ESPN buys the rest of UFC programming and it makes sense if they’re ditching the NFL
By Zach Arnold | May 23, 2018
Both WWE and UFC are filthy rich from new television deals.
RAW is staying on USA Network reportedly at triple the original price and Fox just paid $1 billion dollars for five years of Smackdown.
ESPN and Disney just bought the rights to all UFC programming. $150 million a year for 15 shows and now an additional $300 million a year (for the next five years) to get 27 more shows. 42 shows a year, with a significant portion of events streaming on ESPN+.
The television rights fees being paid to both WWE and UFC are outrageous but also justifiable.
American sports media boss Clay Travis has been screaming that WWE television rights fees have been dramatically undervalued. How many years did television executives suppress the value of WWE content by claiming that WWE’s audience demographics are young but poor? In other words, a bunch of undesirables and deplorables. Now NBC & Fox are paying WWE a premium for a consistent, stable audience. That’s the value of stability in a media landscape with no stability. Timing really is everything.
As for UFC venture capitalists getting $450 million a year from Disney? As we discussed two weeks ago, this fascinating story is all about the survival of ESPN. You can’t say Disney isn’t going all out here. Paying $450 million a year for UFC content is a huge risk. What Fox Sports discovered with UFC is that UFC fans really care about UFC and will watch UFC programming but converting that audience into fans of other Fox Sports programs didn’t pan out. Without UFC, Fox Sports 1 is largely irrelevant in comparison to ESPN. ESPN took out the major cornerstone for FS1’s justification to be carried on major cable providers. Fox had no choice but to go all-in with WWE. WWE will be a big part of Fox Sports 1 moving forward, either through shoulder programming or NXT down the road.
Where does UFC fit into the equation with ESPN?
You don’t pay UFC $450 million dollars a year for a cold product unless you anticipate another shoe dropping. That shoe could very well be the end of ESPN’s relationship with the NFL.
It is very well possible that UFC and Top Rank programming could replace Monday Night Football if the NFL takes their ball and goes elsewhere.
The NFL’s relationship with ESPN is completely dysfunctional. The NFL isn’t even hiding their disdain anymore for ESPN, especially with the multi-channel broadcast of the NFL Draft on Fox. Mel Kiper is practically an American sports institution and the NFL tried to kill that off (but it didn’t work).
The reason for the animosity between the two parties deals with ESPN’s coverage of the NFL regarding political and medical issues. The more talk there is about concussions, doping, and the national anthem, the worse it is for the NFL’s bottom line. It’s worse for the NFL because the team owners are largely clueless on how to react to hot issues.
Now this same poison is ready to surface between ESPN and the UFC. The difference is that Dana White has a couple of decades of experience fighting the media and bullying those who are most critical about him. Given what has happened with the NFL, will new management at ESPN tell its employees to lay off of UFC scandals? Or will we see new conflict at a level Dana White has never had to manage before?
Bottom line? Fox offered $200 million a year to keep the UFC and the venture capitalists found a more desperate customer in ESPN willing to pay the premium. WWE immediately grabbed Fox’s offer and ran with it. In the process, WWE’s stock has tripled over the last year and Vince McMahon has made the kind of money never thought possible in professional wrestling.
Topics: Media, MMA, Pro-Wrestling, UFC, WWE, Zach Arnold | 2 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
UFC’s $150M/year deal with ESPN: “Iger’s taken the Disney trolley off the tracks”
By Zach Arnold | May 10, 2018
In addition to the live events, here’s the UFC content coming to ESPN+ in 2019. pic.twitter.com/IzPmYk3z8Q
— Brett Okamoto (@bokamotoESPN) May 8, 2018
Amazon is Best of Breed in maximizing cloud computing but they’re not stupid nor desperate enough to reportedly pay UFC $150 million dollars a year for a bunch of events. ESPN & Disney are, however.
The collapse of carriage fees on cable for ESPN means they are competing in a cutthroat streaming business market. One big competitor in the combat sports space is DAZN, who just hired former ESPN boss John Skipper. DAZN is going all-in with promoter Eddie Hearn and Matchroom Boxing for $125 million dollars a year. ESPN+ has Top Rank Boxing and will now have UFC content.
