MMA Fans Forget Why Affliction Promotes Fights
by HonorableJudgeIto on Jan 24, 2009 12:24 PM EST
Email
PrintInteresting take. Promoted from the FanPosts by Kid Nate.
I don't think the owners of Affliction ever expected to make much of a profit off of fight promotion. Of course they'd like to, but at the end of the day, they are a clothing company. So why then put on fights in the first place? In a word: Branding.
Affliction is a LIFESTYLE clothing company. A t-shirt is a t-shirt. Affliction has made a fortune because of what it represents. You buy their clothing because you are mixed martial arts, heavy metal, etc. and you want to show off to the world that you are into these things. By having these fight cards, they legitimize their clothing brand. Phil Knight made Nike synonymous with sport and Affliction wants you to do the same when it comes to MMA.
Yes, Affliction is losing money on their fight cards. However, so does Quicksilver when they sponsor Surfing contests, when And1 has a basketball tournament, or when RedBull puts on airplane races. In each of those instances, these companies do so in order to motivate their "hardcores." As explained by Macolm Gladwell in the Tipping Point, these hardcore fans are the ones who cause the groundswell that causes others to follow a trend (That's why kids in Iowa where Quicksilver clothing even though there aren't waves for a thousand miles). If the hardcores don't think a product is cool anymore, it'll cease to exist (see: Airwalk, Converse Sneakers besides Chuck Taylors, etc.).
By promoting fights, Affliction creates a connection with hardcore fans that will ensure their brand's lasting appeal. If the hardcore mixed martial arts fan thinks Affliction isn't cool, then neither will the American consumer. At the end of the day, they are a clothing company. The fights are ancillary to their business model. In order for the clothing compnay to succeed, their clothing has to sell. Thus they can afford to overpay for Fedor Emelianenko or Josh Barnett as long as their fights sell Fedor Emelianenko t-shirts or Josh Barnett t-shirts. Fight promotion is a means to and end: selling shirts.
The FanPosts are solely the subjective opinions of Bloody Elbow readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bloody Elbow editors or staff.
46 comments
|
1 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
Edit...
Apparently Converse started making Basketball shoes again. Nonetheless, they still went bankrupt for the same reason.
by HonorableJudgeIto on Jan 23, 2009 10:27 PM EST reply actions
so your’e saying that Affliction mma is just one big ad for Affliction’s clothing line. i agree and have felt this way from almost the get-go. i mean at 1rst they probably thought they could have iit both ways,having a successfull mma org that helps promote their clothing line, but now realize that the screwed up royaly, and cant take it back.. i also thought them signing a deal with goldenboy was just to promote those Ring Magazine cover throw back tees(which are quite cool looking imo). i think goldenboy proved that when they scheduled a big time boxing match the same night at the same time in virtually the same place. the big question is, how much is Affliction willing to pay to keep this “ad” going. it seems to me that it would have been better advertisement for them to stick with their ufc deal and not have even venture into the mma biz.
This is bogus. One of the worst ad campaigns in history if true, lose millions to advertise to a market already buying your shirt. They promoted fights because they thought they could get Randy-Fedor and break through. Anything else is after the fact justification.
by Michael Rome on Jan 23, 2009 10:52 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
One of the worst ad campaigns in history if true, lose millions to advertise to a market already buying your shirt.
How would you explain all those beer ads shown on Sundays? Were those football fans a sober group at one time?
Your second comment is probably close to the truth, but they haven’t given up on getting that breakthrough.
Honestly how many hardcores buy their shirts?
I think their clothing line currently sells to alot more of the UFC TUF crowd…
Gimme 1 Round!
Your logic has a huge flaw in it, if Affliction was just wanting to legitimize their brand with fans they would of just saved themselves tens of millions of dollars and kept sponsoring fighters and merchandise on MMA shows(you know the ones fans actually watch) instead of starting their own separate organization. Quicksilver and Red bull and And1 sponsor events and athletes in other sports they didn’t create their own separate competing leagues. You are describing what Tapout does to market and legitimize their brand not what Affliction has done.
