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Strikeforce Challengers 13 card at Nashville Municipal Auditorium
By Zach Arnold | January 5, 2011
- Welterweights: Nate Moore vs. Nate Coy
- Light Heavyweights: Rhadi Ferguson vs. John Richard
- Women’s MMA (145 pounds): Julia Budd vs. Amanda Nunes
- Light Heavyweights: Ovince St. Preux vs. Abongo Humphrey
- Heavyweights: Daniel Cormier vs. Devin Cole
- Welterweights: Tyron Woodley vs. Tarec Saffiedine
On a side note, here’s their 1/29 HP Pavilion (San Jose Arena) card:
- Light Heavyweights: Roger Gracie vs. Trevor Prangley
- Heavyweights: Herschel Walker vs. Scott Carson
- Middleweight title: Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza vs. Robbie Lawler
- Welterweight title: Nick Diaz vs. Evangelista Cyborg
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 67 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Junkie reports Werdum/Overeem is signed and Barnett/Rogers is expected to be. That’s a step in the right direction.
But the tournament is still stupid. Use the same fighters and do this:
Werdum vs Overeem for the belt.
Winner of Fedor/Silva gets first title shot.
Barnett/Rogers winner fights Arlovski/Kharitonov winner. The guy who emerges fights the champ.
It’s the same fights in principle. But instead of allowing this tournament to fall apart over the next year, you get three title fights.
Does Werdum/Overeem have a date?
It’s obvious that Strikeforce is trying to hurt UFC ticket sales by doing a show in New Jersey…. But all they are doing is hurting themselves. More people will still choose the UFC’s tickets despite the higher prices…. And with such a short notice on tickets, it’s going to hurt them on ticket sales. I wouldn’t be shocked to see decent ticket sales for the first week…. But then it completely dying off due to a lack of publicity.
And scheduling a tournament does hurt them if everything falls apart. It makes them look weak. And without concrete days and potential injuries, it is going to be interesting to see how long this goes on.
My prediction is that the tournament is either eventually modified or a weird version of it doesn’t even end until 2012.
It has date; March 5 for the Columbus, Ohio on the Nationwide Arena. Suposse to be the Roger’s/Barnett and Overeem vs Werdum. (¿Is this the Arnold festival?).
I think Cormier at the end is gonna take the Barnett Spot. I is not a bad idea.
For the ticket’s, youre right, #Strikeforce have to make good publicity for this event, quickly. Imposible.
I would be curious to see if Barnett can get sanctioned in Ohio. No respectable state would sanction that man.
…this thread is about the strikeforce challenger series.
the strikeforce hw tournament hate thread is here http://www.fightopinion.com/2011/01/03/strikeforce-heavyweight-mma-plans/
Your match-ups make sense.
Between the UFC SuperBowl card and the Strikeforce “Tournament”, it will have everybody completely forgetting about the 1/29 Strikeforce card.
Speaking of that 145 pound female fight…. Whatever happened to their women’s MMA? It’s as if they completely are ignoring it now.
Which seems to be the biggest problem with Strikeforce. It seems like every 6 months, they get a new pet project and concentrate on it…. Don’t do to well…. And then move onto something else. And everything else sot of gets forgotten.
The female championship betwen Miesha Tate vs Marloes Coenen is on date for the same date, 5 of March on Ohio. And the fight of this Saturday, Julia Budd vs Amanda Nunes can be for the tittle shot.
Budd is an standout, is a gigantic Muay Thai fighter.
Another good woman fight is betwen Germaine “The Iron Lady” de Randamie vs Stephanie Webber on the 1/29 card.
In other words, they’re still very actively building both women’s divisions and not ignoring them at all? Ok? Ok.
Actively?
Cyborg doesn’t fight for like 8 months and then they barely touch the division for 6+ months.
Yeah, that’s real good!!
There is no way to ACTIVELY build 7 weight divisions while having the number of shows Strikeforce does and not have solid undercards to harvest talent.
It’s just not possible.
1 for zero Julia Budd is a standout?