The biggest challenge for ESPN is being able to produce content that doesn’t conflict with contractual obligations to the various major cable providers. In order to get UFC content on ESPN+, it was going to cost a premium. $150 million a year for 15 shows is ridiculously reckless. In comparison to DAZN ponying up $125 million a year for Matchroom Boxing? Maybe not as heartburn-inducing as first thought.
ESPN+ is $5 a month or $50 a year for a full-time subscriber. Between the amount of subscribers needed along with digital advertising, Disney’s “investment” in UFC is a really risky proposition. It’s the equivalent of buying a mansion as an income property in hopes of paying off the mortgage using cash flow from others.
Amazon was never going to be able to offer UFC $150 million dollars a year nor should they have even considered doing so. What Amazon could do was provide an explosive platform to grow merchandising and advertising revenues. What Amazon represented was not a guarantee but an opportunity. For vulture venture capitalists, the guaranteed cash always beats out the promise of opportunity. The financiers aren’t playing around.
If you had told me from the start that someone was willing to pay over $100 million dollars a year for streaming rights, then I would have never considered Amazon to be a serious threat. Amazon could have made Fight Pass bigger than anything UFC could have ever imagined but what’s the point when Disney is throwing cash at you like a drunk sailor?
The story of UFC’s new marriage with ESPN speaks much more to the state of Disney’s health than it does the health of UFC. Disney is in a Comcastic death grip over the fight to acquire Fox Sports assets. Comcast pressuring Fox with a 15% premium over Disney’s largely stock-based offer means a future explosion. ESPN used to be the safest, take-it-to-the-bank business play. It was the 30-year American T-note. You could never fail with all those cable carriage fees because it didn’t matter whether or not people actually watched the network. The ESPN+ business model is no guarantee and Disney’s reliance on UFC to save their sports network is a remarkable turn of events for those of us who covered the sport of Mixed Martial Arts from its very modern beginnings.
Topics: Boxing, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 7 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
The $400 million dollar TV question for UFC: Balls (Amazon 100M subs) or brains (ESPN/Fox)?
By Zach Arnold | April 18, 2018
Venture capitalists want guaranteed cash. It’s their fiduciary responsibility to keep foreign ownership of company debt very, very happy. It’s why the reported ESPN/Fox dual offer for television rights is so tempting. An offer reportedly worth $400M/year with two stable broadcast television partners.
Betting against Disney is risky. Rejecting $400 million dollars yearly is crazy. Disney is all-in with the new ESPN+ online streaming platform. They need UFC.
The risk for Disney is that they are still renting sports content. They are not owning the content they produce, which is why Netflix has as big a market share as Disney right now. Paying $200 million a year for limited UFC rights is a huge premium for Disney. ESPN+ faces an enormous, uphill climb.
Which is why Wednesday’s memo from Amazon king Jeff Bezos about 100 million Amazon Prime subscribers is a game changer. My argument for a UFC/Amazon marriage was based on 80+ million subscribers. 100 million subscribers is 25% more juice.
ESPN & Fox are offering $400 million in guaranteed cash yearly. Amazon can’t make that offer but what they can offer UFC is the kind of upside on supercharging merchandising sales and streaming of live events that no one else in the world can compete with. I am a believer that Amazon’s marketing power is worth tens of millions of dollars to UFC on merchandising alone. Reebok would be estactic.
Amazon was always a dark horse, at best, to get a foothold in the UFC television negotiations. Amazon can offer potential but no guarantees. Venture capitalists sell potential but take the easy money when it’s on the table.
If Lorenzo & Frank Fertitta still owned UFC, would they take the guaranteed cash or would they gamble and become pioneers by expanding their sports empire with Jeff Bezos in their corner?
If current UFC ownership won’t take the plunge with Amazon, a major sports entity will do so and reap the future rewards.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 2 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Conor McGregor lost his UFC belt and maybe his freedom but what about UFC’s TV deal?
By Zach Arnold | April 5, 2018
Conor McGregor channeled his inner Mike Tyson and attacked UFC vehicles transporting fighters for their UFC 223 event in Brooklyn.
