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Bellator prepares for upcoming season starting in March/April 2010
By Zach Arnold | January 5, 2010
The organization is getting ready for their multi-pronged television plan where their will be programming on Fox Sports Net, NBC, and Telemundo. This replaces their deal from last season on ESPN Deportes.
Bjorn Rebney, Bellator CEO, said the following yesterday publicly:
“Coming up next 145 lbs. We have four signed fighters so far who are a combined 38-2. First one will be announced tomorrow.”
In addition to the Featherweight division, the company will have tournaments to determine #1 challengers across multiple weight classes. In a recent interview on the Versus web site, Rebney laid out the company’s upcoming plans.
“There’s a long road for us to go on and the next 10 months with 24 events on FSN and NBC and Telemundo are going to tell a lot about how our tournament format plays out and where we’re going to next. My hope is it goes to great places.”
He defended the company’s use of a tournament format.
“Absolutely. You know, I think that’s… that was what was in my head five years ago. I used to watch the fighting sports and I used to say what it needs is objectivity, it needs a fighting organization where guys control their own destiny and that’s what I wanted to put into motion. That’s what makes us different from the UFC, Strikeforce, and WEC. It’s not fighters walking out of the mouth of the dragon or girls dancing on the pole or anything kind of a team concept. It’s exactly the same thing you see in all your favorite organizations but it’s up to the fighters.”
Expectations in 2010: “Spectacular match-ups, probably across, not probably, for sure across all weight divisions, very-evenly matched, a lot of great fighters. I don’t know if you’ve seen what’s been going on with our Welterweight division but Jacob McClintock, Ben Askren, Dan Hornbuckle, Jim Wallhead, we’re trying to put in the best of the best fighters out there in the world and put them all together and let them go at it. So, I mean, great fights every single night for 12 straight weeks and a #1 ranked challenger at the very end of the bout.”
Topics: Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 19 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
The tournament format is a killer for an athlete. Being required to cut weight and compete 3 times within 3 months is a brutal schedule. It is hard enough for the up & coming fighters. It would never work for the higher level guys. Not to mention that Bellator was pathetically bad about enforcing their weight classes. A few guys came in over weight and really nothing was done about it. If a guy is in a tournament to determine a champion, they need to have made weight all 3 times.
Overall, I am extremely skeptical of what Bellator is doing. Latenight NBC is useless, and it is rumored that they are basically paying for the timeslot like an infomercial. FSN is even more useless because it is impossible to have an event on at the same time in every market. Without that reliability, it is extremely hard to build up your fanbase. I don’t even think I get FSN. I have a Comcast version which picks up some of the FSN shows, so I’m not even sure if I will see it in my local market…. And with basketball on that channel, it certainly won’t be on during normal hours.
Which leaves Telemundo as their best TV outlet…. And Spanish TV has never really made anything popular in America.
Overall, Bellator completely screwed over their champions from the 1st season. And these guys are not even likely to fight within the first few weeks of the show.
The talent level of the tournaments is a major step-up compared to the first season, but good fights can never save a bad business plan. I would be suprised if Bellator is still in business by the end of 2010.
FSN did wonders for IFL š
Bellator’s first season was highly entertaining, which is what matters. They set high expectations for the second season and regardless of their television contracts will be seen by more viewers, guaranteed.
“Bellatorās first season was highly entertaining, which is what matters.”
So them putting some of their fighters careers on hold for a year doesn’t matter?
“They set high expectations for the second season and regardless of their television contracts will be seen by more viewers, guaranteed.”
NBC is on at 2am. Telemundo is on at midnight. FSN is a complete mess and doesn’t work for a national program.
It feels too much like IFL 2.0….
They are putting their athletes through way too much in a short time period. Same as the IFL did. I understand that from a TV perspective it is easier to just do 12 straight weeks and then take a break, but that is not good for the fighters.
Take for example the winner of the tournament….
I would expect them to have an 8 week training camp minimum before the tournament even starts. Then they are combining fighting and training for 3 months. Then once they win it, they probably get a few weeks off and then have to start up again to train for their upcoming title fights.
Welcome to burnout. We saw it all happen to the regular IFL guys. It happened to Rich Franklin and now he is on hiatus for a while. It happened to guys like Nogueira and Wanderlei who now fight as if they are 5+ years older then they actually are.
And they are all being put through the ringer for 4 out of 32 of the fighters to get a big payday.
To do a weekly program like Bellator is doing, they need a much bigger roster. Instead, they are taking a much smaller pool of athletes and just making them fight more. That’s not the way to do it.
Tournaments provide the most objectivity and allows the fighter to control their own destiny. That is the way it should be. Every team sport on the planet uses tournaments to determine champs. Outside of golf and auto racing, there is no Individual sport that doesn’t utilize a tournament. K-1 uses a tourney, how come it is acceptable for them but not MMA? With the higher-ups pulling strings to control profit more so than honest competition to truly find out who is the best, the fight game will always be more about money than about sport. And that really sucks.
Baseball has around 175 games (including playoffs) to determine a champion. Basketball has around 100. Football has around 20. Golf uses 80+ rounds of golf a year to determine a champion. Tennis players compete 100 times a year.
Outside of football, do you notice a trend with those numbers? They are all very high. Tournament systems work when you can compete in a sport day after day. It doesn’t work when you compete 2 to 4 times a year.
If the UFC used the tournament format, it would have to be over multiple cards. Which means guys like GSP and Silva would just be in the same tournaments with the same fighters year after year. No thanks.
What Bellator is doing is having guys fight too often under a very short window of time. That is not good for the athletes overall growth as competitors. We have seen it time and time again in this sport. When fighters have a really hectic schedule, they end up worse by the end of it all.
