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The limitations of the CBS/Showtime model for Strikeforce
By Zach Arnold | November 9, 2009
Over at the Heavy web site, Jonathan Snowden has an interview posted with Scott Coker after Saturday’s night show in Chicago. For all intents and purposes, I thought Coker did a good job with the show. Obviously the scheduling situation with the Mark Miller fight being canceled at the last minute on the undercard is a bad move on their part, but it’s the same type of thing that happened to Jay Hieron on the August show where he wasn’t on TV and ended up losing sponsorship money. Does the heat go on Strikeforce or should it go on CBS & Showtime? Probably the latter.
I wrote an article for MMA Memories talking about the problems that Strikeforce faces by being under the CBS/Showtime business model. There was a reason last week why I transcribed the interview Kelly Kahl did with Fanhouse. He talks a big game in terms of what CBS has done for Strikeforce in terms of promotion and either he’s a total spinner or he’s not looking at the ways to promote Strikeforce from multiple angles. Having 10-seconds ads featuring Choi Hong-Man on top of Fedor is not the way to promote him. I don’t care if you ‘flood the zone’ on NFL or SEC football games or not, that’s not effective advertising. When the whole goal is to try to promote new stars, CBS did the bare minimum on Saturday – no interviews from the fighters, a poor ad campaign leading up to the event, and no sense of either CBS or Showtime doing episodic programming with Strikeforce in the future.
If you want to be event-driven only in terms of promotion, that’s fine, UFC is that way, but Spike TV invests countless hours each week to promote the brand. Roger Goodell likes to say that he protects “the shield” (the NFL logo)… well, Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta do a pretty good job of protecting the UFC brand. Scott Coker, at this point, finds himself at the mercy of what Showtime and CBS want to do. Sure, Kelly Kahl and company can say that Scott is the head matchmaker and that they defer to him on many decisions, but ultimately Showtime and CBS runs the show and not Strikeforce. As the ratings information comes in and we see how things play out both politically and in a business sense, you get the feeling that UFC made the right decision in not immediately giving up control in exchange for exposure on CBS.
Note in the MMA Memories article what Kahl says about the idea of working with UFC in the future.
As for Jake Shields… the only defense I can say for him for his boring fight performance is that he was lucky Chad Dawson was fighting Glen Johnson. Who’s more boring – Shields or Dawson?
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 156 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
The second you get paid to do something, it takes the fun out of it. So not sure why I could care about that. Keep to the topic at hand. People just want to insult me lately instead of talking about the content.
Considering you jumped all over Gross’ assessment in the last thread, I figured you might have something to say now that his 5.5 million threshold has proved to be pretty much dead-on.
“With inflation taken into account, this was not a success.”
Classic.
There was nothing else to add about Gross that I didn’t say in that post. What’s the point of discussing it more? It is still true now.
As for the inflation comment. It’s true.
1) The sport is more popular today then it was 2 years ago. PPV Numbers can back that up.
2) The SF card got below 2 year ago numbers on CBS.
The combination is not good.
“The second you get paid to do something, it takes the fun out of it.”
LOL now that’s some terrible advice
Man, such rich comedy all over this today. I don’t even know where to start, so I’ll just leave it alone and giggle at the damage control. What more can anyone add anyway?
oh come on mark… enlighten us with your superior thoughts….
Interesting article over at MMAPayout:
(http://mmapayout.com/2009/11/mma-television-ratings-comparison/)
TUF 10 (season-to-date = 8 episodes )
Men 18-34 — 3.52 rating
Men 18-49 — 2.9 rating
Men 18-24 – 3.7 rating
Persons 18-34 – 2.4 rating
Strikeforce/ CBS 11/6
Men 18-34 — 2.3 rating
Men 18-49 — 2.5 rating
Men 18-24 – 1.7 rating
Persons 18-34 – 1.8 rating
I find the timing of Spike’s comparison to be pretty comical. I guess their counter-programming got thumped; it doesn’t look like any press release on those ratings is forthcoming. I guess they’ve still got to find some way to claim an empty victory, even if it is based on the performance of The Kimbo Slice Show. What the comparison tells me is: Fedor has become one of the biggest stars in MMA.
How hilarious would it be if they brought Kimbo in as a coach for season 11?