Good to hear SOMETHING going on with the chicks though.
(I guess.)
Man, give the woman’s a chance.
Budd is really an standout. She beat Shana Olsen who is 5-0 and i repeat the girl is gigantic and very very good muaythai fighter.
So much for Budd being a standout.
One win does not a prospect make. Nunes OTOH, is a solid prospect. Unfortunately, she is a prospect who belongs at 135 and is likely to end up there after getting fed to Cyborg.
So, now that they’ve actually gone and done something about the heavyweights and made big fights “with a narrative”, you are A) still complaining about it because it isn’t the exact narrative they should use (apparently) B) choosing to complain about something else entirely now. And of all things to bitch about, you bitch about the 14lb division? Dude, everyone knows you think poorly of women’s MMA in pretty much every way. Now Strikeforce is screwing up because they’re focusing their early 2011 shows on the heavyweight division and not Cris Cyborg? LOLOL
BWAHAHA!!
Now you are making some funny statements.
If you really believe the same brain childs that brought us the Strikeforce Middleweight Grand Prix and the Boxing Super 6 Tournament can pull off any sort of narrative, then you are the biggest Strikeforce Schill on the planet.
There is already a good chance Barnett won’t fight. It will be even more shocking if the Semi-finals happen at all….
Not to mention this is all being done on 5 weeks notice for their first round with no hype up at all and a tough time selling tickets during a rought money month in which most people don’t spend too much money.
Yeahk, good luck with that.
So you would prefer that Strikeforce put on the event in 4 months when they’ve had enough time to sell tickets or whatever? Haven’t they done enough events on 5 weeks notice now without going belly up or even necessarily losing money that its a dead discussion? This has to be the 3rd or 4th. I swear, there has never even been a discussion about a highly trafficked Strikeforce show that doesn’t have the “They aren’t selling tickets right/They are succeeding in spite of themselves!” memes attached. Instead you have a bunch of complaints about what could very well happen but hasn’t yet.
You aren’t even slamming the fights anymore. And bringing up women’s MMA as something Strikeforce needs to heavily promote is hilllllarious from you.
Let’s talk narrative….
A proper narrative is to have these fights signed and advertise them during both their December and January cards. A proper narrative is to at least have an idea that Lawler and Male Cyborg have a chance for a title shot after their last wins. That’s a proper narrative.
So is putting a “tournament” 1st round on during the same event. That’s proper narrative.
As for the fights…. Half of their title fights are literally who cares fights. Nobody cares about them.
And while Werdum/Overeem and Fedor/Silva are good fights…. Which I have said…. It’s hard getting too excited when we all know the chances of Overeem and Fedor actually fighting each other is basically slim to none…..
So who cares? Accept the fights that exist. They alone are pretty good. “No one cares about half the fights” is projection on your part.
Who cares? A lot of fans do obviously. Which is why so many people are complaining about this “tournament”.
Who cares? What about the fighters that aren’t given fights for 6+ months with really no options because of the disorganization of Strikeforce.
And this isn’t just me saying Souza/Lawler and Diaz/Cyborg are pointless. Most people are saying that. Nobody wants to see Cyborg/Diaz when Diaz/Mayhem and Diaz/Daley could have been options. And nobody thinks much of Lawler these days, especially fighting for a title….
Hilarious that this 45 clown is complaining about SF announcing fights that he doesn’t believe will happen. He wants a “narrative,” they give him a “narrative” and he’s more pissed than ever. If they announced the fights on short notice, he’d be whining about that too.
We get it, guy. It angers you if anyone is excited about non-Zuffa MMA. This site should just have a disclaimer on every story that mentions SF. “A frequent commenter here would like it to be known that he dislikes non-Zuffa MMA.”
Did you not read what I wrote? I gave 3 examples of how they are not giving a good narrative. I know you just like to disagree with me whenever you get a chance, but at least read what I said before you even try…
And like I have said before…. This is the same crew that gave us the SF Middleweight Grand Prix and the Boxing Super 6. I think it’s funnier to see people actually think this tournament will go off like Strikeforce is saying.
