the buyrates of the throwaway shows with no real starpower, and those do what 250,000-300,000? That’s not 95%.
As for Fedor having a “UFC or go home” decision, I still say there will always be somebody somewhere that he can fight for offering enough money where he wouldn’t be forced to fight in the UFC.
The nothing shows like UFC 99 do 4 times the business either of the Affliction shows did.
Not applicable. The UFC has the biggest profile and the biggest stars, but there are clearly bigger stars in the company that other guys. Wanderlei Silva is a “star”. So is Rich Franklin. So is Noguiera. They are not stars to the degree GSP is, where he can headline a UFC card against anyone. Same with Lesnar. Someone like Noguiera could leave and there would be little effect. They couldn’t bury GSP on the way out.
Alan, you have become as ridiculous as 45 Huddle.
UFC 93 was bought by 325,000 people. A lot of them were probably people who bought it because it was a UFC. UFC 94 was bought by 800,000 people. UFC 100 was supposedly bought by 1.7 million. Something separates UFC 94 and UFC 100 from UFC 93, and its not just location.
Couture, GSP, Anderson Silva and Rampage could leave UFC for Strikeforce tomorrow.
Strikeforce could set up Randy vs Rampage or Fedor
and GSP vs Anderson Silva.
Without pushing the fight on Spike TV, and with no video footage to promote the fighters, Strikeforce/Showtime would still have trouble drawing the 500,000 fans that UFC averages for the mediocre shows. I doubt Strikeforce would draw 250,000 views with that show. On top of that they’d go bankrupt doing it.
Fedor/Verdum is a good fight that should have happened years ago. I’ll be happy to see that.
Overeem and brett are washes. Overeem is over-rated, and brett is heavy handed but way too green. Pretty much Fedor/Goodridge.
They’ll still be fun popcorn fights I guess, but what is fedor gonna do in strikeforce other than then verdum and collecting checks?
BTW: I do support Strikeforce, they’re east bay guys like me. So I’m happy they’ve got this big star. I guess I just think that its an akward fit and a bit more extravagant then they need right now. Like buying a Masarati to commute to a job laying sheetrock.
And since its not gonna happen, its not provable, and you can solidly stand behind that stance, using the numbers from Jens Pulver’s 7 year old defection or Andrei Arlovski’s departure as evidence. Nothing I can do about, since its unprovable either way. I just think its ridiculous.
And you’re right, if they spent millions for all those guys at once and put them on the same card, they probably wouldn’t succeed. But when you can frame the theoretical Strikeforce however you want them to, of course you can set them up for an obvious theoretical failure.
I think the evidence that there is brand loyalty can be found in the cases of Randy and Tito.
Randy gave up on fighting the UFC and trying to get out of his contract because he realized there was more money in the UFC.
Tito ended up going back because no one else could give him the money/exposure he could get from the UFC.
Yes, stars generate the huge buys, but the fact that the UFC is the only one that knows how to create, market, and capitalize on these stars has to point to some sort of brand loyalty.
Alan has become worse then me. He bashes anything UFC, makes a huge deal about anything anti-UFC, and typically offers either no explanation or a horrible one.
The UFC namebrand means EVERYTHING. Not only does it add a 300,000 PPV Buys base to anything they do, it also makes it much more likely people will purchase a PPV. No fighter has been able to leave the UFC and really make it on his own as a viable PPV entity. Arlovski was on a PPV that got over 400,000 PPV Buys in the UFC, and did they even get over 100,000 for Fedor/Arlovski?
Changing topics slightly, the tide has completely turned with the UFC/Fedor debate. People have turned on Fedor. I don’t buy into these people who say they will boycott them, but the public perception is that he needed to be in the UFC. Even anti-UFC places like Sherdog and BE were in pure Fedor bashing mode.
At the end of the day, I am not happy about this signing. Not because of what people perceive as a UFC fanboy. I just want to see all the top guys in one organization with a fighter’s union surrounding them. I think that is best for the sport.