In regards to the post about how Kimbo’s credit shouldn’t have gone to Gina, the post is mistaken, Gina’s fight was not in the immediate half hour before Kimbo went on the air, Lawler-Smith went on after her and before Kimbo.
Bashing a number for being an overrun is meaningless. The number is an average, if some viewer that didn’t intend to watch fighting turned to the news and then stuck around for the entire fight, that’s even better than someone intending to watch it. And if they didn’t stick around it wouldn’t have much effect on the rating.
The big winners are Fedor and Gina. If Fedor is really out up to 8 months, who can Strikeforce possibly headline a CBS show with in the interim?
ANSWER: Nobody until at least April.
smoogy said: “What the comparison tells me is: Fedor has become one of the biggest stars in MMA.”
God, you are really reaching towards the stars on that comment.
“The number is an average, if some viewer that didn’t intend to watch fighting turned to the news and then stuck around for the entire fight, that’s even better than someone intending to watch it. And if they didn’t stick around it wouldn’t have much effect on the rating.”
How does a 60 year old woman sticking around to watch the news help out CBS’s advertisers for the fights when they were basically all geared towards a 24 year old male? It’s a serious question.
So you’re telling me a 60 year old woman tunes in at 11 for the news and watches a MMA fight with blood in a cage all the way until 11:25 waiting for the news to start? Have you ever met a 60 year old woman?
The fact that Marloes Coenen is going to be the next challenger for Cyborg makes it all the more stupid for them to have put her in a prelim slot… and it only gets worse when you consider that they could have easily aired her one-minute-long fight somewhere on the CBS broadcast, but they didn’t. Putting Coenen’s fight on the prelims: It seemed dumb in theory, and it ended up being even more dumb in reality.
The bump is from people calling their friends and telling them to turn on their TVs because Fedor was about to fight.
Re: Shields-Mayhem, that fight was pretty awful the last 2 rounds. I think Shields needs to stay at 170 where he will be much more effective. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a 5 round fight with less violence. Thumbs down.
Anyone seen salary info on Fedor yet? Just wondering how he “got a better deal” then what the UFC was offering. I would think M-1 is trying to establish there brand for future in the US with the Strikeforce deal. However, with an aging Fedor I wonder who they will hitch their wagon too. I hope he fights in the UFC before too long, given what happened with Mirko and Nogeriua coming in possibly past their primes. Dana will have a field day is Fedor loses….
So 1.5 million people called their friends to watch a fight? This thread gets even funnier.
My grandmothers and their friends talk about the news very seriously. They have their favorites and the ones they can’t stand. Anddont even get me started on their opinion of the weathermen!! So from my experience, I would say it is very possible they turned in and waited. That’s how they are. Haven’t you ever sat through some stupid show to wait for your program?
Come on Mike Rome…. You act as if you’ve never been around an ok’d person before. They are extremely rigid in their schedule.
What I can’t believe is that the argument is over numbers and why they happened. The truth here is that no one will ever really know, and all they can do is make educated guesses. There are simply too many independent variables to make statements about WHY these numbers happened. One of my thesis advisors in university had a book on his shelf called “how to lie with statistics.” Leave the innocent numbers alone! They are people too! (LOL)
I think making predictions of doom for Stikeforce here are out of line. It’s one show, they have a ways to go in a great many areas.
Making predictions about how this is bad for the UFC is out to freaking lunch. The number of third and fourth order effects that come into play to make those statements true are statistically impossible (unless you’re 45 Huddle apparently), and that’s no lie. (Honestly, 45, I have nothing against you, but what you do on most of these threads is nothing short of demagoguery, and it’s mostly a pain to read. http://www.reference.com/browse/Demegogery if you need to look that word up.)
Does Dana White have to worry? Yes. I believe him to be a fool if he doesn’t. Is this a win for Strikeforce? Not enough data to answer the question based on a single, not-so-greatly produced, night of good fights! What that means in the final analysis is that we need to watch and see, as usual.
I’ve seen comparisons like this before. Some are off base, some are not. Only time will tell in this case. Well, that and how the bean counters at CBS will interpret the results, and I don’t know if I can comment on that particular crapshoot.
Ok.
How about bwahahahahaha. “This is an inbetween rating that makes it hard for Zuffa to use either one of the above mentioned.” bwahahahahahaha. That’s the funniest thing you’ve ever written. This whole page is all kinds of hilarious.