They don’t even have all of their fighters licensed for this tournament. They don’t even have official dates or locations for future rounds.
This has clusterf#ck written all over it….
Do you even know what “narrative” means? Doesn’t seem like it. Maybe that’s the problem here.
And I’ve already said that if the announced fights don’t happen it will suck. I just don’t see the point of whining about them announcing good fights. I can see, “I’m not going to get excited about this until it’s closer to happening because I have some doubts.” I mean my own reaction is something similar. It would be cool if it happens, but let’s see. But your reaction just seems bizarre.
“Narrative” in this case means conveying to viewers who is fighting and why should you care. Strikeforce doesn’t have quite enough time to build up the narrative for the first round of the tournament. Luckily, tournaments have built-in narrative, so they’ll have it going forward into the future rounds.
Unfortunely, I seriously doubt they’ll continue to push the tournament into the public’s mind between events with advertising, and instead will let the tournament fall into anonymity and try to revive interest a few weeks before the 2nd round. If so, it has zero chance of being the game changer like I see a lot of online sources predict.
Good fights though, if they happen. I’ll get excited when I see them in the cage, Strikeforce has cried wolf too many times for me to get my hopes up.
My complaint is if Overeem’s ‘belt’ isn’t on the line. If it is and we get 3 title defenses during the course of the tournament I’m fine with it.
I don’t think the 5 weeks lead time is too much of a problem. UFC tickets sell out in about an hour. You don’t really need 3 months lead up to an event. People either want to go or they don’t.
The only question on booking 5 weeks out, is have the guys known about the fight longer? Hopefully, so they’ll be able to get a full camp in. Other than that who cares? When I hear a fight announced that I like I want to see it that day.
Interested to see what Kimbo’s cousin Rhadi Ferguson can do…he looks like a BEAST and has some crazy power (strength-wise) and judo.
How much CAN he do? He’s 37 years old, and just made his pro debut back in August. Unless he is a freak of nature like Randy Couture (as in can still do great things in his forties) then I highly doubt he will have a long future in MMA. Hell, didn’t Randy Couture have to go through a hormone replacement treatment?
Well I’m not saying he’s going to become #1 in the world or anything like that, but he’s got a pretty insane pedigree (4x national judo champion, 2004 Olympian and 2000 Olympic alternate w/ BJJ black belt). And from all the things I’ve seen he is a freak like Randy in terms of being a health nut (maybe not genetically so, but I think if we don’t know already we’ll see that much of Randy’s longevity is due to chemical enhancement) – he’s also the strength and conditioning coach for ATT and they roll out some pretty fit dudes.
Bottom line, probably wouldn’t care if he wasn’t Kimbo’s cousin, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested to see what he can do.
The UFC has a few guys like this. Aaron Simpson comes to mind and he is 36.
Never had much hope for guys who start their career so late.
Haha I can’t believe that other stuff got deleted! I guess I can understand though…
Ed. — You better start understanding real fast. Think before you speak.
Ed. — You better start understanding real fast. Think before you speak.
Zach, while I 100% understand your reasoning for deleting that I don’t think you really need to take that stance with edub. He’s one of the more respectful and level-headed contributors at FO. I’d just write off the comment to a one-time poor judgement/attempt at humor.
Let’s all remember comments like these, even as an obvious joke, will not be tolerated now or in the future.
Done, and done.
I am super excited for the Strikeforce tournament. Fedor, Overeem, Werdum, Barnett are among the most talented and intriguing HWs out there. AA still has a name too, and Bigfoot has talent.
Fedor v Overeem is the most anticipated and talked about match among MMA hardcores.
We’ll see if it happens. Werdum subbed Overeem a couple years ago in PRIDE, he can possibly do it again. Then again, this was when Overeem was a bit…….smaller.