This whole seperate organizations things which is supposed to be better for the fans is NEVER better for the fans. We always miss out on great fights like Silva/Liddell in their prime. And now Fedor/Lesnar.
Lastly, Fedor is in no way a gamechanger. He is 100% over rated for his selling abilities and his ability to make an organization more popular. That has nothing to do with his fighting skills. He just doesn’t have the look or speaking skills to become even remotely mainstream. It seems like Strikeforce and Showtime are the next “suckers”. Heck, even Zuffa was willing to be “suckers” just to sign him. At the end of the day, he is not a good investment.
I don’t see how either example establishes “brand loyalty”. Randy was an old man who decided to fight and make money in the twilight of his career instead of spending what little he had left on a prolongued legal battle. Tito shopped himself around, collected some paychecks for nothing, and supposedly got more than when he left in spite of having beaten no one of value in years and being called a washed up annoyance across the MMA Echo Chamber ™.
That the best offer to cross Tito’s path was ultimately from the UFC would make him stupid not to sign, right? I’m pretty sure I remember that being an argument for something…
We’ve come full circle when 45 is arguing Arlovski drew instead of Tito.
Having strong promotion ability isn’t the same thing as brand loyalty. If UFC lost their Spike deal with no more TUF, Fight Nights, or Countdown shows, how would they do? Realistically, they’d taper off event by event as they were out of public consciousness. But if they lost exposure and stars started to leave, they’d have an absolute recreation of what happened in 1998.
And what counts as the median in judging what UFC gets on throwaway shows compared to the star studded ones? Are we counting UFC’s peak of 1.7 million that Lesnar got?, are we counting GSP’s best buyrate for UFC 94 of 800,000? Or the 625,000 that GSP and Lesnar got fighting opponents no casual fan really cared about like Fitch and Herring respectively? Either way that still doesn’t come out to 95% if we put UFC’s worst buyrate of the year for 375,000 on UFC 96.
A few other comments…
When Affliction came in, the UFC basically let them go out of business. They could have easily afforded to match the contracts of Tim Sylvia, Andrei Arlovski, Matt Lindland, Vitor Belfort, and others. However, they did not. Instead, they knew they couldn’t afford it… And basically assisted them by allowing them to make such dumb acquisitions. It was a perfect business strategy.
I don’t believe they will be taking the same game plan here. It is highly likely that they will go after many remaining free agent Heavyweights for a moderate price tag. If they dry up the free agency market, it puts Strikeforce in a bind to find legit contenders for him.
If anybody is familiar with technology, one of the big things the Apple iPhone did was basically showcase how bad AT&T really is. AT&T has 3G speed issues and lacks some basic features allowed with Verizon. While this was known to some, the iPhone put a spotlight on those issues to the casual consumer.
The UFC can do the same thing with Strikeforce. If they sign away all of the free agents, Strikeforce will have Fedor Emelianenko with basically nobody to fight. And what will that do? It will turn even the hardcore fans against Strikeforce when they can’t come up with any challengers to Fedor.
That is why I think White & Fertitta will take a different approach on this one. Strikeforce can swim on it’s own in the shawllow waters, but the UFC can make them look real bad if they choose to by making it Strikeforce’s fault for not having anybody to fight Fedor in 6 months….
“Alan has become worse then me. He bashes anything UFC, makes a huge deal about anything anti-UFC, and typically offers either no explanation or a horrible one.”
First time I’ve seen a hardcore UFC front runner exchange the concept of Alternative MMA with the phrase “anti-UFC”. This must be the influence of having Dana White as a demagogue. If you aren’t with the UFC you’re against it, right?
You could call Bloodyelbow a lot of things, “anti-UFC” definitely isn’t one of them.
You gotta love the modern MMA fan landscape, where some people really believe it would be best for this prize fighting sport if all the other promoters disappeared and UFC controlled every big money fight. Apparently the “WWE Model” is the true path to mainstream acceptance.
