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Is there such a thing as a PPV blackout based on region?
By Zach Arnold | August 9, 2010
I’ll elaborate on that in a second.
First… article of the day: UFC 117 – Jon Fitch and Chael Sonnen demonstrate the positives and negatives of MMA as sport and entertainment
Gilbert Melendez is a brand new father. He has a new baby girl named Leylakay Valentina Melendez that was born on Sunday at 1:18 PM. 7 pounds, 13 ounces. Congratulations.
Darren Uyenoyama announced that he will be fighting Shooto 60kg champion Shuichiro Katsumurau on 9/23 in Tokyo. Naturally, it will be a non-title match. This has upset Sherdog’s Tony Loiseleur:
Just heard Darren Uyenoyama WON’T face Shuichiro Katsumura for the belt. It’ll be more non-title silliness. Oh JMMA, will you never learn?
Should be fun: Katsumura is an accomplished grappler. We saw him capture the title from Masakatsu Ueda w/what Bravo called the “ninja choke.”
Uyenoyama himself is good in BJJ, spending some years out of MMA to hone it. If he’s half as active as when he fought Tokoro, then great.
I saw a unique message yesterday from someone who works at the UFC gym in Concord, California:
UFC 117 is being blacked-out 30 miles from the coliseum… So the fight will not be shown in Walnut Creek … But it is being shown @ the UFC gym in Concord 1975 diamond blvd…This event is open to members and non-members alike…
Does anyone know if this ‘blackout’ rule has happened before for other UFC PPV events? The blackout rule has proved to be controversial before for the NFL in certain markets (Jacksonville and… Oakland with the Raiders). Has Comcast or other PPV providers ever been able to enforce or implement such a blackout rule for a PPV? (This sounds so odd because I’ve seen non-stop barker advertising for the show on CSN Bay Area.)
Jake Rossen says that Chael Sonnen will now forever run around telling people that he once beat Anderson Silva and call Anderson the greatest pound-for-pound fighter ever.
Ed Soares doesn’t think that Chael Sonnen deserves an immediate rematch to fight Anderson Silva.
Yoshihiro Akiyama claism ex-manager embezzled a lot of money from him.
The Los Angeles Business Journal has more details on MC Hammer getting into the MMA agency business and it is noted that there are financial backers supporting this agency. Why are financial backers needed to support an MMA agency — shouldn’t an agency be able to generate it’s own cash?
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 10 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I can’t find any sources, but I remember hearing about the PPV blackout thing before. I don’t remember what card it was for, but I think it was only for bars and places like that. They want you to go the show if you’re going to go out and watch it and there are still tickets, I don’t think they care if you watch at home.
I tried to look, I found some sherdog threads talking about bars in Columbus and Portland not showing PPVs when there are fights there, and Strikeforce blacking out a yahoo stream near San Jose back in 2007, but I don’t can’t find anything about stopping people from ordering PPVs at home.
A lot of boxing PPVs are blacked out in Vegas when the events take place there; either you buy a ticket to the fights or buy a ticket to a closed circuit playing. Pacquiao has made oodles on the latter.
Maybe MC Hammer wants to copy the business model of Team Takedown.
1) I can understand bars or closed circuits being blacked out near the area of the stadium. But because people are paying… Hence the PAY in PPV…. I can’t see why there would much of an issue.
2) Soares sounds like a man who is afraid to lose another champion.
3) For MC Hammer…. Perhaps the initial cost of getting office space and some workers. Likely just working capital.
I agree with you on most of these.
Hammer most likely needs start up capital, which really isn’t that weird.
Soares is taking the stance many people in a fighter’s camp would take: we won, let’s move on. Those comments would far outweigh the “Wow that was such a great performance, let’s give you another shot!” from any fight camp. Sure, he could look at it from the perspective that since the rematch would probably out-sell any other Silva Middleweight fight it should happen ASAP. But realistically, to a guy like Sonnen saying “you should get a rematch” would be treated the same way as if they said Silva was lucky to get out with his title and they’d never hear the end of it. And they have enough press problems with the Anderson Silva haters in the UFC and in the press to need that.
As for MC Hammer’s company getting money. Remember who he is: a guy who famously blew $30 million on stuff like gold toilets and getting in the horse racing business without knowing anything about it. Most people who know anything about MC Hammer wouldn’t feel comfortable giving him a $5 loan, much less being the figurehead of their management company. So you’re going to need to spend money to make them forget you’re signing on with a guy whose only fight business experience is being buddies with Evander Holyfield and is probably among the top 5 most well-known bankruptcy cases in America. Honestly I’d rather have Jeffrey Skilling as a manager.
Good thing that what Soares thinks about anything is irrelevant, I have no doubt that the last thing he wants is his golden goose to get plucked. Luckily Dana and company will do whatever is best and Sonnen earned a rematch by his complete domination of the so called untouchable p4p best. He better keep praying to whatever god he believes in that Sonnen hurts himself training because if not than Chael is going to finish what he started the next time.
LOL u mad
Mad that Soares continues to act like his opinion matters? you bet the guy is about the most delusional manager there is in mma. Because in the end what he thinks about anything is irrelevant, the UFC makes the matches and if they want a rematch that’s whats going to happen.