I think Fedor beats Silva, via decision. Or extremely quick KAYO, one or the other. The two opposite ends of the spectrum. If Fedor doesn’t stop Silva within a minute or so (like how Mike kyle ALMOST did, and what Fedor did to Sylvia) then he will more than likely just beat him on points. Silva can take a hit well enough, and is a BJJ guy, so probably is hard to sub.
I know many are criticizing the fact that Strikeforce is calling it a tournament, and not a title match (Overeem/Werdum) and a number one contendership fight (Silva/Fedor) with a couple of fight-offs (Rogers/Barnett [possibly] and Kharitanov/Arlovski in basically their own little four man tourney). But there is ONE advantage to calling all of these fights as part of a tournament……we will know who-fights-who in the foreseeable future, and will still know who-fights-who when all the first four fights happen. And it CAN (I stress that word, even the Super Six proved this wrong to an extent) force the fighters to fight each other and not duck each other. And unlike the Super Six, it’s a single-elimination tournament, and not a round-robin. Round robins with more than four people (especially if all the fights aren’t in a two day span at the very least) take forever. Again, the Super Six proved that.
Two interesting quotes from Scott Coker from a recent Sherdog article:
“I believe by the end of this year, we will be in the pay-per-view business,” and “I think that the goal with this tournament is to eventually work its way into the pay-per-view business,”
“This tournament’s going to kick #ss. We’re going to prove that this is a mixed martial arts industry and not just a league industry.”
Those are some fighting words. That’s very dangerous to say when there is another company out there the has a completely dominant market share on the industry with a far greater reach. My money is on the UFC running a PPV the same time as Strikeforce and completely killing their buyrates.
I was debating dumping Showtime next month because I haven’t been happy with their boxing or MMA outside of the Juanma Lopez vs Marquez and last SF show that everyone hated.
Then I decided to keep it for Feb because of the Fedor show. There is no way I’ll pay for SF on PPV.
I think it’s a last ditch effort to turn a profit.
I know a lot of people think they are turning a profit, but the numbers just don’t add up. Gates are not big. Showtime doesn’t pay enough to pay for some of their contracts. You can tell they can’t afford too much talent per card, which is why they have to matchmake the way they do, including such poor undercards. All signs point to Strikeforce currently losing money.
If they were making money from the Showtime deal, they wouldn’t care about PPV. Their investors would take their cut and be happy.
The fact that they want PPV so badly signals that a whole lot hinges on 2011 for them. The right fighters need to win in the first round. They have to be able to sell the PPV properly. They have to try and limit the damage that the UFC will bring by counterprogramming…. And I actually think the UFC does much more harm by running a PPV the same night. If the UFC does a free show, a lot of hardcore fans will watch the UFC and buy the PPV at the same time. If the UFC runs a PPV at the same time with a stellar card…. At the very least they will cut Strikeforce’s PPV buys in half and cripple them completely.
2011 is shaping up to be a very interesting year. I sense desperation in Coker by the moves he is making. These are HUGE risks for a guy who typically takes almost none.
I’m curious, do you have any figures for how much Showtime pays or are you just assuming? I would like to know how much Strikeforce is getting per show.
I don’t know about some of you, but Overeem and Fedor fighting on the same card = I would get the PPV.
I will see if I can find the source, but if my memory serves me right, I remember the “Championship” level cards getting around $700,000. The challenger shows get much less. And Showtime pays for the production.
People like you & I would purchase a good Strikeforce PPV. But we are hardly the norm. What is the most a non-UFC card has ever done on PPV? Like 100,000 to 150,000 and that was Affliction.
Let’s say the PPV takes half of the $45 PPV. Strikeforce, M-1, & Showtime are left with $22.50 per PPV. If they sold 100,000 PPVs… That would mean they would get $2.25 Million. Showtime gets their cut. M-1 gets their cut. They still have to pay the fighters…. Yikes!
I will see if I can find the source, but if my memory serves me right, I remember the “Championship” level cards getting around $700,000. The challenger shows get much less. And Showtime pays for the production.
