I'm shocked they're doing this well. The cards have been pure wank for several consecutive weeks now, mostly because they've prioritized the PPV.
I guess 102 did well because of Kongo?
nobones -B_Goetz...no Bellator is in very bad shape. They are going to payperview not because it is a financially lucrative option for them at this point, it was the only way to get Tito and Rampage to sign for less money (that and the tv series) and it helped them resolve the lawsuit with Alvarez. UFC is in a very different situation with FS1 and FS2 because their ratings on those channels dominate the average ratings on those channels. Bellator content actually brings down Spike's channel average for all demos. They are actually losing money for each Bellator show they air. That won't last forever.
Whether or not Bellator will last forever, I don't know. But the rest of that statement is correct just when you look at Spike avg. ratings and Fox Sports avg. ratings.
I wonder how much the ad rates have been lowered for Bellator since they started airing on Spike and their ratings have been established.
I don't know for a fact that they're above the break even point, but I'm pretty confident they are based on their low cost venues in places like Mulvane, Kansas and Visalia, California, their low fighter purses and multiple revenue streams. They learned from the failures of orgs like Affliction and have sought sustainability first.
So they went up from the previous week and the OP makes it a negative, good to know
B_Goetz - I don't know for a fact that they're above the break even point, but I'm pretty confident they are based on their low cost venues in places like Mulvane, Kansas and Visalia, California, their low fighter purses and multiple revenue streams. They learned from the failures of orgs like Affliction and have sought sustainability first.
You may be right but we dont' know their finances before going to Spike and the sale to Viacom. Their valuation was like 100 million dollars so that's a deep hole to get out from since they were a startup funded by Wall St. and now majority owned by Viacom.
Out of curiosity I really want to see if their financials are public since they are owned by Viacom.
nobones -B_Goetz...no Bellator is in very bad shape. They are going to payperview not because it is a financially lucrative option for them at this point, it was the only way to get Tito and Rampage to sign for less money (that and the tv series) and it helped them resolve the lawsuit with Alvarez. UFC is in a very different situation with FS1 and FS2 because their ratings on those channels dominate the average ratings on those channels. Bellator content actually brings down Spike's channel average for all demos. They are actually losing money for each Bellator show they air. That won't last forever.
The UFC isn't in danger of having their content cancelled. Their problem is it's simply not being viewed. They are churning out relatively expensive events that aren't being seen by anyone.
UFC Fight Night 28: Teixeira vs. Bader
Ratings: 539k viewers
Fighter salaries: $672,500
UFC Fight Night 27: Condit vs. Kampmann 2
Ratings: 827k viewers
Fighter salaries: $743,000
Lets compare that to the most recent Bellator numbers I could find.
Bellator 102: Kongo vs. Godbeer
Ratings: 675k viewers
Fighter salaries: $294,500
These are their ratings with their second-tier fighters. They've already proven they can draw 938k viewers with stronger cards (Bellator 85: Chandler-Hawn, Zayats-Sobral, Curran-Pitbull).
moonrunrs -B_Goetz - I don't know for a fact that they're above the break even point, but I'm pretty confident they are based on their low cost venues in places like Mulvane, Kansas and Visalia, California, their low fighter purses and multiple revenue streams. They learned from the failures of orgs like Affliction and have sought sustainability first.
You may be right but we dont' know their finances before going to Spike and the sale to Viacom. Their valuation was like 100 million dollars so that's a deep hole to get out from since they were a startup funded by Wall St. and now majority owned by Viacom.
Out of curiosity I really want to see if their financials are public since they are owned by Viacom.
It's a deep hole, but it also says to me they're committed for the long haul.
If you get hard info I'd love to see it, good or bad.
liquidrob - So they went up from the previous week and the OP makes it a negative, good to know
Every one of his posts are like that. They emphasize the positive for the UFC and the negative for Bellator and are worded with a classic PR spin. A TUF episode goes down 15% week to week and the title is "TUF episode 7 has the highest ratings for a male fight this season!" Bellator goes up week to week "Bellator has it's 3rd lowest total of the season!"