Well, on the bright side… UFC 223 got publicity.
“This is the kind of thing bad boys do in sports,” chimed Fox Sports social media honcho Jason McIntyre.
Now we have Fox Sports, UFC TV partner, debating whether Conor McGregor’s Brooklyn attack is worse than Malice at the Palace. MatP was considered the NBA’s darkest moment even though sports fans react to it as strongly today as they did when the incident actually happened.
“He has really burnished a brand as a thug,” Jason Whitlock claimed. “Can’t live with him, can’t live without him.”
Four months ago, people were worried about Conor McGregor’s safety after a reported bar brawl involving some powerful & organized individuals.
The TV angle
2018 means everything for UFC. The vulture/venture capitalists want their new television deal. There’s a reason UFC went all-in on Brock Lesnar 24 hours ago. I think the water has largely been squeeze out of that sponge but I could be wrong.
The Conor McGregor situation inflamed an already delicate business situation into a crisis of confidence.
TV executives want stars. Jon Jones. Conor McGregor. Ronda… well… The stars are vanishing. Daniel Cormier will likely retire as the non-Jon Jones 205 champion. Stipe Miocic is slowly building his American profile. They’re great fighters and I care about them. I’m not sure television executives are as enthused.
McGregor likely faces criminal charges and a suspension. He needs the UFC to stay active both in and out of the ring but does he need the money? Fighters always need money. UFC needs a television deal and all the money that comes with it. Are we headed for a separation?
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 11 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Canelo Alvarez clenbuterol suspension: Why bother fighting in Nevada?
By Zach Arnold | April 3, 2018
The fight between Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez will be pushed back a few months due to Alvarez testing positive (twice) for clenbuterol.
The best MMA writer today, Iain Kidd, has a simple & accurate Bloody Elbow read on what likely went down.
The re-match will happen in a few months. The media and Golovkin’s team will take their doping shots at Canelo to juice up interest. Always happens in these kinds of scenarios. The fighters and promoters will still make their money.
However, there are bigger questions to be asked now because of Nevada’s actions to suspend Canelo Alvarez.
Why bother fighting in Nevada?
This is the big question now. If you’re a top fighter, why do you need to fight for a WBC belt if the WBC is going to require you to go through third-party supplemental drug testing that the Nevada State Athletic Commission treats differently than by WADA/USADA standards for punishment?
Nevada’s commission made it clear to third party drug testing operations to work with them and to go by certain guidelines. If this is Nevada’s long-term policy, then the results of those tests must be treated exactly as they would be on a global stage.
Erik Magraken neatly explains Nevada’s legal policy on mitigating circumstances regarding ingestion of contaminated products.
The end result of the Canelo Alvarez incident is the formulation of Nevada administrative case law where a positive test for clenbuterol is being adjudicated differently by a state athletic commission than it would be by an actual testing agency.
The tax breaks aren’t worth Nevada’s administrative headaches
You can fight in Texas or Florida and not pay state income tax. Television taxes are also relatively competitive.
Fights featuring the level of boxers like Gennady Golovkin do not require casinos to prop up for interest. You don’t need to rely on sold shows.
Why are we stuck on Las Vegas? You can make your money elsewhere without as much interference, inconsistency, or incompetence. You can still do VADA testing as well.
Nevada doesn’t have the prestige that it once had. Motives are constantly questioned. The state’s athletic commission is no longer attached to general funding. How is it any different than other garden variety administrative agencies? The power of the purse gives promoters much better options inside and outside of America to produce fights. Better deals are to be made outside of Nevada in 2018.
Topics: Boxing, Media, Zach Arnold | 4 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Pre-suading the public for full blown WWE/Fox Sports, UFC/Amazon marriages
By Zach Arnold | February 28, 2018
It doesn’t take a genius to see how the following two stories are interconnected:
- Fox Sports suits, “Booger Eater” Colin Cowherd appear at WWE Smackdown in Los Angeles
- Amazon obtains rights to sell UFC PPVs in the United States
I hate to say I told you so. OK, no I don’t. About a marriage between Amazon and UFC? I think it’s a great business move by all parties involved.