Now hold on. 10 million people got notified to watch Griffin-Bonnar according to what Dana White told Joe Rogan through his earpiece to say. That’s believable, but “Hey, the Fedor fight is finally starting and that wet blanket fest is finally over” from a fraction isn’t? Hmm.
But anyway, let’s get back to the theories grandma’s across the country were transfixed on a Russian man’s bleeding nose and couldn’t change the channel.
The best part of this is the quantum leap in logic 45 makes regarding how its overall bad for MMA because it doesn’t help the UFC’s position on a network deal. That’s remarkable stuff.
Yes, that whole post was great. I thought his peak of inane comedy was complaining about Sheilds’ back-ne (*cough*Tito Ortiz*cough*) but he tops it.
By not waiting until the real rating came out before you and others started claiming victory? Didn’t you notice even Dana White didn’t say anything? And he’s never met a gloat he didn’t like.
OMG he used caps he’s not screwing around folks~! Yes, it’s horrible when millions of people see a good fight. I couldn’t sleep all night after I found out the rating last night.
More like networks would think MMA only works on cable (like pro wrestling which they still equate MMA to) and not want to fork out significantly more money for UFC’s shows.
Then why couldn’t they make the case they could add 2.5 or 3 million to 4 million?
So funny. Translation: “Damn you for not failing, Strikeforce! Now UFC won’t be able to get the unrealistic deal they have with Spike against a real network with leverage of their own!”
Hooray for speculation.
That is nice and optimistic. What about ABC, Fox or NBC saying “Hey, if the 2nd biggest MMA promotion did that, what would UFC do? Let’s negotiate.”
Nobody loses but those who prematurely celebrated a bad rating.
You know, this has been such a parody of 45 Huddle’s gimmick I would not be shocked if someone else was jokingly writing under the name. Or were the “I don’t want Strikeforce to fail” posts the jokes?
So far you have as much
proof as I do as to what age demographic turned into those last 15 minutes…. And yet you laugh at me for my comments?
At the end of the day, the no matter how much the Fedor lovers try and make this a great thing, it isn’t. It failed compared to reruns. And it failed enough that the demographic difference is going to be shard thing to justify.
Yes. I find it hilarious that you think they’d stay tuned in for 15 minutes for a bloody fight if they don’t like it. And if they did like it, who cares what age they are? My father is in his 60s and absolutely loves MMA. His viewership is worth less than a 20 year olds?
1) Your idol Kimbo Slice also “lost to reruns” since EliteXC didn’t win their nights either.
2) You’re right, it’s terrible that it looks like a little bit older of an audience might start liking MMA now. It’s going to be awful for respectable advertisers who don’t give money to shows for broke 20 year olds to maybe get interested. What are we going to do without all those stupid horror movies and junk food ads that UFC gets! BIZ BIZ BIZ DEMOS DEMOS DEMOS!
Yes, a 60 year olds viewings us worth far less then a 20 year olds. About 40 years worth of purchasing power. Any more stupid comment as you try and make your point? At least get basic concepts correct first before you bash others.
As for Kimbo, I have never praised him. I have been in awe of what ratings he cam bring in on cable tv, buy that is the extent of it. Now you are just making stuff up.
You can try and dusect the ratings all you want, but bottom line is the UFC can and has gotten more viewers on cable. That is horrible for SF.
Oh yeah I forgot I was talking to the guy who only cares about business. You see, I want human beings in general to enjoy MMA and don’t care if they’re 12 or 112; male, female or hermaphrodite. But that’s right, you only care if they hit the market demo so the company you don’t make any money from generates targeted ad revenue from the television network you don’t make any money from.
So far you have as much proof as I do as to what age demographic turned into those last 15 minutes…. And yet you laugh at me for my comments?
He should. You’re admitting you have no evidence that your assumption is correct, and then you assert that there are unassailable truths that have emerged as a result of the evidence that does not exist which purport does and must. Then, you take those self proclaimed truths based on blind assertions, and use them as a jumping off point for even more wild claims, which you bolster with more poorly executed logic (see: “inflation”). Its amazing to witness.
You know, maybe he’s right. Maybe all of those confused old geezers thought they were seeing footage of a race riot on the local news and wanted to know where it was so they could board the windows and barricade the doors if necessary.