Short answer is that he doesn’t have any such numbers indicating that Strikeforce isn’t turning a profit. Or even indicating that it would be tough. Declared payroll compared to pre-Showtime days hasn’t taken any shocking upturns. Showtime, of course, pays a whole lot more money than Yahoo or HDNet.
Ultimately 45 will retreat to “Showtime may delude themselves and resign Strikeforce but it doesn’t make any sense” as is usually his response to this sort of discussion. He might also suggest reading mmalogic posts.
I also think an impending collapse of K-1 has him very nervous because one of the major allures of fighting for Strikeforce was the ability to also fight in Japan. Take away that source of money and Mr. Coker has to eat the full deal.
Coker is a guy who has played a slow hand his entire time as promoter. All of a sudden on the last year of his Showtime contract he goes in with. 5-9 offsuit and prays for a straight.
It just doesn’t make sense for such a conservative promoter to take such a huge risk including putting tickets onsale at the same time in tue same market as the UFC.
There is certainly something going on behind the scenes we don’t know about. When there is around $10 Million to go around and everybody wants you to pay up…. Like m-1, Showtime, and even his own investors…. Eventually they are going to come to you and require results.
This all feels like a desperate attempt of a man to get results out of thin air after fumbling it for the past 2 years with no profess to show for it. And K-1 does hurt them. If he has to pay Mousasi 3 times a year instead of 1 now because Mousasi can’t get that payday from K-1…. It’s going to force him to stack his cards with high priced fighters that don’t match what Showtime is paying.
Like I said…. His actions just smell of somebody who is desperate.
It also pushes a lot of Japanese talent to wanting to sign with him. I’m sure you heard rumors to that extent as well prior to the New Years Show, because I did.
45’s argument is asinine. There’s no reason SF and Showtime wouldn’t want to work together to make it a PPV product because they’d both make additional money as a result. That doesn’t mean SF is in imminent danger of collapse.
Because there has been so much success in PPV for anybody not called the UFC!
All history shows, including with names such as Fedor Emelianenko… Is that MMA PPV fails when it is not the UFC. Showtime has to know this. Scott Coker has to know this.
This is a last ditch effort in the last year of Strikeforce’s contract to show they are “worth” it both financially and fanbase wise.
That’s all it is.
Strikeforce generates viewership numbers as high or higher than boxing at often less cost. Because mmalogic tells you it doesn’t make financial sense doesn’t mean its true.
You completely sideswiped my comment on PPV.
It makes no sense for Strikeforce to go on PPV when nobody has ever had success in that area accept the UFC.
And yet he is completely aiming for it. Which shows an act of desperation.
If by sideswiping it, you mean I’m spelling out an obvious truth, OK. HBO likes to do PPVs because they’re a source of income. That they do less PPVs is not indicative that they are not going to fund boxing. That Showtime and Strikeforce might want to start doesn’t mean there is desperation.
Frankly, most MMA fans are clueless as to how premium channels approach combat sports. I’d love to see someone like Zach give their take on the economics of the Bradley/Alexander fight, for instance, just to see what the response is and how it differs from the attitude ascribed to Strikeforce’s relationship to Showtime.
http://mmaweekly.com/strikeforce-miami-draws-7010-for-300000-2
$700,000. Showtime covers the production costs. At least that’s what I remember reading when the deal was first signed.
The Challenger shows pay out far less.
I believe $300,000 for the Challenger shows, but I’m not 100% positive on it.
That would mean in 2010, they did 8 shows at $700,000 which is $5.6 Million. They did 7 Challenger shows at $300,000 which is $2.1 Million.
Which means Showtime paid in the ballpark of $7.7 Million to Strikeforce in 2010. Which isn’t that much when you consider one UFC PPV that gets 500,000 PPV buys ($22.5 to UFC)…. makes them $11.25 Million. So Strikeforce is trying to do for an entire year what the UFC does for one of their above average events just on PPV gross alone.
But their payroll is appreciably cheaper because they don’t book expensive dark matches and their Challengers cards are cheaper than the UFC’s expensive dark matches. So its not an even comparison.
