FLAMES TRIVIA | FLAMES AUDIO | FLAMES DIRECTORY | Peter Maher's Blog | Mike Rogers's Blog | Bryn's Blog | Pat's Blog
You can thank Josh Barnett for single handedly ending the fight promotion life of Affliction. Barnett tested positive for steroids earlier this week which set off a firestorm of bad for the promotion/clothing brand. First they cancelled their “Trilogy” pay per view, and have now announced they will no longer be promoting fights.
As if that’s not good enough news to begin with for the UFC, but Affliction (the clothing company) has also announced they have partnered with the UFC for a new sponsorship deal. And all I can ask myself is, “can the UFC be any happier with the events from Friday afternoon?”
Afflicition was a successful clothing company far before they tried their hand at running and promoting fight cards. But once they got started, Affliction was the only other promotion in North America giving Dana White’s Ultimate Fighting Championship ANY type of competition. They had signed the top heavyweight outside of the UFC (Fedor Emelianenko) and a crop of other big name fighters, including Barnett, Vitor Belfort and, at one time, Tim Sylvia.
But once again, no one has been able to come even close to competing with White. Why? Numerous reasons. The UFC owns the top fighters in the world, and that’s going to keep them at the top for a long time. Also, seemingly no one has learned how to promote fights like the UFC, and Affliction falls into that category. If you can’t promote well, you’re not going to make a lot of money. But the biggest thing to me is still mis-management!
The big wigs at Affliction paid out retarded money to their fighters, including 7 figures (reportedly) to Fedor and a reported 800 thousand dollars for a one fight gig for Tim Sylvia. Lets get this straight…you’re a new, fledgling promotion and you’re blowing your financial wad on 2 fighters, let alone the REST of the fighters who were also getting paid rather hefty talent fees? And you wonder why you’re bleeding money? Seems pretty simple to me.
There is one word that comes to mind with the world of mixed martial arts: monopoly. There is 1 company ruling the MMA world (the UFC), and then there are a bunch of other guys who are trying to pick up the scraps. Elite XC tried, including signing the first ever network TV deal…yet they failed. Affliction tried, signed the biggest name outside the UFC…and once again failed. And many others will try to enter the world of MMA, spend too much money on fighters, and find that they also have no success.
Nope, the fact of the matter is, Dana White and the UFC have done such an incredible job in building and promoting their product, that at this point, they are untouchable. I’m being 100% honest when I say that I don’t believe ANYONE will ever be able to A) compete with the UFC or B) topple the UFC.
This is where the mindset needs to change. If you’re going to run a promotion, DON’T try and compete with the big boys! Go to the UFC, tell them this is what you want to do, and go from there. Get advice from Dana et al, get some pointers and see if you can’t strike a deal with them to help with promotion. By positioning yourself as an ally of the UFC in the MMA world, you’re going to get a whole lot further than trying to go head to head with a company that does NOT like competition. To me, competing with the UFC is completely fruitless…so why even try?
Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Steinberg960.
Fedor vs Lesnar is going to happen now! I don’t like Lesnar but I would like to see him smash Fedor and shut everyone up.
PS: Lets see if it comes to fruition Bill. I think it will happen and I think it’ll happen in the next 6 months or so. The UFC has a conference call on Tuesday and I think this issue is going to be addressed by a few of the reporters asking questions. I’ll keep you updated!
- Bill Smithtotally agree – UFC and Dana White have the formula and they have excuted their business plan to perfection. However, monopolies are inherently bad for competition, from a business point of view. That is why many industries have anti-trust legislation that speaks directly to this point and tries to discourage monopolies so that issues like pricing are allowed to be controlled by the market and not the product providers.
PS: I hear you Tim, and what you’re saying is accurate. I guess the only thing running through my mind on this topic would be “if you can’t beat em, join em.” To me, if you have plans to eventually compete with the UFC, you have to start on a small scale and position yourself as an ally (or at least a non-rival) to the UFC. Then start running shows right and gradually increasing your payouts to fighters. Most of these promoters want to start huge and sign big names right away and sell out arenas. The problem is…I don’t think that’s possible right from the get go. You’ve gotta build a fan base and a following first, and the only way you do that is to start regionally and go from there.