I also think a marriage between Vince McMahon and Rupert Murdoch makes great sense for 2019. I still believe that we will eventually get a deal between UFC & Fox Sports but it will be a slimmed down agreement with more exposure on Amazon to hedge the bets. UFC helped launch Fox Sports 1 but FS1 is a treadmill channel — running a lot but heading nowhere. It needs weekly WWE programming. You can do weekly WWE. Weekly UFC is a killer.
All of this news sounds good to me. The return of Brock Lesnar to UFC? Boring, but predictable. WWE got Ronda Rousey. Conor McGregor learned his true marketing value.
Jon Jones sabotaged his career and continues to demonstrate that he has learned nothing. California did the minimum they could do but you can’t rip the athletic commission too hard because it’s really the UFC’s call as to whether or not USADA will finish the job. Even TMZ Sports was dumping on Jon Jones yesterday. I felt bad watching Howard Jacobs, the attorney for Jon Jones, at Tuesday’s AC meeting. It was like watching Ben Brafman deal with Martin Shkreli in public. How many more bites out of the apple can you get? UFC can’t build their business plan around Jon Jones any more. It’s time for fresh media deals to build a new group of aces.
Topics: CSAC, Media, MMA, Pro-Wrestling, UFC, WWE, Zach Arnold | 3 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
When is paying yourself a crime? UFC’s financial landscape after Fertitta family ownership
By Zach Arnold | January 25, 2018
Over the many years of covering UFC financing on Fight Opinion Radio, my trusty co-host Jeff Thaler and I noted that Lorenzo & Frank Fertitta had no problem paying themselves in many different ways from UFC.
One of the golden rules of running a business is never to forget to pay yourself. The problem is that many businesses, at least small-to-mid-sized businesses, don’t make ends meets and owners take the haircut. The bigger the stakes, the more you are encouraged to not only pay yourself but… if you’re smart… create as many companies as possible to profit off of the original operation. Why just pay yourself when you can pay yourself and pay vendors that you have ownership in?
That’s what the old UFC ownership did. They paid themselves quite handsomely. On the surface, nobody has presented any facts to show that there was illegal activity involved in this process. If you can pay yourself twenty different ways and financial institutions are willing to continue backing you, then that’s the system in place.
What happens when you get new ownership that has its own venture capitalists? Everyone wants to know who is getting paid what — especially when some of those investors are representing foreign governments in the form of retirement pensions.
You can squeeze out extra cash by analyzing the accounting. New ownership (WME) is paying itself a yearly fee of $25 million USD. They’re getting cheaper when it comes to expenses.
When WME purchased UFC, I pondered if they would go the Bain (vulture) Capital route. The gamble was that the television landscape for sports TV rights would continue to explode. That gamble appears to be on really shaky ground right now:
Both numbers blow…. to think one company is asking $400 million a year for those poor numbers is kinda mind-blowing ….. FOX would be overpaying even at the current numbers…. https://t.co/YRw3UgDIgE
— Robert Joyner (@robnashville) January 23, 2018
Before Rupert Murdoch unloaded many of his sports TV assets to ESPN & Disney, I wrote an article at Bloody Elbow stating that Amazon would be UFC’s best bet for a new television deal. In order to maximize such a deal, UFC needs to maintain some sort of presence with a broadcast network. Why? Take a look at the new ATSC 3.0 over-the-air USA TV standards coming in 2019. Ultra HD 4k 120 frames per second with complete internet integration. For free.
UFC needs Fox a lot more than Fox needs UFC. A combo marriage between Amazon and Fox Sports keeps UFC as a relevant American sport with room to grow internationally. Fight Pass needs a lot of help. The room to explode UFC’s bottom line on merchandising clearly exists. You need the right players, especially if you are shifting away from a heavy-on-PPV business model to a volume programming model based on television fees.