It is an obvious PR campaign aimed at discrediting the main competition. He tries to position himself as a neutral party who is just frustrated at the "horrible, restricting contracts of Bellator" so he can seem like he is pro-fighter, but it is a thin veil. The contracts between the organizations are most likely the same. The UFC even sued Pavia/Bellator for allegedly using their contracts. If he really cared about the fighters he would be interested in promoting real healthy competition because the free market is the only way fighter pay will substantially increase.
I never thought about him being a Fox employee, but it is a logical theory. Either UFC or Fox for certain.
B_Goetz -nobones - B_Goetz...no Bellator is in very bad shape. They are going to payperview not because it is a financially lucrative option for them at this point, it was the only way to get Tito and Rampage to sign for less money (that and the tv series) and it helped them resolve the lawsuit with Alvarez. UFC is in a very different situation with FS1 and FS2 because their ratings on those channels dominate the average ratings on those channels. Bellator content actually brings down Spike's channel average for all demos. They are actually losing money for each Bellator show they air. That won't last forever.
The UFC isn't in danger of having their content cancelled. Their problem is it's simply not being viewed. They are churning out relatively expensive events that aren't being seen by anyone.
UFC Fight Night 28: Teixeira vs. Bader
Ratings: 539k viewers
Fighter salaries: $672,500
UFC Fight Night 27: Condit vs. Kampmann 2
Ratings: 827k viewers
Fighter salaries: $743,000
Lets compare that to the most recent Bellator numbers I could find.
Bellator 102: Kongo vs. Godbeer
Ratings: 675k viewers
Fighter salaries: $294,500
These are their ratings with their second-tier fighters. They've already proven they can draw 938k viewers with stronger cards (Bellator 85: Chandler-Hawn, Zayats-Sobral, Curran-Pitbull).
Aren't you forgetting the sponsorship revenue and the money they get from Fox?
Using the same selective guess work you were just shitting on?
I'm not forgetting anything. The UFC sponsors are paying (presumably a lot) to have their advertisements go unseen. They won't be happy with that in the long run. Fox is paying out of their pocket for programming that no one is watching.
edit: I'm not shitting on anything, btw. We're having a discussion.
B_Goetz - I'm not forgetting anything. The UFC sponsors are paying (presumably a lot) to have their advertisements go unseen. They won't be happy with that in the long run. Fox is paying out of their pocket for programming that no one is watching.
edit: I'm not shitting on anything, btw. We're having a discussion.
So what are the advertisers for Bellator paying for? See that's the problem it works on both sides of the fence.
Without any knowledge of how this business works, I would guess Bellator advertisers pay less than UFC advertisers, so we don't know if their payroll is inline with what it would need to be to break even.
That's the problem, we (myself included) are just a bunch of idiots who like talking about things like ratings and sponsorship without knowing some very important details.
Reasonable -liquidrob - So they went up from the previous week and the OP makes it a negative, good to know
Every one of his posts are like that. They emphasize the positive for the UFC and the negative for Bellator and are worded with a classic PR spin. A TUF episode goes down 15% week to week and the title is "TUF episode 7 has the highest ratings for a male fight this season!" Bellator goes up week to week "Bellator has it's 3rd lowest total of the season!"
It is an obvious PR campaign aimed at discrediting the main competition. He tries to position himself as a neutral party who is just frustrated at the "horrible, restricting contracts of Bellator" so he can seem like he is pro-fighter, but it is a thin veil. The contracts between the organizations are most likely the same. The UFC even sued Pavia/Bellator for allegedly using their contracts. If he really cared about the fighters he would be interested in promoting real healthy competition because the free market is the only way fighter pay will substantially increase.
I never thought about him being a Fox employee, but it is a logical theory. Either UFC or Fox for certain.