Tournaments are soooo bad, yet what is the UFC’s #1 promotional vehicle? Oh yea…a reality show about a tournament to get a contract.
And basically all the TUF alum say they would never do it again. And TUF is typically filled with at least half scrubs so one fight is pretty easy. And it’s all in one location, not traveling around across country.
Look at the Bellator Welterweight Tournament. It is pretty stacked with solid prospects. To win that tournament, somebody is going to have to go through 3 potential wars… And then be expected to fight Lyman Good within a relatively short time period after that. That’s throwing somebody into the deep end based ona combination of opponents and scheduling….
http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=10415&zoneid=13
Weird reasoning to why Noons is off. Kind of confirms the rumors that Strikeforce currently doesn’t have their act together.
Right. Let’s ask a bunch of fighters which they would prefer:
– being at home with their loved ones and their own team, but having to take a flight once a month
– being stuck in a house for over 2 months with no contact with your loved ones/team, while not being able to do any of the normal shit you do to unwind, like read, watch tv, or play video games…but you don’t have to take a flight! You get to stay in the same spot!!
Which is more appealing?
Where have your tirades been against TUF? LOL
It’s much harder to have constant traveling and train at the same time. Training in the same location you fight is probably much easier. Fighters often time go away from their families for 2 months to train at one location. That’s not abnormal.
And when have I ever talked up TUF? I have said I hope they ended it after this past season. I don’t watch the shows except for the fights (and even those I fast forward through). The only redeeming quality is that it produces a couple of prospects who can then be pushed very slowly through the UFC to see if they will work out.
The tourney system is not inherently connected with long seasons. They are independent of one another. You can have tourneys without regular seasons. All tennis is is tourney after tourney. It has no regular season. And if I got to watch GSP perform as frequently as a tournament would force him to compete, that would be great. But the main point is that it is the most fair competition format for the fighters. They control their destiny, not some wannabe tough guy who doesn’t own a tie.
Agree with 45 in that without a decent, consistant time slot – you cannot build a fanbase or any momentum.
As for the fighters health etc…well, they’re all grown men and know what they are getting into. Sometime you have to make sacrifices.
Hornbuckle and Wallhead have already stated in the press that they intend to use Bellator as a platform to get into the UFC. Sometimes you have to do a shitty job in order to get a good one.
I don’t think they are aiming to have established guys in these tournaments. It’s for fresh, young hungry guys willing & able to tackle the grueling schedule for the lucrative payoff…$$$ and a higher profile. If you can’t hack it you will lose and be eliminated. I don’t imagine it’s the kind of thing anyone will want to do multiple times in a career. I like the format, I should have no trouble catching the fights and I look forward to season 2 tournaments.
Jeez, 45, you don’t listen. You never do, talking with you is worthless.
I never said they have AWESOME TV contracts, but better. They were on a hispanic station that nobody got or streamed on their website the next week. Fans who wanted to see it endured Spanish commentary last season, which means it will at least be sort of alright for fans who want to see this.
They have to take baby steps and FSN is probably better than HDNet.
Dave,
“I never said they have AWESOME TV contracts, but better.”
At no point did you say “better” in your previous post. You said it would be “seen by more viewers”. Perhaps you should figure out what you want to say before bashing others.
And you are fooling yourself if you think this is baby steps. They started Bellator with the expectation of getting on ESPN or ESPN2. They thought they had the golden ticket when they got onto Deportes and had decent ratings.
Then reality hit them. ESPN didn’t want anything but the UFC on their network… And even then they weren’t willing to pay what the UFC wanted.
Now they are stuck into a TV deals that are complete dead ends. Unless something happens to Strikeforce and they try to replace them…. There isnliterally nowhere else for them to go…. And this current deal will do nothing to make them a bigger organization….
Ajz123 – “Tournaments provide the most objectivity and allows the fighter to control their own destiny. That is the way it should be.”
I’m sure Kazuo Misaki agrees with you š
The shows were generally fun to watch last year. Sometimes you get lucky booking nobodies and sometimes you don’t. Personally, my memory of Rebney based on his time as a boxing promoter left me with a pretty lousy taste in my mouth, and I still feel even with the first Bellator season being entertaining that the sport would probably be better without him.
Itās hard to figure out what BFCās long term goals are. The tournaments are great for fans and TV but you canāt have your title holders āout of site out of mindā sit for another 12 weeks while they wait for a number one contender to emerge. Iāve heard they will compete in non title āsuper fightsā. Nobody likes nontitle defenses.
I would of prefer they add weight classes (do tournaments to determine a champion) and run their division champs weight classes as a normal promotion. Iām curious what there plans are for season 3.
Regardless these TV deals are a step backwards. In television you need a consistent time slot week after week. With FSN they will get nothing of the sorts, BFC will get bumped for numerous live events over their 12 weeks on air. The NHL, MLB and NBA all have deals with FSN that will cause BFC to placed in different spots almost every week.
Say what you want about the ESPN Deportes deal but at least it was on at the same time every week. (1 day tape delay)
FSN is fucking terrible.
Forget about their inability to provide a consistent time slot. Their biggest problem is that they mangle the product. With both their Pride and IFL shows, they completely butchered the fights. They would start the fight off, jump cut to three minutes later if things weren’t exciting enough for them, and then blur out of cut away from any action that gets ‘too violent’ in their opinion. Their Pride show was borderline unwatchable, and that is a travesty considering the quality of the fights they were working with.
Schedule problems are bad an all, but destroying the quality of the product is unforgivable.