The ratings for UFC go up and down. More positive than negative but everything is relative right now. $400 million USD a year from Fox Sports is not going to happen. UFC should pray to maintain their current deal with Fox Sports and make up for lost projections elsewhere. The last thing UFC needs is to get dumped by Rupert Murdoch in exchange for a reunion with Vince McMahon & WWE.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 9 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Some counterintuitive advice on making money in MMA media: build offline
By Zach Arnold | January 12, 2018
Semi-regular reminder the MMA media landscape is terrifying compared to just a couple years ago. Talking to people behind the scenes and it's a fight to not lose your budget/current staff, let alone hire someone new on.
— Brent Brookhouse (@brentbrookhouse) January 9, 2018
I have enormous sympathy for many of my long-standing colleagues in the media, past and present. I’ve had the great honor of meeting some very salt-of-the-Earth people who grinded out a living and found their dreams crushed by a dreaded pink slip. Some of us never even got that courtesy.
I grew up around the combat sports as a child, so money was never the primary motive. It was a cultural issue for me. That’s what made the political blacklisting and backstabbing all the more frustrating. I had several high-profile opportunities spiked by powerful politicians and businessman.
I never anticipated making a steady income covering a massively corrupt industry. I never blamed those who had a dream and tried to make the impossible happen. Those who made a paycheck were the lucky ones. They were fortunate. I felt sorry for individuals who bought into the dream of covering combat sports as a sustainable career. A hard way to make a hard living.
The smartest media players were the ones who figured this out long in advance and tried to spin the publicity they gained into a different venture.
Over the last two decades, I’ve received numerous requests from young readers who wanted to build a career in the sports media landscape. I always gave an honest answer, one that often included a warning about a majority of writers having to survive on a stipend from a promoter or event benefactor. We were embroiled in debates about Fusion GPS-style payoffs long before the masses knew what a Fusion GPS was.
The future of the sports media landscape is in quicksand. Can you build any sort of career covering combat sports? Part of me is bullish and part of me is horribly bearish about the future of MMA writing.
Why bullish? If promoters and their friends aren’t paying off as many writers as they used to, at least readers will get more honesty. The trade off is less access.
Why bearish? Where to start? The truth doesn’t sell. Fights sell. Promotional work sells. How do you tell the truth about a fight business that’s largely built on a con? Part of selling a con is having an inventory of stories to write and tell. Right now, there’s not a lot of inventory to work with. We read the MMA sites daily. It’s a chore just to read the content that is available. I tip my cap every day to the grinders at Bloody Elbow and Sherdog who really are working their asses to produce content that makes you think.
The biggest factor working against MMA media, besides a cold fight product, is social media. Social media is a vacuum that sucks up all the spotlight. The Silicon Valley barons created a system where everyone does the work for them to produce content, for free, and in such a mind-numbing way that it has wrecked the world’s attention span. Forget trying to sell anything other than a 1,000 word article. 750 words may be pushing it.
How do you rebuild and reframe the structure of MMA media?
Go against the grain. Build a local and regional audience and then carry it over to an online platform.
Systems over goals, always.
Build a portfolio with multiple communication channels – snail mail, e-mail list, texting, web site. Avoid social media. Make your communication as direct with an audience as possible. Media is ultimately a relationships business.
Once you build your system, grind away at each part in equal measure. Constantly engage in A/B testing to see what gets more response, then reconfigure your communications model. Find out what subjects spark a fire locally and regionally. Hammer away on it. Once you build in-roads with an audience, you can expand your topic selection.
Be selective on who you build an audience with. Make sure your splits between insiders, well-to-do supporters, and common fans is balanced. Just because you make friends with a rich person doesn’t mean they’re going to spend any money on you. Rich people got rich for a reason and it isn’t because they spend heavy money on media.
Have a portfolio of content you want to sell: media (articles/books), videos (including documentaries), merchandising.
Once you establish an audience and establish your communications system, connect and network with advertisers or advertising agencies. Rely on an expert. Many experts. Develop an audience that’s majority female.
Follow this advice and you’ll be ahead of where I am. If you can hustle more cash than I have without taking a handout from a promoter, you’re a better person.
Topics: Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 3 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
UFC is running out of time to make the marriage with Fox Sports last
By Zach Arnold | January 1, 2018
They’ve got one year left on the clock.