45 is really good at what he does. He frames the argument in excellent ways for what he wants. Obviously Lesnar is a bigger draw than Anderson Silva, so he doesn’t argue that. Instead, he goes in another direction entirely. This should be completely transparent, but then, you look at the comments, and man oh man, it sure isn’t to some.
Is it just me or is it a sign of low expectations that people get excited for the possibility of Fedor vs Werdum?
Werdum got knocked out in less then 90 seconds in his last fight against Dos Santos and this is the fighter that fedor might face?
I don’t like it one bit.
And also let me add that it’s not just TV, it’s TV promotion that counts. Towards the end of PRIDE’s lifespan they got Fox Sports specials not unlike UFC Countdown shows, the problem was they were not promoted (Neither were the “best of PRIDE” weekly shows) and tended to get weekday afternoon timeslots. Same with the IFL, their Fox Sports shows were irregularly scheduled since Fox Sports lets affiliates schedule their programming since local sports coverage varies. The Battleground show on MyNetwork also didn’t get much advertising after its debut episode. Certainly not the amount that they gave when WWE Smackdown came aboard the network 3 years later. And if you have a tiny network nobody cares about like BoDog on Ion, then you never had a chance.
And speaking of WWE, McMahon agreeing to let Spike advertise TUF during Raw made the difference. I know pro wrestling-haters refuse to believe that pro wrestling fans coming on board made the crucial difference in UFC blowing up, but it’s true. A combination of TUF getting the Raw exposure and being able to have the very-pro wrestling-like Koscheck vs. Leben feud made the difference. And after TUF blew up Spike went out of their way to promote all things UFC. I know MMA purists despised the “Fatherless Bastard”/garden hose incident, but it made UFC what it is today, Bonnar/Griffin wouldn’t have done what it did if it weren’t for that first.
I don’t think anyone is excited for Werdum/Fedor. We may not even see that fight: I’ve heard Rogers/Fedor. Is it the greatest fight? No. I’ll watch though like everyone else reading here will.
Alan,
The guy who will read an entire 4 paragraphs and then take one sentence of of context and bash the person for it.
If you notice, when I comment I comment on you, I still add something to the conversation in the same post. Try it sometime.
As for Arlovski (see, this is called adding to the conversation)…
If you remember, and Meltzer commented on it, for Arlovski’s last fight, even though he was on the undercard, he still got one of the loudest ovations of the night from the casual UFC fans.
Here is the problem with your line of thinking… The casual fan automatically assumes if a fighter isn’t in the UFC he either isn’t good enough, or was demoted. The same thing happens to the WEC fighters because they don’t have the “UFC” brand behind them. People say: “When are they going to the UFC.” That is the real public perception. And so no matter what Arlovski did, as soon as he no longer had the UFC brand behind him, he lost any potential selling power.
“You gotta love the modern MMA fan landscape, where some people really believe it would be best for this prize fighting sport if all the other promoters disappeared and UFC controlled every big money fight.”
With a fighter’s union, yes it is. Here is why:
1. Fighter’s have been screwed over a countless number of times when a promotion goes out of business and they are left without a fight for a long time.
2. Fans are screwed over by not seeing all the best fights.
3. The fighter’s can still have leverage through a union, which is no different then having leverage through multiple promoters.
I have seen far too many examples of multiple promotions being a bad idea for it to work in this sport.
Smoogy, you can bash me all you want, but the history of the sport proves that co-promotion and multiple promoters does not work. And keep in mind it has been exactly one promoter who has brought the sport to popularity…. Not anybody else. And it would be highly unlikely if the UFC had been working with other companies that the sport would be as popular as it is today.
Saying you support a UFC-only MMA landscape by saying it would work out for the best because eventually a fighter’s union would come in to make everything perfect is an absolute pipedream.
First off, are you gullible enough to believe the same people who freaked out over a rival video game are going to okay allowing a union in their company? The same guy who complains about having to deal with agents, who didn’t even want agents backstage at fights with their fighters is going to want to deal with a union?