When did I say confused? People without DVR typically sit through another program finishing to see what they wantto see. Is that so hard to grasp?
When did I say confused? People without DVR typically sit through another program finishing to see what they wantto see. Is that so hard to grasp?
In the case that they would watch cage fighting for almost 30 minutes to see local news without changing to a competitor, its rather absurd to believe. But we’ve been down this road before.
If this was the first time the news was preempted in the history of television, maybe you’d have a point. Otherwise “Hey, since my news caster has never had a bloody nose on air this must be an overrun of that MMA stuff I don’t like. *click*”
LOL @ thinking the 1.5 mil bump is people trying to tune in for the news. Wasn’t the Jens/Faber fight the biggest WEC fight of all time? That one went on after the alloted timeslot. I know because my DVR cut off before the first round started.
Same goes with Kimbo/Thompson. Let’s throw that rating in the trash. Obviously it was artificially boosted by whoever was tuning in for the program after the fights lol.
But but but but, there’s no news on Versus so it doesn’t count! People knew exactly what they were going to see then!
You guys shouldn’t get worked up over 45’s posts. He is clearly a gimmick. Nobody with an iota of sense would say that a bunch of retirees would sit through half an hour of cage fighting to see their local news of choice. LOL, it is too insipid for even 45 to believe. He is obviously trolling. LOL at the rating being bad for mma. This is just ridiculous. 45 has the greatest gimmick of all time and should be applauded for it, not mocked. 45 I say to you kudos for a troll job well done.
A mediocre 0.9 and 1.2m viewers for the confusingly-branded “UFC Main Events” counter-programming.
Why didn’t they just repackage some of their TUF10 content as “Kimbo Night”?
They should have held on to running UFC 100 for Fedor’s debut. That they ran it against Gina on Showtime is still crazy to me. I could see if she was main eventing on CBS, but that was like dropping an atomic bomb on a mouse.
And Meltzer had some quotes from Dana about the CBS show. Blah blah blah UFC is still bigger. Blah blah blah Fedor and Rogers suck. All that’s new is he did claim Cain Velasquez could beat either of them in less than 2 minutes. Fortunately he didn’t say Cain would draw bigger ratings than Fedor got because I would have laughed so hard I’d suffer a fatal brain aneurysm.
45 doesn’t work me up at all. Quite frankly, I think it’s sad that someone in their 30’s dedicates so much time and dedication to spreading misinformation on a website anonymously for no profit.
He is hilarious in a Grizzly Man type, laugh-at-him way.
If 45 only ever did this once in a while, it would probably get less derision. What he’s doing on a regular basis on this site is nothing shorty of demagogy. Hey, I’m all for a right to free speech and all, but at some point, you have to give up defending a weak position at least. I mean COME ON!
The FACT that ratings were up 125% (reported on five ounces of pain) on the time slot says that these were new viewers as opposed to those tuning in for the news, which a) shouldn’t affect the ratings like a “spike” of viewers, and b) isn’t actually a bad thing anyway, since they actually stuck around for 30 whole minutes.
The supposition that this is “bad for the sport” is a false assertion and can only be attributed to a different set of (ulterior) motives (hence the reference to demagogy).
Having said all that, I gotta say, it is REALLY funny to read.
1) I’ve helped with MMA websites long ago (think 1990’s). Having to do it to keep up with all the content takes all the fun out of it for me.
2) I’m not in my 30’s. I’m in my 40’s.
3) “The FACT that ratings were up 125% (reported on five ounces of pain) on the time slot says that these were new viewers as opposed to those tuning in for the news, which a) shouldn’t affect the ratings like a “spike” of viewers, and b) isn’t actually a bad thing anyway, since they actually stuck around for 30 whole minutes.” – This is flat out wrong. Strikeforce’s show had a definitive decrease in overall viewership from the typical ratings in that time slot. Please go back to 5oz’s of pain and learn how to read properly. What you claim it said and what it actually said are two very different things.
4) Fedor vs. Rogers from 11pm to 11:15 got 2.4/09 in adults 18-34. The entire show was 2.3/09 in men 18-34. What that means is 2.3% to 2.4% of all the households (in that demographic) watching TV at that time where watching Strikeforce. There is no bump in that number during the last 15 minutes. How can that be? Obviously the age demographic could have changed slightly, but I seriously doubt it would have had a huge shift over a 15 minute time span. A good portion of those viewers were older. CBS obviously has the more specific numbers that they would never release. But it’s pretty easy to look at the numbers that were released and see the “everybody called their friends” theory is BS. If it was true, then there would have been a major spike in that demographic during those 15 minutes.
