UFC’s TV landscape is about to change

The not-so-big secret that Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White is keeping is that he is working on a new television deal. Zuffa's contract with Spike TV expires at the end of the year and negotiations aren't going smoothly.

Spike stole a trick from White on June 26 and counter-programmed the live UFC show on Versus with a taped Ultimate Fight Night event. Spike then premiered the "Countdown to UFC 132" series at the odd time of 1:12 p.m., making the point to White that it can play hardball if it needs to do so.

The UFC grew up on Spike and Spike made its bones by televising the UFC, so even though negotiations have been contentious, they're good for each other and there will probably be a new deal announced before much longer.

But the UFC is going to expand its television presence and that is where things will get interesting. The UFC is a pay-per-view company as it stands now, and company co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta said that's not going to change.

Things may, however, be moving more toward the middle, where there is more product put on cable and potentially over-the-air television and some fight cards that had been on pay-per-view will be broadcast on television. Bouts on network television or basic cable are available to many millions of more people than will ever see a fight on pay-per-view or premium cable.

It's the reason why the UFC has begun showing fights that otherwise would have gone unaired as a free live stream on Facebook.

"The thing we've always been into is exposing as many people as we possibly can to the UFC, the fights and the fighters," White said.

That's probably why its new television deal is not going to include HBO, despite the recent resignation of HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg. Greenburg was no mixed martial arts fan, though it was Zuffa who walked away from a potential deal in 2007, not HBO, because it didn't want to cede control of production.

But HBO is only in around 30 million homes, while a network like Spike is in more than 90 million. Unless Zuffa works a deal with Time Warner to include programming on Turner Broadcasting, which has TNT and TBS among its networks, the UFC won't likely appear on HBO.

Fertitta said the company is talking "to all the major media players out there." And while the biggest fights are going to remain on pay-per-view, look for a multi-platform approach on the next deal that puts more free bouts on television.

NBCUniversal would seem to be a perfect partner, though talks reportedly have been up and down. The UFC already has a relationship with the entity because of its deal on Versus. NBCUniversal includes NBC, the Spanish-language Telemundo, Versus and USA Network, as well as strong online properties. The UFC is looking to expand its base with the Spanish-speaking audience and Telemundo reaches more than 95 percent of U.S. Latinos.

Being able to put programming, including live fights, on those various platforms will allow the UFC to gain as wide exposure as possible.

A deal with Disney would include many of the same options and provide outlets such as ABC, ESPN and ESPN Deportes.

Fertitta said the UFC has a desperate need for more outlets because of the number of fighters it has under contract.

"One of the things we're trying to accomplish here is trying to accommodate our business, meaning accommodate our schedule in that there are so many great fighters out there that we need to get exposure for, which means it's a numbers game," Fertitta said. "It's math. We need more fights on free TV. The more fights we put on free TV, the more we grow our fan base and we also continue to grow potential contenders that people are familiar with. People get interested in each different guy and each different matchup and their personalities and their backgrounds. They know what kind of a fighter they are. You don't want a situation where you have a champion and he's defending his title against guys you don't know who they are." Fertitta said he didn't think a broadcast channel could support the largest, and thus most expensive bouts, and said that as a result, they'll wind up on pay-per-view. The new television deal, though, isn't going to be with a single channel and will deliver the product to consumers through broadcast, cable and digital platforms.

• Though White said that the UFC will put a live show on in Japan this year, it's almost certainly not going to happen until 2012, likely in February. The UFC's schedule for this year is almost finalized, though executives are still looking at the possibility of a show this year in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, as well as at a potential November show in the United Kingdom.

• Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem has been pulled from the Strikeforce Grand Prix, but he's talking of boxing against one of the Klitschko brothers. Wladimir Klitschko is regarded as the top heavyweight boxer in the world and holds the International Boxing Federation, World Boxing Association and World Boxing Organization belts. His older brother, Vitali, has the World Boxing Council belt. Overeem would destroy either of them in an MMA match, but he'd get destroyed himself in a boxing match. Overeem needs to worry about familiarizing himself with MMA fans in the U.S. and less about things that will never happen.

• The Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas is doing a study and hoping to examine the brains of 650 active boxers and MMA fighters. Its goal is to assess the impact of fighting on their brains and to advise them when it is time to quit to avoid brain injury. It is a wonderful project that will help many fighters, though the guess is that the study will show that boxers suffer far more and far more serious brain trauma than do MMA fighters.

• Just wondering: If Dan Henderson, who says his best weight is middleweight, defeats Fedor Emelianenko in a heavyweight match on July 30 in Hoffman Estates, Ill., does that say more about where Henderson is in the sport or about Emelianenko?