You can say “Unions can come in without Dana’s approval”, but they really can’t. He’d take another page out of his secret-idol Vince McMahon’s playbook and blackball fighters who attempted to unionize. If a contracted-fighter strike happened, Dana would just stave them out and let a bunch of scab-fighters on his shows until they got desperate and caved in. If it even got to that point.
Zuffa is ruthless enough to make sure they are always in the absolute position of power. You have your head up Dana’s bunghole if you believe otherwise.
If you remember, and Meltzer commented on it, for Arlovski’s last fight, even though he was on the undercard, he still got one of the loudest ovations of the night from the casual UFC fans.
You argued for months that Arlovski couldn’t draw and was overpaid. Awesome stuff.
The UFC definitely has a brand loyalty and a (growing) built in audience from what I can see. Certain ppvs spike with star power, but those stars were crafted and built by the UFC.
We know what Brock did on PPV before the UFC signed him, what Rampage did, what Fedor does…and to some extent what their ex-champs did (Arlovski & Sylvia). The UFC behind these guys is what makes them ‘stars’.
You guys need to pay attention to some of the earlier blogs Dana did, to the fan conventions (especially the most recent one), to the fan-fighter Q&As and listen to some of their fans.
The UFC has a loyal audience, that are willing to travel, willing shell out money every month and lap up every bit of merchandise Zuffa sells them.
They’re like the WWE of MMA, it became all too clear when Forrest’s book became a best seller. We also have to remember that the bulk of UFC fans from the TUF era are converted pro-wrestling fans.
With that said, we also saw that thre was room to cultivate another audience from EXC-CBS debacle. If Strike force can do that with Fedor he may very well be a game changer.
Fedor v Barnett NYE in Japan. That will do for me.
Alan,
Arlovski was overpaid. And Arlovski is not a draw outside of the UFC. So thanks for proving my point.
As for EliteXC on CBS…. First, they didn’t draw fans based on MMA… They drew them based on a freakshow factor in Kimbo Slice. Also, the average age of the audience was much higher then a UFC audience, as is with most CBS shows.
And lastly, just because something can get solid ratings on CBS, doesn’t mean it can be sold on PPV.
Strikeforce will have to give Fedor away for free, and once they do, it’s hard to make people buy that same fighter. The UFC, through a pure mistake (I think), had the perfect set-up… Sell the up & comers, and pay for the stars. That is what TUF did.
Not to mention we are talking about Fedor’s 3rd or 4th Strikeforce fight before he is on PPV. By then he could either lose or be out of challengers.
I just don’t see the payoff coming down the road like Scott Coker might be envisioning.
Alan, I’ll do a simple illustration for you.
Rank according to PPV buys in MMA:
#1 UFC with top fighters (1.7 mil to 600k)
#2 UFC with no-name fighters (300k min)
#3 non-UFC with top fighters (100k max)
#4 non-UFC with no-name fighters (negligible)
All the evidence from every show in the past several years says that the letters “UFC” are the single most important factor when a fan decides whether to buy an MMA card. By far. Even the record breaking UFC 100 got a big portion of its sales simply because it was “UFC 100” (I’d say anywhere from 200k to 500k on top of their standard baseline, meaning that the same card with a number other than “100” would do 1.2 to 1.5 mil).
You say that it’s “unprovable”, but at least there’s some correlating evidence to support our position. You have absolutely nothing but conjecture, the very same conjecture that makes you look like a fool everytime you take an anti-UFC stance and get proven wrong time and time again. According to your predictions over the years, there should be like 5 different companies that compete with the UFC, and the UFC should quickly be on their way out of business by now because they don’t run their promotion the right way.
Body_Shots, again you’re confusing exposure with brand loyalty. K-1 didn’t get any television exposure, neither did WFA so it’s not a fair comparison. If they had heavily advertised infomercials for Dynamite USA and King of the Streets events, who knows what they would have drawn. The WFA card had Rampage, Bas Rutten, Matt Lindland and Machida on it for starpower, but I don’t remember one single advertisement on television. If I didn’t frequent MMA internet sites (which the majority of UFC PPV buyers don’t) I wouldn’t know the show existed. If UFC was in their shoes for their next event nobody would know about them either.
