I agree that it looks pretty hopeless. I think they’d have a chance at success if they could keep going through next year, but they won’t have the money to last that long, and they’d have to market better than they ever have before.

Most of these upstarts in the MMA market fail to recognize the enormous amount of brand equity the UFC has amassed. Even if they can steal their fighters, they can’t steal that branding they’ve done such a good job building.

Strikeforce has the best shot at long-term survival of the current crop of US upstarts, because they seem intent on building their image while keeping their business within bounds.

Rome, thanks for breaking that down, I am not savvy at all when it comes to business. My question, if CBS and Showtime have some significant stake in the company, how come they are not putting a lot of money into it? Dana White looks pretty smart walking from this deal. It seems that their biggest mistakes was purchasing most of them smaller farm systems and not getting any significant results out of it.

Also, don’t mean to get off topic but how much, financially, is Trump backing Affliction. It seems like he just only has his name on it and Affliction is paying him.

You mentioned the problem with having shows every 3 months, and that’s a big one.

I think Elite could make it work, but they really are going about it wrong. They don’t have the depth the have shows as often as the UFC, but when was the last time you saw a UFC show that wasn’t laying the groundwork for the next show?

Every time the UFC has a card, they can advertise ALL of the details about at least the next event, who, where, when, etc.

Elite tried this with the last CBS show by pushing that Kimbo an Gina will be on the next show, but they should have had opponents lined up first. Because of Kimbo and Gina, this will probably do better than the second show, but they are just shooting themselves in the foot if they don’t have at least 2 matches confirmed for the 4th show that they can start advertising at the third show.

I posted a breakdown, on another forum, last night. Here is part of that:

One thing I found interesting was that while they got 900k from CBS/Showtime, it cost them 500k. So Adding CBS brought them only 400k. As I had pointed out at the time of the deal, the actual amount that CBS is paying is little.

Elite actually made more (1.2 million) in the first three months of the year just with Showtime.

As of the end of June, Elite had 3,460, 239 in cash. So Elite has about the same amount of cash right now as they did at the end of the first quarter (3.6 million at that time).

As has been said elsewhere, Elite is looking to secure more financing so they can continue.

Elite will be a leaner company from here on out, with fewer employees. This is not going to make things better all by itself, but will help.

The key for Elite will be using the next CBS show (or two) to build for PPV. It goes without saying that they need to deliver strong ratings for the next one or they will be in critical condition. A poor rating will make it hard to get advertisers to sign on board for a fourth show. Bad ratings and poor advertising revenue would cause CBS to dump them.

What I see as Elite’s biggest problem is they have not built up any stars, nor have they increased the depth of their roster.

Since getting the CBS deal, who have they signed? Nick Thompson and Yves Edwards come to mind. Who else?

The UFC has signed a whole slew of IFL guys (Markham, Gusamo, Wilson, Andy, the Millers, Horwich) as well as folks like Dan Hardy.

Affliction has signed Jay Hieron, Horodecki, Rothwell and Nelson.

Ryan Schultz has gone to Japan.

Strikeforce has even built their roster up more than Elite.

As the IFL crumbled, Elite should have jumped in right away and signed some talent. It would not have cost much and they could have picked up 2 or 3 talented fighters.

So now they have had two CBS shows and there is not one guy that folks are talking about. I am not even saying they should have made a superstar, I just mean a fighter that had folks talking at work the next day.

Right now, Elite needs to look long and hard at the rosters of KOTC, CR and the other smaller companies they own and decide who has what it takes to play on the big stage.

Where I them, I would look at Jason Miller. I think a Lawler/Miller bout could do well, even if it is just on television.

See if Frank Shamrock has any interest in facing Robbie Lawler. I really doubt he would take that risk, but it could garner interest.