• I love the idea of Cung Le fighting on the UFC 138 card in San Jose, Calif., in November.

• A thought for Zuffa officials that could encourage more action and more finishes: At the end of the year, take all of the Fight of the Night, Knockout of the Night and Submission of the Night winners and name one Fight of the Year, Knockout of the Year and Submission of the Year. Pay each of them $250,000. The fight night bonuses already encourage guys to fight harder than they otherwise might. A year-end bonus would just boost it another notch.

• My picks, by the way, for the first half: Knockout of the First Half is Cheick Kongo's stoppage of Pat Barry. Submission of the First Half is Chan Sung Jung's twister on Leonard Garcia and the Fight of the First Half is Nick Diaz-Paul Daley.

Is Tito still a big draw?

Looking at the pay-per-view numbers for UFC 132, is it fair to say Tito Ortiz is no longer a big draw and his addition to UFC 133 is not going to galvanize PPV buys or ticket sales?

Brandon Artiles
Jackson, Miss.

Let me start by saying that the UFC does not release pay-per-view numbers, so anything we say is speculation. But there is strong evidence that the number was not good and came in well under 300,000. That said, I don't think it says that much about Ortiz's ability to draw, because he was not the headliner and because it was perceived to be a one-sided fight in favor of Bader. You'll have a better gauge of Ortiz's drawing power now that he is in the main event and the public has seen him defeat a top-level opponent for the first time in more than five years.

Ortiz deserves no credit

I don't agree with the point you made about Tito Ortiz taking the fight against Rashad Evans at UFC 133 and how that shows how special MMA fighters are. I have long thought the UFC does too many shows and spreads the talent too thin. I buy very few PPVs because the really good bouts are scarce. UFC 100 was a show worthy of the PPV price! But Quinton "Rampage" Jackson against Matt Hamill as a headliner for an expensive PPV event? You must be kidding me. If they didn't spread it so thin, they wouldn't have a problem when someone like Phil Davis gets hurt. I thought it was a weak card with Phil Davis. But 1-4-1 Tito Ortiz headlining a $50 PPV UFC card? That's just embarrassing. Don't get me wrong. I love the sport, but give the consumers something worth spending their hard earned money on.

Bob T.

It's up to you how you spend your money, Bob. And I will concede I wasn't crazy with the fights at UFC 130. But as I read your question, basically, it sounds to me like you're buying fights based on big names at the top of the card. That's fine, but I think the wise approach is to took at the card in its entirety, because there are often spectacular fights up and down the lineup. But brace yourself, because there are going to be more, not less, fights in the future. UFC president Dana White said the day isn't that far away when there will be two cards running simultaneously in different parts of the world.

It's all about the Benjamins

MMA fighters step up to take bouts on short notice not for the reasons you said, but because they don't make a lot of money relative to other professional athletes and now the UFC is the only major show in town. Please let's not act like Tito Ortiz or any fighter is doing this for the fans or the UFC. It's always about money. Speaking of money, for every young fan the UFC gains, someone like me in their 30s refuses to pay UFC president Dana White and the UFC a monthly PPV fee to be a fan of MMA. Now with aging superstars and the legends tour (Randy Couture, Anderson Silva, Forrest Griffin, Chuck Liddell, Matt Hughes, Rich Franklin) coming to end the UFC is in trouble.

Hank
New York

The UFC has created a middle class of fighters that doesn't exist in boxing. In boxing, there is a tier of fighters that makes extraordinary amounts of money, but while they account for more than 98 percent of the purse money, they account for less than two percent of the overall fighter base. In MMA, the top guys don't make nearly what guys like Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Manny Pacquiao do, but the middle class of MMA makes far more than boxing’s middle of the pack. Ortiz is getting paid, to be sure, but he is taking a risk by taking the fight and if he gets blown out, he's on the chopping block again. He deserves credit for accepting that risk. As for your last point about the Legends Tour, you are right that the old guard is departing the scene. That's the natural order of things. Nolan Ryan was once the Texas Rangers' star pitcher. Now he's the owner. Old stars wind down and retire and new stars come in to replace them. The interest from the various networks in the UFC shows they're not slowing down.

"I think it was in the third round and he was on his back and I was standing over him, punching him, and his corner was yelling at him loudly and he looks at me and says, 'Don't you hate that when your corner is yelling at you to do something and you can't do it? I would do it if I could.' It was really funny and it kind of caught me of guard. I said, 'Yeah,' and kept punching him." – Jake Rosholt, talking about his win at Shark Fights over Matt Horwich.

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