The Affliction situation would be similar to Budweiser trying to appeal to the NASCAR fan market by ditching all NASCAR sponsorships and advertising and then starting their own separate race league to compete with NASCAR. It is much cheaper to sponsor events and athletes (as Affliction does in Boxing and used to do in MMA) than to try and run your own separate sports league. Affliction built a lot of it’s popularity by sponsoring athletes in sports like MMA, it was working extremely well for them (and costing much less money) before they decided to start their own competing sports organization, if they did it as a purely marketing decision than it was one of the dumbest marketing moves ever.
I agree with your analogy about Budweiser starting it’s own racing league. So very true.
Also smart companies like Budweiser very rarely jump into something they know very little about. Affliction jumped head deep into MMA promotion with a huge budget first show. That was their first big mistake. Well maybe not first but it was a huge mistake in my opinion.
...TO MAKE MONEY.
The motive is easy. It just looks weird because they’re doing the opposite. But the answer to every question regarding Affliction is ‘money’.
by Derek Suboticki on Jan 23, 2009 11:33 PM EST reply actions
i’ll admit that it would make no sense at all for Affliction to do this, but isn’t that Afflictions forte? it would be one of the dumbest maketing moves any company has ever done, but is it beyond reasonable doubt that Afflictio really is that dumb? i mean look at just recently, they had their press conference on the same day and at the exact same time as obama’s innaguration! everybody was watching this. Affliction could have had this press conference at anytime, but instead chose the time of one of the historical events in u.s. history. i dont think they think anything out beforehand and that there is nothing out of the realm of possibility of stupidity that these guys would try.
I wondered at the start if they weren’t just playing at being a MMA promoter for the fun of it but it seems like since the first event flopped at the bank they have put effort into trying to make it work (obviously not enough). I’ve also wondered if a lot of what they were after out of this was to force a deal with the UFC for merchandising but rumor was they had that deal on the table and drunken Todd Beard blew it so who knows.
If you believe Affliction has succeeded at their reasons for putting on the fight cards, you must believe Affliction’s goals for putting on the fight cards is “lose a shitload of money.”
Branding? Laughable.
Oh, and you need to reread “The Tipping Point” if you think that has any bearing here.
For serious?
Did you know we are in high demand, Laura?
by Eugene Schelfaut on Jan 24, 2009 10:53 AM EST up reply actions
Do you know a hardcore MMA fan that actually buys affliction clothing?
Hardcore MMA fans hate affliction clothing. Just go to every mma blog and forum and create a post asking “who wears,buys or even likes affliction clothing”….
The hardcore MMA fanbase is actually the worst target for affliction – because they already have a negative disposition to the brand.
They would be better off trying to sell their clothes to senior citizens.
The casual MMA fanbase is a different story… but we know their is no such thing as a “casual mma fanbase”…
It’s the casual “ufc” fanbase.
They have made the biggest blunder by losing their sponsorship access in Zuffa.
Not only have they lost a prime target for their clothing but now losing millions for zero upside.
These vanity businesses being tax write offs is just a myth…
In order for it to work it can’t REALLY lose millions of dollars – which is the case here.
Why do you think they canceled the second show? That would have been another huge write off.
In todays economic climate you cant be losing millions – 1 dollar in cash today is worth alot more than it was just a few months ago.
Nodody is lending… that puts a hefty premium on cash.
Small countries are on sale for gods sake…
You can buy REAL assets today for pennies on the dollar.
The absolutely, best advertising platform for Affliction was UFC. They screwed that up and are scrambling to replace it, though, failing miserably so far.
I bought Banned, and I am buying tonight’s card, but as a mma fan. i would never wear one of their shirts, just not my thing.
If t-shirt sales is their motivation, the best thing they could do is get back with UFC.
If you're not submitting, you're just rolling around with another guy.
I’d hate to be in the clothing business right now. Especially with a brand that is so easy to imitate.
If I recall the tipping point correctly, reaching a tipping point depends of two types of people. Experts who know a lot about a subject and are thus relied upon for information by others, and connectors, who transmit ideas (think a carrier spreading a disease) because they know people from many different social classes or social groups. It seems to me that the experts loath affliction clothing. As Afflictions style is nothing new (it’s like heavy metal t-shirts 2.0), most people have made up their mind a long time ago whether they are willing to wearing that type of clothing. If I put on an Affliction tshirt to go smoke weed with my hippy friends, or wore one the next time the people from my accounting firm went to a bar, I don’t think any of them would see the shirt as something new or innovative and rush out to buy one.