5) If Strikeforce’s card was on cable TV, it wouldn’t have even broken the Top 20 for highest rated shows. And yet the show was on CBS.
Okay 45, okay…take it easy, enough with the hating…I’m in my 40s too. Here’s a link to the 5oz article.
http://fiveouncesofpain.com/2009/11/10/strikeforce-fedor-vs-rogers-peaks-at-5-46-million-viewers/
To quote, “The broadcast was also up 125% past it’s normal season-to-date average for the time slot with all adults between the ages of 18 to 34.”
I can read. The rest of my comment was opinion, I freely admit. I never claimed otherwise. But I can definitely read English. Fact check, sir.
It was still the third most-watched show on network television on Saturday night, according to MMA Weekly. But okay, you think it’s terrible and it might hurt Zuffa, we get it.
Yeesh, it seems like every thread lately gets sidetracked by the same predictable crap.
Oh, and also:
http://www.sherdog.com/news/news/cbs-fedor-rogers-draws-546-million-viewers-20843
To quote, “Compared to CBS’s 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. season-to-date averages, the Strikeforce show was up 38 percent in adults, ages 18-49, 125 percent in adults, 18-34, 117 percent in men, ages 25-54, 178 percent in men, ages 18-49 and 283 percent in men, ages 18-34. According to CBS, Strikeforce/M-1 Global “Fedor vs. Rogers” outdrew primetime college football coverage on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2.”
That’s not opinion, folks, that’s reported numbers. I’ll skip opining on it and let the numbers actually speak for themselves, no spin involved.
My own opinion (to bring it back on topic for Ivan) is that they’ll be back, and free MMA on Network TV is nothing but GOOD for the entire sport, regardless of the banner it might be under. But I’m repeating myself. Again.
Oh…that same article disputes 45’s stats on the Fedor fight.
To quote, “The bout between the stoic Russian and hulking Minnesotan drew a 3.5 rating in men, ages 25-54, 3.3 in men, ages 18-49 and 3.1 in men, ages 18-34.”
Again, those are the reported numbers, no spin involved.
GassedOut— I wasn’t referring to the backlash to the trolling; I was referring to the trolling itself. It got old a very long time ago, and now it’s seemingly taking over every thread.
Yeah, I agree, Ivan. I know I’ve participated a bit in it, but when a guy that hides behind anonymity tells me I can’t read…well, you get the idea.
(Oh, and 45, lest you think I hide behind that as well, I’m only too happy to tell you who I am if you ask me. I’m just a fight fan with a little amateur experience. 21-7-1 worth. All over 20 years ago.)
Dave
…..but they just don’t know MMA like Jon does, nor do they have the connections to the right kind of writers (guys like Zach, Rome, of course myself~!).
…lol…. that’s funny…. i checked the site out today and he looked under some rock and found scott keith to do stuff for the site..i threw up in my mouth a little….who’s next, crz?
You know, seeing Scott Keith’s name and finding 45’s age in the same thread makes me wonder if they’ve ever been seen in the same room together.
Yeaaah well, a few of us told Jon the SKeith thing wasn’t a good call, but it was his call.
From BloodyElbow quoting Jerry Millen talking to ESPN radio:
“In the meeting, Dana says to Fedor ‘oh, you’re the best fighter in the world, we’d love to have you.’ And Fedor says to him ‘yeah, I hear and read on the internet what you have to say about me everyday.’ And then Dana’s like ‘I’m just a promoter. I’m just trying to sell tickets. I just want to sell tickets.’ And Fedor said ‘that’s what makes you and I different.’ [Fedor] just wants respect and to be treated fairly.”
Why is anybody quoting GARY Millen?
Sengoku and DREAM might be doing a co-promotion event for New Years. Is there any better sign of the bad MMA market in Japan then this? Having both is impossible at this point my gut tells me.
Hey, on the upside, Fedor’s nose isn’t broken, it was cut before the fight, and his hand only had a dislocated thumb, and he’ll only be out 4-6 weeks with a cast!
Now THAT’s bad for the UFC. 😉