Calling them the WWE of MMA is a correct comparison, but if WWE lost all of their television deals they’d be dead in the water too.
Alan, I’ll do a simple illustration for you.
Rank according to PPV buys in MMA:
I thought top fighters weren’t necessarily top draws? Didn’t you say that yesterday?
Here’s another thing, remember the debate Elite supporters got into with UFC supporters about how much better the Kimbo-Thompson CBS show did than Ortiz-Shamrock on Spike? The UFC-supporters said that wasn’t a fair comparison because you were talking about UFC’s basic cable promotion versus Elite’s #1 television network promotion. So how is television versus no television (or in Strikeforce’s case against UFC pay television versus basic cable television) any different?
Not sure if this is true, but it’s such a big story that it is worth mentioning….
From the UG:
“TJ DeSantis on Sherdog radio just mentioned UFC has sent Strikeforce a C+D letter in regards to the Babalu/Mousasi fight. Strikeforce’s Mike Afromowitz responded by saying Babalu is Strikeforce’s property and has been since 2007 but didn’t say anything about Mousasi.”
If this is true, the war has begun.
I was under the impression that the UFC already picked and chose what Affliction fighters they wanted (which wasn’t many). I guess it’s feasible if they wanted to be a dick to now say they want Mousasi after passing on him last week, but I thought Affliction’s bones were picked clean.
When 45 predicted Arlovski couldn’t draw enough to justify his Affliction salary, he was 100% correct, as proven by the Affliction buyrates (btw, your stance was proven to be completely wrong, in case you conveniently forgot the bs you were spouting off). When 45 says Arlovski pulled in 400k in the UFC, he doesn’t mean Arlovski did it all by himself. The UFC had a huge part in that.
So in effect, you’re comparing apples to oranges. Arlovski can draw somewhat ok *in the UFC*, but outside of the UFC he’s not going to pull many viewers (which he didn’t). But then again, that goes into the core of the argument here. You don’t understand that the combination of top fighters and the UFC is greater than the sum of its parts, which is why you erroneously think fighters can draw well on their own.
All of the boards are filled with lemmings frothy at the mouth with hate because Fedor took the better offer.
I will never understand the desire of the UFC faithful to live life vicariously through man child Dana White, than to see the fighters take center stage.
The UFC would be a watchable promotion without White and the endless Zuffa spam that passes for commentary at the UFC fights. A drug addict, conspiracy nut and a used car salesman for commentary makes listening to UFC fights like having a root canal.
(btw, your stance was proven to be completely wrong, in case you conveniently forgot the bs you were spouting off).
Such strong language! Care to tell me what said stance was that was completely wrong? I love this sort of talk.
So in effect, you’re comparing apples to oranges.
As are you. Why does Lesnar sell more PPVs than Anderson Silva?
Well it was nice knowing you while it lasted Strikeforce, but now the fun is over and Dana is going to bury you stupid move Coker.
“I will never understand the desire of the UFC faithful to live life vicariously through man child Dana White, than to see the fighters take center stage.”
“No player is bigger then the game” is a line often used when discussing baseball. It seems to have worked for them for 100+ years.
It doesn’t mean you still don’t have stars. It doesn’t mean you still don’t sell tickets based on winners and those stars. But the game (sport) itself is more important. Which means when somebody loses or retires, it continues to function like a nicely oiled machine.
That is the UFC. M-1 is what happens when you put a fighter first. Once that fighter loses or retires, things stop functioning.
That’s isn’t pro-UFC…. That’s just simple logic. And you bashing of everything UFC makes it apparant your bias.
For what it’s worth, Scott Coker said in a Sherdog video interview last week that Gegard Mousasi was already signed to a Strikeforce contract before the Mousasi/Sobral fight was added to the Affliction card. He said that when Mousasi/Sobral was added to the Affliction card, it was two Strikeforce-contracted fighters being loaned out to Affliction.