MMALOGIC was an account originally created by Ariel Helwani. Since he got hired by Zuffa, it is used by various people to promote their agenda.
JimmersonzGlove -
Look now further than this article for Logic's brilliance:
http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2010/1/1/1229804/why-dana-hates-internet-media
That actually was an informative article and I would love to hear his commentary on it now.
bellator is bsck 
Reasonable - That actually was an informative article and I would love to hear his commentary on it now.
MMALOGIC is the author of that "article." The FOX employee is sniping at journalists for acknowledging the ratings have cooled off as a result of the FOX deal.
dannyapodaca - If you are a mma fan and you are not watching you are an idiot. they put on great cards.
Do you ever say anything else?
You're a Broken Record
double post
B_Goetz -moonrunrs -B_Goetz - I don't know for a fact that they're above the break even point, but I'm pretty confident they are based on their low cost venues in places like Mulvane, Kansas and Visalia, California, their low fighter purses and multiple revenue streams. They learned from the failures of orgs like Affliction and have sought sustainability first.
You may be right but we dont' know their finances before going to Spike and the sale to Viacom. Their valuation was like 100 million dollars so that's a deep hole to get out from since they were a startup funded by Wall St. and now majority owned by Viacom.
Out of curiosity I really want to see if their financials are public since they are owned by Viacom.
It's a deep hole, but it also says to me they're committed for the long haul.
If you get hard info I'd love to see it, good or bad.
Now I'm sounding like a broken record but one thing is: Viacom is accountable to the stockholders. If they see them still losing millions of dollars on these low rated TV shows and keeping them in production, they can/will protest and can even get the execs removed.
B_Goetz -nobones -B_Goetz...no Bellator is in very bad shape. They are going to payperview not because it is a financially lucrative option for them at this point, it was the only way to get Tito and Rampage to sign for less money (that and the tv series) and it helped them resolve the lawsuit with Alvarez. UFC is in a very different situation with FS1 and FS2 because their ratings on those channels dominate the average ratings on those channels. Bellator content actually brings down Spike's channel average for all demos. They are actually losing money for each Bellator show they air. That won't last forever.
The UFC isn't in danger of having their content cancelled. Their problem is it's simply not being viewed. They are churning out relatively expensive events that aren't being seen by anyone.
UFC Fight Night 28: Teixeira vs. Bader
Ratings: 539k viewers
Fighter salaries: $672,500
UFC Fight Night 27: Condit vs. Kampmann 2
Ratings: 827k viewers
Fighter salaries: $743,000
Lets compare that to the most recent Bellator numbers I could find.
Bellator 102: Kongo vs. Godbeer
Ratings: 675k viewers
Fighter salaries: $294,500
These are their ratings with their second-tier fighters. They've already proven they can draw 938k viewers with stronger cards (Bellator 85: Chandler-Hawn, Zayats-Sobral, Curran-Pitbull).
Someone posted this on another MMA forum. I thought this was really interesting re: Fox Sports vs. Spike ratings and ad revenue. I only know some stuff about ratings and income since I am in a different aspect of TV so This was enlightening.
"I was sitting with a marketing guy from one of the big American Beer companies at the Dodgers/Cards game last week and he was showing me some numbers that blew me away. The biggest one was a story on adweek.com about FS1 pulling in literally ¼ of he viewer base is expected to generate almost 4 times the ad revenue in its first full year of operation then Spoke does in the same amount of time. Worst yet FS1 25-49 year old male median income is 60k a year while Spike is 34k a year. This is why when all those rumor sites talk about Spike rebranding the network some time next year if someone big doesn’t happen soon it is so believable too me."
B_Goetz - I don't know for a fact that they're above the break even point, but I'm pretty confident they are based on their low cost venues in places like Mulvane, Kansas and Visalia, California, their low fighter purses and multiple revenue streams. They learned from the failures of orgs like Affliction and have sought sustainability first.
So you are just making shit up. Good to know.