- TIM O'NEILNot that I’m comparing MMA with Pro Wrestling…but you have ot admit there are some running comparisons to be made to what the WWF did in the 80′s is similar to what you see with the UFC now. I also see similarities with Dana White and Vince McMahon in terms of how they promote and are very hands on with their product.
Vince decided in the late 70′s he was going to try to make the WWF stand out from the rest and he didn’t care who fell to the wayside. Perhaps the UFC should pay heed to what happened though. The WWF/WWE eventually ran into big pockets with Ted Turner’s WCW, but Vince did not believe they posed a threat and did not react. WCW did what Afflication did…they tossed absurd amounts of money at Vince’s talent and stole who they thought would put WCW ahead of the WWF. IT worked for almost 2 years. But WCW collected too many egos, spent too much money and it all fell apart. They also recycled a lot of Vince’s storylines using the ex-WWF wrestlers. Vince licked his wounds for awhile but then was able to buy WCW. He had also been backrolling ECW and before he knew it…he not only was he the only national wrestling promotion around, he had no competition whatsoever.
He’s where Dana White should pay attention. So you’ve eliminated all your competition and you combine your existing talent with theirs. Your roster is as full as you can afford. Where do you get your next crop of fighters? Vince eventually realized there was a shortage of developemental territories for young up and comers. He ended up funding a few and still does to this day…but for a couple of years there were not a lot of capable guys or girls able to come in a fill spots when needed. You have to keep new blood coming in as well as support & promote your experienced personel too.
PS: You make a good comparison Bob. And you can certainly make an argument that the lack of any real competition (sorry TNA) has diluted the quality of the WWE’s product over the last 5 years or so. The difference is…the WWE is manufacturing entertainment while the UFC is pure athletic competition, so to me, I don’t think the worry of burning out is as high. Do I think competition is good for the sport? Yeah I think so…mostly because it means there is more money to go around for fighters and more fights for fans like us to watch. I just don’t know if we’re ever going to see any real competition for the UFC, at least not until promoters understand how to build a real product.
- Bob in the AbbeyDon’t worry Pat. I don’t confuse UFC’s athletic competition with the WWE’s predetermined outcomes.
I just wanted to point out that even though there are lots of small promotions for both MMA and “Pro-Wrestling”, without the necessary next levels before hitting the big time there could be lots of lost potential of shortened careers. It already happened in the WWF/WWE as some guys were brought up before they were ready and injuries happened (Bill Goldberg & Ahmed Johnson come to mind).
While MMA fighters aren’t training to “not” injure their opponents, they are training how to avoid injury themselves. I’m not saying local trainers aren’t doing their jobs well, but training and fighting for Mike Miles is different than going to work for Dana.
The best i can do to explain better is to ask that you consider not having the WHL or AHL as those “next steps” for potential NHL’ers. That is how it was decades ago, but could you now imagine having kids aged 15-16 that are excellent hockey players in their small towns who get “noticed” and then they go to the NHL game without any development in between? What is likely to happen? That is what was happening to Vince 6-7 years ago and that is what Dana White needs to be careful of. I know he has the Ultimate Fighter TV show and lots of guys clamoring for his attnetion. But in 5-7 years it might not be that way.
I am an original UFC watcher. I admit I have virtually disappeared from watching the past 5-6 years though. The UFC actually already went through a dry spell of talent in the beginning. You had Royce Gracie, Dan Severn, Ken Shamrock (Pre-WWF) and Tank Abbott and then the rest for the most part. The first few UFC’s relied on the main event while the rest of the card was squash matches. There were a few guys brought in just to be bodies…they weren’t ready to compete on such a large stage. With the loss of main competition also brings the loss of better training, development and also drive on behalf of the UFC to keep getting better.
PS: I completely understand what you’re saying Bob, and your comparison is accurate with Dana and Vince in this case. The only thing I would say is that there are more and more people training in mixed martial arts every day, and more and more who want to do this full time. As that grows, I think it will go even further to avoid any type of dry spell.
- Bob in the Abbey