Of course, it’s not as though the UFC’s claim of having rights to Mousasi’s non-exclusive contract means that they’re actually interested in using Mousasi under the terms of his pre-existing, non-exclusive contract. It would just be about delaying the Mousasi/Sobral fight in Strikeforce.
What Arlovski show are we talking about that he drew that large? Both Arlovski title fights in the UFC’s boom period had a huge Tito Ortiz semi-main event that sold the show (Against Griffin and Shamrock.) Neither Sylvia-Arlovski fight was a draw alone. Even if you want to go all the way back to his fight with Justin Eilers, Franklin-Tanner II was the real selling point of the show.
While I put this in M-1’s lap for the UFC thing not happening (and no, I don’t for a second buy that the UFC $30 million offer was completely legit), I think in a way this could only intensify building the eventual Fedor-Brock showdown if all the chips fall the right way.
If Fedor rolls through Rogers, Werdum and Overeem and Brock ends up going through three more heavyweights in UFC, say Cain, Carwin and Nog for instance in that same amount of time, there will be so much public pressure to make that match that I believe it will finally get made.
I am a fight fan. I love MMA, I love Boxing. I go out of my way to watch both. That said, I have a 6 months Free Showtime deal that expires this month. Fedor being signed by Strikeforce doesn’t make me want to keep Showtime, the 6-man Super Middleweight Boxing Tournament does. It’s the best thing to happen to Boxing in years and here on “Fight” Opinion I’m shocked it hasn’t gotten much in the way of coverage.
Anyway, take that for what it’s worth. Would I watch Strikeforce and Fedor for free on CBS? Sure. But I watched Kimbo Slice for free on CBS so that doesn’t say much. However I wouldn’t actually pay for a PPV specifically because Fedor is on it.
I know people that will buy the UFC show because they know there are fights on there and are not incredibly familiar with all the main stars now. They just want to see fights and in their minds, they associate UFC with that. The same cannot be said with Fedor or even Strikeforce. So while this partnership may increase their marketability to harcores, the average fight fan probably won’t flinch either way.
Rp
“I thought top fighters weren’t necessarily top draws? Didn’t you say that yesterday?”
Heh, way to prove 45 right. From post #20: “The guy who will read an entire 4 paragraphs and then take one sentence of of context and bash the person for it.” 45 has got you pegged. It’s embarassing really.
I said top fighters, but if you want to get pedantic and nitpick because you can’t argue against the actual points I raised, then I’ll amend my statement. Where you see “top fighters” simply substitute it with “big name” fighters (that way it flows nicely with the “no name fighters” term).
No Mark I’m not, exposure doesn’t equal PPV buys or sales, how much exposure did the UFC really have when the MMA boom started in the US? They were a fringe sport on a fringe channel with very little support via press & media.
Using your argument TNA should be a lot more successful than they are today.
You should read Dan Lebatard’s articles on the UFC and his comparisons to leagues with a lot of exposure (WNBA, arena football etc etc).
[Calling them the WWE of MMA is a correct comparison, but if WWE lost all of their television deals they’d be dead in the water too.]
Is this a serious argument? How long would the NFL last without TV? Certainly you don’t believe the NFL lacks brand loyalty?
It will be interesting now to see the usual suspects declare Fedor irrelevant and/or illegitimate for signing with a company other than the UFC.
Heh, way to prove 45 right.
The rest is impertinent filler. I don’t need to justify myself to you or him.
I said top fighters, but if you want to get pedantic and nitpick because you can’t argue against the actual points I raised
You clearly don’t understand my basic point, either because you refuse to or because you lack the intelligence to do so, particularly given the crossover in what we’re saying.
Anyways, what was my stance again that was so wrong? I’m guessing this has to do with “UFC hating” and PRIDE/Affliction/some merger of the two.
What Arlovski show are we talking about that he drew that large?
