Strikeforce to Run Promos For April 17 During NCAA Basketball's First Round

via www.yorkblog.com

MMA Junkie reports

CBS will air a series of five- and 10-second spots promoting "Strikeforce: Nashville," the second Strikeforce card to air on the network, beginning today during the opening round of the NCAA men's basketball tournament.

Kelly Kahl, senior executive vice president for CBS Primetime, said the network is banking on the wildly popular series to drive interest in the April 17 MMA event.

This is a smart move and but with the event only a month out is it enough to get the numbers where they want? I highly doubt even the UFC have fallen despite having a strong card. UFC 110 was strong card as well yet it only drew a reported 215 000 in buys. Among the reasons for this was the quick turn around from UFC 109.  MMAconvert, Fightopinion among others stated that the quick turn around could have caused the poor showing.

One advantage that Strikeforce has over UFC is that the cards are free, but still a short amount of time to promote what many consider non draws in Dan Henderson and Jake shields. Kahl counters by bringing up how they promoted Kimbo Slice on CBS and how it was a success.

"We did use the first (NCAA) tournament in the first go-around with [Kevin 'Kimbo Slice' Ferguson] and got that fight off the ground rather successfully, I think. So we know this is a good solid event for us to promote it."

That's all fine and dandy but there is one problem, Kimbo Slice is a draw for casuals. Kimbo would draw ratings if he was in the IFL back in the day. It is a failed logic to compare Jake Shields to Kimbo Slice on a draw point if view. It has nothing to do with ability in the cage because if that was the case we would not be discussing this topic. What did help out was the UFC pulling the plug on a proposed live counter show.

Either way i look forward to a night of awesome fights and if they fail so be it. Coker and company have a nice stable of fighters not, still shallow in places but still pretty good for. Now if only they can deal with a 230 lb leach then they may be able to get a solid structure under them.