Affliction is cool? i thought it was something fighters wore because they were paid to, and posers started wearing so they could feel in their minds that they to were a badass. my personal favorite look is the 2 sizes too small Affliction t-shirt, aged looking jeans, doc martens or a similiar boot, dark hair which is of course spiked with gel, chain wallet, tribal tattoo arm band and of course a entourage of equally douchey friends.
I want to add something to what Logic wrote about tax deductions. One of the most common myths out there is businesses take these losses, deduct them, and it just doesn’t matter. Simple math tells you otherwise. Here it is, I will make up numbers to show.
Company A, Affliction, makes 5 million dollars in profit in 2008 after all expenditures. Affliction entertainment loses 5 million. Deducting 5 million at the corporate tax rate of 40% means a savings of $2 million on taxes. Overall, there is still a net loss of 3 million dollars. A deduction is not a credit, you still lose money, it is just a way to knock down your losses a little bit if you have other gains.
It gets worse if the company didn’t make a profit. You can’t deduct below zero, so you’d have to carry over, and the time you can carry over is limited.
also
a lot of you are forgetting that tom atencio has actually competed in mma (albeit only once so far) and genuinely loves the sport. he might not be the best promoter in the world, but the man likes mma just as much as we all do, the only difference is he has the dollars to venture into the biz. come on, if i were a rich man (im talking mega rich) then i might try to get into mma promotion as well. its a far stretch, but cash enables you to do a lot of things that seem impossible.
I’d love to see the number for a Quicksilve sponsored surfing event or an And1 basketball tournament. I have a feeling that their events aren’t quite the loss leader an Affliction PPV debacle is, with emphasis on the loss rather than the leader.
Additionally, I’ve never seen any hardcore fan admit to liking any Affliction design. I’ve seen only a handful of folks wear Affliction shirts, and maybe one ever at my BJJ class (i.e. the hardcore audience).
Finally, I just want to reiterate something I said yesterday while we’re on the subject of why Affliction promotes fight cards. HDNet and Kenny Rice in particular would have you believe that Affliction began promoting shows because ZUFFA banned them as a sponsor of their contracted fighters. This is utter nonsense and it drives me up a wall whenever they perpetuate that lie. In fact, Affliction chose to start promoting fights for the reason mentioned in this fanpost; that is, they wanted to make their name synonymous with fighting. As a result, they became a competitor to ZUFFA, and as any company led by someone with half a brain would do, they chose not to allow their contracted fighters to wear shirts that quite literally would advertise another fight promotion.
Of course, Afflictions plan may have backfired. May have, not absolutely without a doubt did. I’m not sure how the company is structured, but if for some ridiculous reason the Affliction clothing brand and the Affliction promoting entity fell under the same corporate umbrella (which may not really be the term I want to use, but let’s press on), then Affliction could wind up sacrificing their clothing empire because of their hubris in promoting fight events. They may well be, as the saying goes, robbing Peter to pay Paul. But, again, without having a better knowledge of Affliction’s corporate structure, I can’t say for sure whether or not that’s the case.
Still, given Afflictions track record, I tend to assume that they’ve followed the path of the greatest stupidity, which I maintain is an indictment on Affliction rather than me or anyone else inclined to do the same.
"BJ on the BE" - Kierkegaard
They were smart enough to incorporate separately. Affliction entertainment is a separate entity, they can declare bankruptcy without fear of someone going after their clothing assets.
by Michael Rome on Jan 24, 2009 3:51 PM EST up reply actions
Hey – count me as the slim minority – I’ve been watching MMA since UFC 4 – I wear AFFLICTION shirts – I don’t care. I order the PPV’s because I want to see great fights – no matter the “label” If a fight is good – then I have a full basement full of people who watch them – we discuss their gameplan at BJJ lessons (Ricardo Almeida BJJ). I personally am sick of casual/hardcore fan labels – iof you like the fights then who the F cares. Is this a bad business model – eh more than likely – the clothes I wear tell NOTHING about the person I am – if a shirt is comfortable and it happens to have a band I like, or a fighter, well then I’m going to buy it – not just affliction, but sprawl, and sinister, or tapout, who cares – because I wear a tshirt i fall into a stereotype – get teh F outta here…..the problem is there is just too much hate – MMA (of any label) needs to be sanctioned in all 50 states – fighters should be getting paid boxers salaries – and fans can help do that buy ordering PPV’s if you think the card is worth it, or by writing a letter or an email to you state legislature (if you don;t have MMA sanctioned – not worry about who wears what t-shirt – what is this high school?