It obviously wasn’t UFC 55. I guess the argument is that Jon Fitch leaving the UFC and GSP leaving the UFC wouldn’t be any different from one another? That seems to be the line.
When the boom period started they were:
*Drawing over a million viewers a week for TUF
*Advertised heavily during WWE Monday Night Raw, which was seen by around 4 million viewers a week and were the perfect demographic to market to.
*Had successful Spike Television specials drawing a rating equal to the Ultimate Fighter reality show.
Spike was a fringe channel? Monday Night Raw was the #1 cable television program by a landslide until ESPN bought the rights to air Monday Night Football. I know now they’re more respectable with CSI and everything, but they were already made successful by the WWE from what they were as The Nashville Network running country videos and Dukes Of Hazzard reruns.
TNA doesn’t get nearly the promotion UFC did. TNA was originally given a deadzone timeslot on Saturday nights, their specials to promote said awful weekly show did not get any promotion, and they’re still the redheaded stepchild compared to UFC at Spike. And with all that they get nearly equal ratings to what TUF gets now, their last episode drawing a 1.2.
How would you be able to care about your favorite NFL team if you couldn’t see them play on television and didn’t live close enough to go see them live? Eventually people would give up on caring if all they had to go on was the internet coverage of it.
How would you be able to care about your favorite NFL team if you couldn’t see them play on television and didn’t live close enough to go see them live? Eventually people would give up on caring if all they had to go on was the internet coverage of it.
I think we’re all getting a little far off here. The UFC clearly would be in trouble if it lost TV altogether. We all recognize that, but its not gonna happen anytime soon. If it did, they’d be screwed and god knows where MMA would be as a sport.
Alternately, its tough to prove that a star could leave the UFC and stop drawing if they never were on their own. Clearly Arlovski was recognizable but nowhere near a major star or main event draw on his own. Its silly to compare his status to that of Brock Lesnar.
I didnt read this thread because it is way too long, but the only thing I want to say is that if this show is on CBS, with that channel’s formidable marketing machine behind it, it will be the most watched mma event in history, save possibly only UFC 100 (Im sure every bar that showed the fight was packed and most of the people who watched watched with groups of people). Pushing Fedor as the greatest fighter in mma history, which he undoubtedly is, saying that he has beaten 5 UFC hw champions, showing his KOs of Arlovski and Sylvia and his armbar of Choi and showing him carrying the Olympic torch for Russia = cash money. If CBS shows the fights after football one night in the fall, it will do huge ratings especially given the great crossover audience btwn football and fighting.
[Spike was a fringe channel? Monday Night Raw was the #1 cable television program by a landslide until ESPN bought the rights to air Monday Night Football.]
Are you arguing it wasn’t? Can you name the programming Spike/TNN had then besides the WWE & then UFC?
Moreover you’re making my point for me, the WWE [u]brand[/u] took those ratings to another channel and did well. So was it Spike’s exposure or the WWE brand?
[And with all that they get nearly equal ratings to what TUF gets now, their last episode drawing a 1.2.]
And of course those equal ratings have lead to equal ppv success right? Before we bring up unfavorable deals with Spike, lets not forget the UFC paid them to air TUF.
But that’s neither here nor there, answer the question I posed to you [Is this a serious argument? How long would the NFL last without TV? Certainly you don’t believe the NFL lacks brand loyalty?], and I’ll decide whether it’s worth my time to continue this argument.
They had the chance to use the huge male NFL audience to promote Kimbo-Shamrock and failed to. I don’t believe they aired a single commercial during the October games. And since Kimbo and Ken Shamrock, as Americans with better “looks” than Fedor couldn’t get the NFL-rub I cannot see them giving it to Fedor, a Russian with little English who is balding and lacking Shamrock’s steroid physique or Kimbo’s bad ass sneer.
I don’t even know if CBS is going to want to give Strikeforce the Elite timeslot. Maybe Fedor can sway them if his Showtime fight does well, but Gina got them good ratings and Viacom turned down bringing her fight with Cyborg to CBS.