Can Co-Promoting Work in MMA?
by Charles Walker on May 19, 2010 11:01 AM EDT
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PrintI ask this question after the news that Strikeforce and Bellator are open to co-promote a future lightweight bout between their respective champions Gilbert Melendez and Eddie Alvarez. On paper, co-promoting seems like a good idea, especially for fans. It makes fights happen that due to contract obligations couldn't be made. However from a business standpoint, in my opinion, it seems like it would be a burden instead of beneficial to a company. Case and point, Shinya Aoki coming over from Dream to Strikeforce and getting absolutely obliterated. Sure it works out a bit better because you can kind of chalk it up to the differences in rules and regulations as a setback for Aoki but it still remains that Dream's lightweight champion was beaten down for five rounds in another organization. Can it work? To a certain extent I think so. Just like when Chuck Liddell was allowed to fight in PRIDE's Middleweight tournament many years ago but still waving the UFC banner. To me, that's probably the perfect and only scenario in which two organizations should co-promote and that is in a tournament setting. Anything other than that becomes problematic when you have two companies that obviously want to flourish on their own. Just think of how damaging it would be for the UFC and Strikeforce to co-promote a show and Alistair Overeem come in and knockout Brock Lesnar. Sure it would be exciting but just think from the business side of things how that would effect future UFC cards and buyrates. So what do you MMA For Realers think, does co-promoting in the sport of mixed martial arts work?
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yea
to hold a few fights people wanna see…sure…from a business perspective…nope…I laughed at those clownd that said it was the future of the sport 3 yrs ago
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I'm of the opinion that America should only have one " big league" promotion.
Strikeforce can go away for all I care, their product just is inferior to the UFC. I like the idea of a tournament as long as no belts are on the line and their would need to be some different set of rules used to differentiate from the rules of the competing promotions, that way if GSP were to get his ass kicked he would still carry some of the mystique because the fight took place under a different rule set. I think co-promotion could work this way only on an international level, as the sport continues to grow and new markets emerge we could have a MMA world cup so to speak, and that my friends would be a beautiful thing. Of course I think only one Major promotion could operate in one market otherwise we would end up like boxing where we could have multiple titles and to many weight classes to keep track of and that right there cheapens your product.
Ideally I think your would want each promotion to select fighters to compete in each weight class of the tournament, any fighters not selected could still fight in “super fights” if they are a big enough draw, personally I would draw a line that separates east and west and have fighters from each " hemisphere" compete in their respective division and at the end have a east versus west type finale.
by doonerthesooner on May 19, 2010 12:03 PM EDT reply actions
hmm
I kinda like that hemisphere idea…the problem with co-promoting will always revolve around money
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For sure I wouldn't want to be anywhere near these guys when they try to split up the PPV
Honestly I don’t know how that would work, each promotion and each fighter would want a cut of the PPV sales. I think some things could be resolved with a fighter payout that co-insides with how far you advance in the tournament ( perhaps similar to payouts in poker tournaments) and of course your promotion could only get a cut if they still had fighters competing, but I don’t see the incentive for big name draws or champions to compete except pride and glory.
by doonerthesooner on May 19, 2010 1:10 PM EDT up reply actions
I think Aoki’s loss is of faaaaar less significant than Melendez’s would have been. The Japanese simply don’t view W/L record the same way Western fans do.
So, in a sense DREAM will usually come out in the black since just having more eyes on their fighters is a plus. They just need to start sending some guys over here that can win. (MINOWAMAN)
Inhale deep, like the words of my breath—I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death
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