What do you mean MMA fighers should be getting paid boxer salaries?
fighters should be getting paid boxers salaries
The boxing salary model is way worse in my opinion. In boxing you got the top 1% to maybe 3% of boxers making a shit load of money and everybody else making next to nothing. How is that better?
They need to keep those top tier salaries down so that they can afford to pay the lower tier more money. The lower tier fighters need to be paid enough money so that they can afford to train full time in MMA. Also not just enough to train but enough to make a decent living so that it becomes an attractive avenue of work so that the next generation of fighters can keep the sport growing.
….and by the way my daily (non-work) out the door apparel is some shirt – khakis and flip-flops – stereotype me…..
If marketing and selling their shirts is the goal, then putting the shirts on GSP, BJ Penn, Lesnar, and Couture makes far more sense than starting their own losing organization and overpaying for fighters like Fedor, Barnett, and Arlovski. The hardcore fans aren’t exactly their target audience. FAIL.
It would help if they had designs that didn’t look like the shittiest tattoos you’d ever see this side of that thing on Alan Belcher’s arm.
"BJ on the BE" - Kierkegaard
Well, stop putting on fights and you’re back in.
by Derek Suboticki on Jan 25, 2009 12:51 AM EST up reply actions
Indeed.
It was awfully stupid of them to get themselves banned.
Bolts from the Blue // "Game over." - Jamal Williams
Bloody Elbow // "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." - H.L. Mencken
by Richard Wade on Jan 25, 2009 4:04 PM EST up reply actions
Putting on these cards is an expensive way to brand.
And Bodog was a lifestyle company as well.
How’d that turn out?
Although detractors decry (MMA) as a brutal, bloody form of human cockfighting, aficionados know it is a brutal, bloody, totally fucking awesome form of human cockfighting. -The Onion
by The Kittitas Kid on Jan 24, 2009 4:45 PM EST reply actions
yeah – and it also says I have a great job – but point taken about the wearing a band shirt or whatever – what I meant was because I wear an affliction shirt doesn;t lump me in with the too much gel, “worn out” jeans, etc. It means I like this shirt – I’m going to wear it. And it’s more like 60 bucks/shirt not 100.
I have never owned a $60 t shirt in my life, heck I have never owned a $60 pair of jeans even when I had a tremendous job. I can’t say that I have never worn clothes like Affliction sales because I wore that stuff when it was popular the first time around (mid-1980’s) and actually I would still wear that old stuff if my wife hadn’t thrown it out a decade ago(along with all my speed metal cassette tapes). I also wore out my jeans the old fashioned way, I wore them till they fell apart. I would never spend money on something pre-worn out even if I loved the way it looked.
You might not think you fall into “the” stereotype by what you wear but make no mistake what you wear says a whole lot about you, people who truly don’t care what they are wearing don’t pay big money for designer clothes. There is absolutly nothing wrong with wearing what you like or spending how ever much money you want on clothes but the very fact that you do wear what you like tells people a heck of a lot about you.
i appreciate that affliction is putting on some...
good fight cards but clothing is a joke. here’s the basic design concept, you have four basic designs you can incorporate in any shirt:
1. A Cross
2. Fleur De Lis
3. Wings
4. Skulls
Those icons are on just about every shirt. Drop down pop-off 25 push ups so your tight shirt looks good and find the nearest coke-whore chick who hasn’t eaten in a week. That’s the crowd at an Affliction show.
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
Related FanPosts on Bloody Elbow
Related FanShots on Bloody Elbow
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recommended FanPosts
Recent FanPosts
MMA Rankings
Certain photos copyright © 2012 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