As a point of example: The Diaz/Noons II show only had a claimed payroll of about $250,000, which is about what most of the major SF shows were paying before there was Showtime. The event was held in a facility that the parent company of Strikeforce owns, which means its not paying a rental fee to itself, and so it basically keeps the $528K live gate. You say the $700K is constrictive. Instead, it gives a budget figure that as long as Strikeforce spends less than, it almost automatically makes a profit.
To put this another way: That the UFC has a far higher income is great, but they’ve chosen to keep fighter pay much lower than it could be to the detriment of allowing an organization like Strikeforce to exist. They could swallow up everyone with ease but they’d probably have to move the cut of the pie the fighters have from 15/16% to 25%.
According to the FSAC Strikeforce receives a $700,000 license fee from Showtime for Championship cards and $300,000 from Challenger cards. They also receive $500,000 when they appear on HBO. Their average gate is about $700,000 for the big shows and $100,000 for the Challenger shows. They also receive sponsorship money from EA SPorts, Rockstar, etc. Probably in the neighborhood of several hundred thousand per show. They also have a foreign deal with SHINE that pays over a million per year.
As for expenses production costs is taking care of by Showtime. They also spend very little on advertising, something the UFC spends a ton on, leaving it to Showtime and the MMA media. Production costs are $50,000 for move the cage and ramp around the country. Where as the UFC spends a large amount on flying and putting up fighters and staff, Strikeforce spends less than half they do, since the prelims are made up of local fighters. Reported payroll runs a little over $600,000 per showtime card and less than $100,00 per Challenger card. They save a lot using the local fighters and promotions to do the logistics. They also reportedly save on arena site fees thanks to the Silicon Valley Sports and Entertainment contacts. They also run several shows a year at their house arena the HP Pavillon which is all profit.
They have a few big ticket stars (Fedor and Hendo), but it looks as if a lot of the costs from them are laid off on Showtime who wanted them acquired to get into ppv. And if they get on ppv Showtime will be the provider which means that the provider cut will go to them.
My estimate is that they’ll generated $20-25 million in revenue last year with a gross margin of around 10%. Not a UFC style profit but survivable. As far as Showtime, they seem to be drawing around 400,000 a show, so if 250,000 subscribers are paying for MMA they are generating about $20 ml in revenue at a $8 mil license fee. Not great money so ppv will be the key.
I’ll probably do a more complete breakdown in a couple of weeks.
Great freaking breakdown.
By not the face.
That’s a myth, the UFC pay has continually gone up and it’s always been the company that’s paid the best to top talent.
Overpaying for fighters has proven to be the most idiotic thing you can do as a promotion. Affliction proved that lesson and SF has found that out, when you pay out the ass for guys like Henderson who end up laying an egg in their debut. It just goes to prove once again whey the UFC is in the top position, because they know when to cut their losses and what guys are worth.
SF has been bent over by Fedor and M1 and if Coker thinks for a second that they won’t try and hold him up for more money if he gets to the finals he’s out of his mind.
“That’s a myth, the UFC pay has continually gone up and it’s always been the company that’s paid the best to top talent.”
There’s no contradiction there. Pay can increase and still be low relative to revenue. And one promoter can pay more than another while still paying a lower percentage of revenue if they make more. Not too complicated.
And overpaying for anything is obviously a bad idea (by definition), and the more expensive that thing is, the worse it is to overpay for it. But in most cases, a star fighter who is coveted by the UFC is going to require more money to sign with a lesser promoter. That doesn’t necessarily mean its an overpayment. If you want to be taken seriously a major promotion, you have to have major-league-caliber fighters.
Generally, these conversations are embarrassing to read. No one really knows anything here. The range of reasonable speculation about SF’s finances is just far too wide. And no one really knows what goes on with these negotiations. It’s hilarious how every 13-year-old with an Internet connection seems to think he’s intimately familiar with the way the managers do business.