The good news for Dana White & Ari Emanuel is that Cris Cyborg remains the most complex and compelling female fighter over the last decade. The numbers for the UFC 219 PPV look to be very promising.
The bad news is that the successes for UFC are decreasing, not increasing, at a time when the television landscape is becoming brutally unforgiving in contract negotiations. Amazon is looking like a better option each and every day moving forward.
Take Cyborg’s success for example. Cris Cyborg is succeeding entirely on her own merits and without much support from UFC. Every other word out of Dana White’s mouth has been entirely negative about Cyborg and yet she remains a survivor in a women’s MMA business that chews fighters up and spits them out.
Remember Georges St. Pierre? He came back for a fight at Madison Square Garden with Michael Bisping and won. Bisping got squashed weeks later in China by Kelvin Gastelum. And immediately after winning the MSG fight, Dana White was back to tearing down St. Pierre after popping a big number. Instead of talking about what big fight St. Pierre would be involved in next, Dana is back to the “does he or doesn’t he?” retirement spiel.
The successes are being overshadowed by UFC’s failures. The biggest success of 2017 for UFC was due to Floyd Mayweather.
Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor drew under 5 million PPV buys but still made all the parties involved an incredibly obscene profit. It was also the beta testing of a possible boxing marriage between Al Haymon and Dana White. Haymon’s PBC needs a boost and UFC is looking for the right carrot to entice a television partner to bite on. Enter Zuffa Boxing.
Zuffa Boxing doesn’t work without Al Haymon and the parties involved know it. Zuffa Boxing works with Al Haymon. It works in helping Fox Sports keep the PBC brand afloat. It works in possibly getting UFC fighters to sign dual sport contracts. From Al Haymon’s point of view, Dana White can help him very much. But what about Floyd Mayweather? Floyd Mayweather doesn’t need Dana White. That’s why Floyd Mayweather is checking Dana White’s claims in public.
Dana White says he’s negotiating with Floyd Mayweather’s team. Floyd Mayweather tells the public that he’s not going to let Dana White use his name to build Zuffa Boxing. The false hope of Floyd Mayweather fighting under MMA rules. Floyd Mayweather believes he is telling the truth when he says that Dana White is using his name because of the current negotiations UFC is having with various television partners.
This smells like desperation. Why is UFC focusing so much energy on Zuffa Boxing? Lorenzo Fertitta would have never gotten this obsessed over creating a new business system. He would have focused entirely on rebuilding and reloading the UFC system. He would have focused on building a little bit more loyalty, real or fake, with top fighters. Eventually, this kind of constant politicking will catch up and erode UFC fan loyalty. Nobody is teflon. Not even the NFL. Rupert Murdoch just sold a heavy portion of his sports assets to Disney. ESPN has chosen to go with boxing and not MMA. Fox Sports 1 still is a roller coaster. At a time when discipline is most needed, UFC’s behavior seemingly indicates that they are making it up as they go along. They may still win despite themselves.
Topics: Boxing, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 6 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
The ESPN & Fox Sports TV universe just exploded in UFC’s face
By Zach Arnold | December 18, 2017
The financial backers of UFC have found themselves in a precarious position for getting a new TV deal, thanks to the proposed dissolving of many of Rupert Murdoch’s sports assets and an internal meltdown with ESPN management.
Many of the Fox sports properties (not FS1, however) are being sold to ESPN to boost their streaming platform in 2018. Rupert Murdoch is cashing out. He didn’t see a long-term future in sports programming on pay television. The old man is getting out while the getting is good.
One of the incredible rumors swirling around the Fox/ESPN deal is that Rupert’s son, James Murdoch, would end up with a gig at Disney or ESPN. James, like Lachlan, isn’t exactly in the Fox News management mold. Such a proposal looked preposterous on paper until Monday’s bombshell announcement of ESPN President John Skipper resigning. The publicly stated reason for Skipper’s resignation was due to substance abuse issues. However, ESPN found themselves caught up in a nasty sexual harassment scandal over the weekend because of a Boston Globe report detailing allegations against personalities John Buccigross and Matthew Berry. ESPN released some of the conversations in question to the allegations but it was reportedly an issue of selective editing. Now the question is when the other shoe drops in Bristol.
