If the FTC is in fact conducting an investigation it is private and we are not going to hear much from their end until they have finished doing what they do and decide whether or not they have a valid case.
The FTC will take into account several factors in determining if a monopoly exists.
Market Share
If one was to look at individual market sectors such as pay-per-view sales for MMA or event sales than it would be tough to say that there is another actual competitor.
If the particular markets are broken down, they may not all be viewed consistently. For example, there are many areas where Zuffa is undoubtedly dominant, but one area which they may not override, for example, is televised MMA fights.
Possibility of Substitution in a Particular Market
It may be taken into account that Bellator, Cage Fury Fighting Championship (CFFC) and the UFC have all been able to successfully host MMA events in places like Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Ability to Influence Price in a particular market.
Import and Export Status of the goods or services. As announced before every event, the UFC can be viewed in over 130 countries in 20 different languages.
FTC has some rumored focus placed on the possibility of cause of action for “tortuous interference”. The FTC would have to prove that the UFC knowingly convinced a party to breach a contract or prevented them from fulfilling their contractual obligations.
So how likely is it that the FTC would find Zuffa in violation of antitrust laws?
Precedent case United States v Syufy Entertainment (1990) says it’s doubtful. Syufy Enterprises was a motion picture company in Zuffa’s home town of Las Vegas which bought out virtually all of the theaters in the city with the exception of one cinema which showed primarily second run films. The eight and a half day trial was heard by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which found for Syufy for reasons that any theater had the ability to open up without barriers. The case is similar to Zuffa’s situation in that patrons of the theaters suffered no direct injury as a result of the transactions nor did the bought out competitors complain, as the prices were fair.
Nice hatchet job by UG News to carefully cull all the parts of that article that would support UFC's viewpoint that they aren't a monopoly, even choosing certain sentences from paragraphs and discarding the rest. Who is UG News trying to serve by distorting the content of the piece like this? Or is the person controlling the news scraper just so media illiterate that they think this is a good practice for posting news?
How is the UFC different than NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, etc? Those are all massively dominant in their sport, yet there still are other alternatives such as arena or international leagues. Baseball doesn't seem to have any other alternative actually.
The UFC is the dominant organization with the best fighters, highest market share, and highest prices. But there's still plenty of other organizations with fights on network television and live events.
polyvegasmma - How is the UFC different than NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, etc? Those are all massively dominant in their sport, yet there still are other alternatives such as arena or international leagues. Baseball doesn't seem to have any other alternative actually.
The UFC is the dominant organization with the best fighters, highest market share, and highest prices. But there's still plenty of other organizations with fights on network television and live events.
Those leagues have antitrust exemptions handed down by the government... UFC doesn't
smoogy - Nice hatchet job by UG News to carefully cull all the parts of that article that would support UFC's viewpoint that they aren't a monopoly, even choosing certain sentences from paragraphs and discarding the rest. Who is UG News trying to serve by distorting the content of the piece like this? Or is the person controlling the news scraper just so media illiterate that they think this is a good practice for posting news?
smoogy - Nice hatchet job by UG News to carefully cull all the parts of that article that would support UFC's viewpoint that they aren't a monopoly, even choosing certain sentences from paragraphs and discarding the rest. Who is UG News trying to serve by distorting the content of the piece like this? Or is the person controlling the news scraper just so media illiterate that they think this is a good practice for posting news?
Do you think the condensing made it seem that the potential case against the UFC was greater or lesser? I think that the original piece and the edited version both indicate equally that it is doubtful, with the tortious interference being an unknown. Whole thing is rumor anyway.
ZERO CHANCE of this happening. Also, are these real rumors or just the typical fanboi rumors and MMA 'journalists' trying to create pageviews? Seems like the FTC wouldn't waste their time with something that is obviously not a monopoly. Now if they said the IRS was investigating them, that'd be more believable and likely IMO (not that I know anything about their tax filings, it just seems more realistic)
smoogy - Nice hatchet job by UG News to carefully cull all the parts of that article that would support UFC's viewpoint that they aren't a monopoly, even choosing certain sentences from paragraphs and discarding the rest. Who is UG News trying to serve by distorting the content of the piece like this? Or is the person controlling the news scraper just so media illiterate that they think this is a good practice for posting news?
Do you think the condensing made it seem that the potential case against the UFC was greater or lesser? I think that the original piece and the edited version both indicate equally that it is doubtful, with the tortious interference being an unknown. Whole thing is rumor anyway.
I think whoever is running UG News does the site a disservice in how they except some of these stories and especially the way the headlines are often formulated by selecting certain quotes and combining them in a way that misrepresents the person being quoted. No doubt you've seen some of the threads I'm talking about.
In this particular case, I do think you'd get a different impression of the story depending on whether you read the entire article, or just read the hacked-up excerpt posted here. A bunch of examples of the non-competitive spheres of MMA business have been omitted, for example.
I think highlighting a small, unabridged portion of the article would be fine. But selectively condensing the article down and deleting whole passages is poor form for obvious reasons.