Basically, all everyone knows for sure is that the UFC is a lot more profitable than other promoters so the narrative on the Internet just flows from that. Basically, everything the UFC does is brilliant, and everything any other promoter does is foolish and makes people angry. If a highly touted fighter loses outside the UFC, his promoter was foolish to make the fight, and it’s going to kill the promotion. If a highly touted fighter loses inside the UFC, the UFC was brilliant to make the fight, and now we have two stars.
Strikeforce’s actions shows a company who is not swimming in money. That much we know.
Their matchmaking alone shows they are strapped for cash. Amateur fights on professional cards. A lack of a credible undercard. Not being able to put the entire Grand Prix First Round on the same card, likely due to money reasons. The way they space out talent from card to card and never use too many of their higher priced guys on the same card. I mean do you need to see their financials to really see that they don’t have enough money for even the most basic flexibilities in matchmaking?
Trying to get more money through PPV shows even more desperation.
We are all being hit over the head with the reality that Strikeforce needs to find another way to make things work.
You can interpret the information in different ways, and there’s no basis for thinking that one interpretation is superior.
Personally, I’ve always wondered why promoters would bother to put on fights as good as they usually do on the undercard. The arena is mostly empty for those fights, and no one buys PPVs or tunes into shows on the basis of the possibility of seeing the prelims.
No basis? You are either just trolling me now or completely just in denial.
Too many things all point in one direction. And the fact that they want to challenge the UFC at their bread and butter is really the straw the broke the camels back.
Any company who was doing okay wouldn’t take such a huge risk. They just wouldn’t.
Denial? I have no stake in SF. I’m just a general MMA fan.
For an example of what I’m talking about, look at nottheface’s post. It’s a good post in that he coherently discusses all the available information, but the third to last graf has a couple of assumptions in there that have a huge effect on the discussion. We simply don’t know about this stuff, and speculation about it tends to just go in the direction that the speculator wants it to. You hate non-UFC MMA so to you, SF is on its deathbed. Someone who was an SF fan could justifiably think that it was doing great, and that its recent actions could be explained by that. Those of us with no stake in the issue don’t have the information to decide who is correct so ultimately the whole discussion is pointless.
…And everytime someone bashes anybody but Zuffa you feel the need to chime in and insult everyone for not being as smart as you.
No idea what you’re talking about. I post in, what, one out of every 20 threads here? And I don’t hold myself in particularly high esteem here. I’m just some guy. That’s the thing. If I know something, I assume that the relatively hard core, “insiderish” fans here should know it too, and when they don’t, I’m surprised.
From my experience, there is a huge gap between Internet fans and non-Internet fans (which I mostly am, though I’m here now). Most people just don’t care nearly as much about promotional propaganda as Internet fans, and “hatred” or “fandom” of a fighter or promoter are much less a factor in evaluations of fighters as Internet fans seem to think.
You bash me for not knowing for certain if SF is making a profit yet you pull random percentages out of your behind.
All signs point to SF struggling financially. At best barely making a very tiny profit.
With the info that’s been given out regarding bonuses and fighter pay that’s publicly disclosed, we have a pretty solid idea what companies like the UFC are paying out of their pocket versus what their revenue is. If anyone believed the UFC was paying ~50% of their total revenue out to fighters like is the case in the NHL or NBA, I think everyone would agree that Strikeforce would clearly be in a lot of trouble.
But no one believes that, and saying that educated guesswork is inadmissible while bringing your own pure guess work (none of which is actually formed into an cogent argument) as proof is funny.
Clearly Strikeforce does not make the same amount of money as the UFC. It is not the UFC. They do not generate revenue like the UFC. That does not mean they border on failure.
honestly, we have absolutely no clue how many revenues streams the UFC has and how much they make them.
There is absolutely nothing out there to show it. PPV numbers and gates are only a piece of it. Bars, yahoo/roku purchases, theaters, advertising, international…. Everybody is completely in the dark.
We are also int he dark about how much money they are potentially losing overseas and fighting regulation in both New York and Canada.
Strikeforce is so much easier to figure out. It’s a small time operation….
Nick’s gonna beat that ass.