ESPN management has been melting down for years despite Bob Iger’s best assurances. Iger just gave Skipper a multi-year extension and now Skipper quits?
Making things even more bizarre, ESPN just demoted Teddy Atlas from their boxing telecasts and banned him from live fight commentary. He’s now stuck doing post-fight Don Cherry-wannabe shtick with Stephen A. Smith. Mark Kriegel, poached by ESPN from Fox Sports/Al Haymon, is a total dud on the Top Rank telecasts with Tim Bradley. The reported reason for Teddy’s demotion involved, you guessed it, complaints about Teddy ripping into athletic commissions and officials.
You can rip Teddy Atlas for many things. His behavior is wildly erratic. However, if you’re going to rip Teddy Atlas for ripping into combat sports corruption, rip Teddy for not being specific or effective enough in his criticism of obvious problems. Removing Teddy Atlas and censoring his voice makes him a martyr for no obviously good reason.
To throw a further monkey wrench into UFC business with Fox, the company just drew a lousy TV rating for the Robbie Lawler/Rafael Dos Anjos fight that got next to no publicity on network television.
All of the turmoil at ESPN & Fox Sports makes Amazon look more attractive as a future UFC broadcasting partner. Turner Sports is lurking but Amazon is Best of Breed on digital technology and can monetize UFC in ways no other business partner can. The television lifelines are starting to get yanked away from UFC and thinking out of the box is required for UFC’s financial backers to make a return on their investment.
Topics: Boxing, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 7 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Rupert Murdoch is preparing to cash out Fox assets and UFC better respond fast
By Zach Arnold | December 5, 2017
Bulls make money, bears make money, and pigs get slaughtered. Old man Rupert Murdoch isn’t going to go to his grave getting slaughtered.
CNBC is reporting that final touches are being negotiated for a $60 billion USD Fox asset sale to Disney. The reasons for both parties to make such a monumental content deal are obvious.
But what does it mean for UFC? They have to get a new television contract soon and so far, media networks aren’t producing the kind of cash offers Ari Emanuel is supposedly looking for. Which is why I continue to say that Amazon is a Best of Breed long-term play for UFC in a content package-split. Best digital platform distributor and best at monetizing Fight Pass.
The future of Fox & ESPN in sports programming
Seven months ago, Fox Sports numbers guy/fixer Michael Mulvihill was gleeful about how much of a cash cow Regional Sports Networks were for Fox Sports. Mulvihill was also gleeful about the NFL being largely bulletproof in the new digital economy and how UFC was a great programming value because fights can combat the problem of “time poverty.”
Today, the NFL’s major network partners are taking a hit with sponsors and will either have to do make-goods or eat losses. Fox Sports is reportedly offering $200 million a year to UFC when Ari Emanuel wants $400-450 million a year. And now the vaunted RSN chain that Mulvihill said was a cash cow for Fox Sports is about to be sold to Disney/ESPN because Rupert Murdoch is bearish on sports due to rising rights fees.
Rupert Murdoch gets to cash out while he’s still flexing his financial muscle. As for Disney, they are about to load up their ESPN streaming service in 2018 with a massive buffet of sports programming rights thanks to acquiring Fox’s RSNs. ESPN is continuing to pay a premium to rent out sports programming. They need to get in the game of owning actual content. Some of the RSNs have sports team ownership. Can ESPN maintain long-term relationships with the RSNs (like the Yankees/YES)? If they can, they have a shot. If they can’t, they’re in trouble.
Disney acquiring all of the Fox RSNs is also a hedge if they end up losing Monday Night Football and need to replace the NFL with MLB or NHL content. It’s apples and oranges but the premium that ESPN has paid for the NFL has been rather costly.
The future of UFC
Fox Sports and UFC really need each other. It’s the right marriage. FS1 has no real purpose for existing without regular UFC content. UFC needs Fox Sports and its resources. However, we may be heading towards irreconcilable differences over issues such as production. Remember when Lorenzo Fertitta was criticized for wanting to keep UFC production in-house in order to maintain editorial control? Zuffa knows the product, so let them produce the product. Then came the chorus that Zuffa wasn’t a respectable sports league because they wouldn’t cede editorial or production control to a sports network. The Fox Sports deal arrived and a blended marriage of resources came about.
