Mixed martial arts business has changed

The mixed martial arts industry was shaken up in the past week, and for the foreseeable future, nobody is going to fully have a handle on what the future may hold.

The past week has featured the two most successful non-UFC brand televised events in North American MMA history, and the announcement that Donald Trump has taken an equity stake and become the public face of the fledgling Affliction promotion.

But the industry was changed most dramatically last Saturday night.

Elite XC's ratings performance on CBS showed that not only is MMA viable network prime time fare, but that it doesn't necessarily have to be UFC. The next night, World Extreme Cagefighting, a sister promotion to UFC, drew one of the biggest audiences in the history of the Versus network for the featherweight title match with Urijah Faber vs. Jens Pulver.

"I consider it a victory for everybody," said Strikeforce president Scott Coker, whose own company, based partially on Saturday night's success, is currently in negotiations with NBC for a similar prime time live show. Strikeforce airs a 30-minute taped show on the network airing in various markets between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. late Saturday/early Sunday.

But UFC President Dana White obviously sees things differently, calling the Elite XC show a disgrace on ESPN earlier this week, and in particular criticizing the freak show nature of using Youtube backyard street fighter Kimbo Slice as the headliner and focus of much of the promotion.

The Elite XC show from Newark, N.J. did a 3.0 rating and 4.85 million viewers, peaking with a 4.1 rating and 6.51 million viewers after 11:30 p.m. Eastern for the Slice-James Thompson match. It was both the most viewers for a show as a whole, and for a single match, in North American MMA history.

In males 18-34 and 18-49, it was one of the top ten shows on network TV for the week, and did it on a Saturday, by far the hardest night to draw those viewers.

"You'll never see those kind of numbers for young viewers on CBS on a Saturday night unless it's the NCAA basketball tournament," noted Kelly Kahl, the senior executive vice president of programming operations for the network.

Also significant is that the audience grew by large amounts from start- to-finish. There were roughly double the number of viewers at the end of the show as there was for the beginning, something virtually unheard of in television. In many markets, the Kimbo Slice vs. James Thompson main event did numbers that nobody but Saturday Night Live can do in the 11:30 p.m. time slot. And on a national basis, the Gina Carano vs. Kaitlin Young match added 1,020,000 new viewers to the broadcast.

Whether it was people calling their friends to watch, or channel switchers being compelled to stop, the huge growth also indicated new viewers who were sampling. And because the growth continued until the end of the show, something intrigued the audience enough to stay for the duration.

The WEC card did a 1.44 rating and 1.54 million viewers, the largest number except for NHL Stanley Cup playoffs or the Tour de France in the history of the network, and drew station-record numbers in males 18-34 and 18-49.

A lot of comparisons were made between Elite XC and the debut of the XFL, Vince McMahon's pro football league, in 2001, also on Saturday night, given the XFL had a phenomenal first week rating (a 9.5), but within weeks numbers fell so fast it was considered one of the greatest flops in the history of television. The big difference is the ratings pattern. The XFL debut game saw viewers tune out starting in the second quarter, which was a bad warning sign from the very first broadcast.

Because it was on CBS, another key is the audience make-up was very different from major UFC events. UFC is very strong among Males 18-34, but doesn't do nearly as well with older viewers. Like UFC, the Elite XC show didn't do well with teenagers, but it drew just as well with men 35-54 as with the 18-34 group it was expected to draw.

One would suspect many, if not most of the new audience were first-time viewers, and nobody was turning it off. It was hardly the highest quality fight show of the year, or the week, but as a television show when it comes to reaching a new audience for the network, its goal, it was a huge success.

"We were thrilled with the advertiser response," said Kahl, who noted Capcom and Rock Star Video Games, who normally don't advertise on the network, jumped on board for the show and the network sold out its ad inventory.

For Elite XC, the goal of the first show had to be simple: Do well

enough to get a second show. But the second show is the real key to whether Elite XC is going to be successful on CBS. The second

show, tentatively scheduled for late summer or early fall, won't have the novelty value nor the publicity, both good and bad, associated with the first show. The goal of a second show is of course, to try and get a similar rating, but more, it's imperative they build some main event stars.

UFC's first special on Spike TV opened at a 1.9. Over the next three years, live specials have ranged from a 1.1 to 3.1 rating, largely depending on the hype, name recognition and grudge match factor of the main eventers.

Which leads to the all-important question. Did Slice lose significant drawing power with an unimpressive performance? Clearly his ability level was exposed to hardcore fans as someone with his weak takedown defense and a limited ground game.

For all the criticism directed his way, Slice is tougher than most heavyweights with only three professional fights, but they also aren't put in national main events. Anyone who knows the sport could see that fighters with a similar level of experience like unknown UFC heavyweight Cain Velasquez, or better known Brock Lesnar, would likely beat him in rapid order.

But Slice also came out of the fight with more mainstream talk than any fighter in history. He is the key to the success or failure of a second show, and it's something with so many variables that nobody can predict.

Slice is limited in ability and while he may retain popularity for years even if losing (witness the career of Tank Abbott), he is not someone who can carry a promotion long-term.

Carano, long-term, is the ultimate Catch-22. She has the potential to be the next Mia Hamm, as an athlete who can be marketed as a national star, because, like Hamm, she has the unique ability to appeal to both male and female viewers. If she does hit big, she's going to get so many outside opportunities that she won't be able to continue as a fighter. And if she doesn't hit it big and stays as a fighter, well, she didn't hit it big.

The truth is, UFC's numbers for its two biggest television events on Spike, the 2006 Ortiz vs. Ken Shamrock match and the Sept. 8, 2007 Quinton Jackson vs. Dan Henderson UFC light heavyweight title vs. Pride light heavyweight title unification match were more impressive than Elite XC's numbers.

Jackson vs. Henderson peaked at 5.92 million viewers. Ortiz vs. Shamrock peaked at 5.89 million viewers, but both of those figures include people who watched it live and on DVR recording. It's possible adding DVR viewers that the Slice vs. Thompson match will approach the 7 million viewer mark. Either way, UFC's biggest events were on Spike, a generally low-rated cable network, but still reached almost the same number of viewers as something on network television, with more potential viewers a lot higher profile.

As for Affliction, the promotion also announced the signing of Andrei Arlovski, the former UFC heavyweight champion, who will face former top International Fight League top heavyweight Ben Rothwell. The match will be part its pay-per-view offering on July 19 from the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., headlined by another former UFC heavyweight champion, Tim Sylvia, facing the consensus greatest heavyweight in history, Fedor Emelianenko.

The signing of Arlovski is a key moment because it follows what has been an exodus of big names from UFC.

Affliction, with Emelianenko, Sylvia, Josh Barnett, Arlovski, Rothwell and potentially Randy Couture, has a more established heavyweight roster than UFC.

"You can have great fighters, but if you don't get the ratings, it's irrelevant," said Trump at the press conference held in New York on Thursday.

"And I've always been the big ratings machine."

But to get ratings, you first have to get a strong television clearance. Certainly Trump's involvement can only be a positive in making the necessary deal before a second show in the fall or they'll be knee-deep in red ink by the end of the year.