Elite XC vs. The XFL
by Michael Rome on Jun 9, 2008 4:58 PM EDT
in MMA News
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PrintIn light of the great ratings Elite XC got Saturday night, some have pointed out that the XFL did great at first too before failing. This convenient dismissal of the success of MMA on Network Television does not hold up.
Pro Elite did not do incredible numbers or anything, but the show's growth was spectacular. When the XFL debuted, it did a great number at first, but the ratings signs were immediately ominous. The debut game started losing viewers in the second quarter, indicating that people were completely unimpressed with what they saw. The opposite happened for the Pro Elite show, according to Dave Meltzer in this week's Wrestling Observer Newsletter:
The show opened with a 2.1 rating for the Brett Rogers v. Jon Murphy match, did a 2.4 for Baroni v. Villasenor and an increase of 280,000 viewers; increased to 3.0 for Carano v. Young by adding 1,020,000 viewers; 3.8 for Lawler v. Smith, adding 850,000 viewers; and 4.1 for Slice v. Thompson, adding 980,000 viewers. That kind of growth, where the last quarter doubled the audience of the first, is highly unusual on television.
As hokey and frustrating as I found the show, casual fans clearly liked what they saw enough to keep on watching. Elite XC isn't going to be on every few weeks, as long as they stick to doing it every few months and provide intriguing matches, they should keep doing well. It's not the XFL.
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I think the better question is—will getting more casual fans help or hurt the sport?
With casual fans comes fads, nonsense and the ‘toughman crowd’. Does MMA need, or even want, these people?
Other than for a quick buck, I think the sport can do without them. Look what happened to the NHL. It had a fanbase, while not huge, it existed. When they tried to make it more attractive to casual viewers, it went kaput.
The downfall of the NHL...
...is much more complicated than that. It wasn’t just trying to appeal to the “casual fan”. It was labour war right on the heels of one of the most successful seasons, killing momentum. It was a second labour war that wiped out an entire season (a first in pro-sports). It was misguided policies from the top of the league, desperately chasing not just the casual fan, but the NFL-style television revenue. It was arrogant and distant owners treating fans like a burden.
In the ideal situation, MMA will have enough hardcore fans (who, honestly, often start as casual fans who find they like the coffee enough to stick around and try the soup) to pay the major bills through thick and thin, with the casual fans providing occasional boosts of excitement that will make the sport lucrative for everyone. It’s not a zero-sum game between casual and hardcore. It’s a careful ballancing act of both that will make for a successful sports league.
by AJB on Jun 9, 2008 6:08 PM EDT up reply actions
True, but...
The NHL alienated many of its hardcore fans by taking a lot of the rougher elements from the game in an effort to appease “family viewing”, and making it into a game that was less than exciting, for hardcore or casual.
I’m afraid MMA will become the same. I started as a casual fan too, and still am in most respects (clearly). But the last two shows, with early stoppages because the fights got too bloody, or to mother-worry a fighter who had 20 seconds left while mounted, combined with more point deductions than I have ever seen in all UFC fights combined – I start to wonder whether chasing the casual fan going to hurt the sport as a whole.
I understand what you’re saying, but I think you’re making some leaps there. For one, parts of the NHL game really needed to be cleaned up. Many of us hockey fans never have and never will like the instigator rule; lots of hockey people do like it. It’s hard to say with that one. But the slashing and sticks to the head and intent to injure had gotten epidemic. Careers were being cut short. It wasn’t just about appearing “family friendly”. It was about recognizing that the game needed to move on from Bobby Clarke. The handling of it was clearly botched, but the motivation came from more than just marketing: hockey players themselves wanted many of the changes.
And keep in mind that the for every early stoppage lately there’s been a fight left longer than it could have been. Vera-Werdum was stopped early (some argue it wasn’t; I tend to think it was). Cane-Lambert could have been stopped TWICE before it was eventually over (I would have thought those stoppages were early too, but not nearly as much so).
There has ALWAYS been stoppages that were early, or even that appeared early but were dead on. Remember how the crowd booed and chanted “bullshit” when Herb Dean stopped the Mir-Silvia fight? Then the replay showed Tim’s arm snapping in half? How about the WAY early stop on the Arlovski-Cabbage fight? Both stops people thought were early, one the right call, the other the wrong call, and both way before the concern of chasing the casual fan was in anyone’s mind.
I simply cannot see any evidence connecting early stops to chasing casual fans. I honestly think it’s totally situational: the ref, the fighters, the fight, the day. If there’s been an abundance of bad calls lately, it seems to me that it has less to do with marketing to casual fans and more to do with a lack of experienced, trained, quality refs.
by AJB on Jun 9, 2008 6:30 PM EDT up reply actions
The XFL used gimmicky, minor rules changes and encouraged showboating. It was clearly a minor league product in a market with a very well established, dominant product (NFL) that everyone is familiar with.
EXC uses strippers, unified rules, and Phil Baroni. Even enough imo, lol.
The difference is, while there is a well established, dominant product (UFC), very few are familiar with it, so they have a chance to establish themselves amongst new fans, without that huge weight.
Now, while we hardcore fans can look at it and see the difference, many new/casual fans cannot. This is the big plus of getting on network primetime first.
For instance, if you took the Mets and the Cubs, put them in generic uniforms in some random stadium, then, took two minor league teams and did the same, the casual/new baseball fan would hardly be able to tell the difference. However, die hard Yankee fan, Don Zimmer, joe Torre or any baseball person, would see a huge difference.
While I don’t think the XFL comparison is an irrelevant one, these type of differences need to be noted.
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