Now the major television players are looking to offload production costs. ESPN just fired 140 behind-the-scenes employees last week. Under Lorenzo’s ownership, UFC was happy to take on production. Under Ari Emanuel’s new ownership, UFC has reportedly being itching to offload production onto whoever their next television partner will be. If the marriage with Fox doesn’t survive, then a marriage with Amazon will require UFC to go back to in-house production. Amazon wants to stream, not produce a sports product. Amazon got the best of all worlds with NFL Thursday Night Football. If UFC wants to play with Amazon, UFC will have to go back to their production roots to make it work.
There are still too many positive reasons for the Fox Sports/UFC marriage to continue but don’t be surprised if Fox wants a new arrangement after cashing out a big chunk of their sporting assets.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | No Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Conor McGregor & Harumafuji: Bar fights and mafia revenge plots
By Zach Arnold | November 29, 2017
I built a name reporting on the largest crime families in combat sports. Skip Bayless has made tens of millions of dollars trolling athletes for saying nothing good happens at a bar or night club. The wrong guy made millions of dollars but he keeps finding suckers who prove his shtick right.
Conor McGregor is now apparently the target of one of the most powerful Irish mafia figures and is being advised to find safety elsewhere.
Chael Sonnen has correctly identified the disease that has penetrated Conor McGregor’s brain. Conor McGregor has become his own biggest fan. Of the many differences between Conor McGregor & Ric Flair, Flair understood when to put over the local rival while still getting what he wanted in the end.
Conor McGregor is on the reckless path of either dying young or going broke, possibly both. That’s a combat sports story as distinguished as The Old Testament. McGregor is on the path of having someone else writing the end of his career, kind of like famous Sumo champion Harumafuji.
Nine-time Grand champion #Harumafuji to retire as sumo wrestler
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We say goodbye too one of Grand #sumo's greatest wrestlers ever. He was classy, honest, and a gentleman in a fighting sport with few!
We love our champ ?? Thank you, Yokozuna #???? ???? pic.twitter.com/lWd3VISP2z— yoshitada okada (@okadascape) November 29, 2017
Harumafuji got caught up in a timeless Japanese fight scandal: beating the crap out of a young boy and losing a career over it. Shame matters in Japan, even in 2017. You lose your career or, at a minimum, lose your hair when you shave it off when a disgraceful incident goes public.
Harumafuji’s career is over and he can’t be a stablemaster in retirement. That’s the least of his worries. Civil & criminal investigations are in play. Sumo also has a history of attracting rather colorful characters who are ready to go for the throat.
I’m having flashbacks to Asashoryu, the former Sumo champion who was offered a lot of money to go into Japanese MMA. I wrote an article ten years ago about K-1 making a big push for Asashoryu. It’s possible that Harumafuji could get an offer from RIZIN but it will be nowhere as lucrative as the offers Asashoryu received.
Just like Conor McGregor’s bar troubles are receiving worldwide attention, Harumafuji’s resignation capped off a month of heavy Japanese media coverage. One man lost his career but may have managed to save his freedom. The other man has plenty of earning power left but may never fully realize or appreciate the tenuous position he is in.
Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 7 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
For mobile & tablet users, access our boxing & MMA headlines here
By Zach Arnold | November 22, 2017
To make our site theme more compatible with mobile & tablet devices, we had to trim off the news sidebars. We’ve developed a temporary solution to address this problem: separate feed pages.
Access the latest MMA headlines here.
Access the latest boxing headlines here.
As you might notice, some RSS links we are trying to access don’t load properly or are dead. We are searching for updated RSS feed links. Send us some tips.
Help wanted
We need your advice on finding a two-column theme compatible for PC, mobile, and tablet devices. E-mail me at [email protected] with all suggestions. If you can’t help us out with technical advice, send us a donation to help pay for a solution. We can and will make this happen.
Topics: Media, Zach Arnold | 6 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |