Bellator's Bjorn Rebney Believes in the Week-to-Week Model
by Luke Thomas on May 6, 2009 7:10 AM EDT
in MMA News
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PrintAriel Helwani explains:
Bellator will not have any trouble differentiating itself from the competition. Their model is to hold approximately 12 weekly shows in different cities per season. This is an ambitious goal because it doesn't allow for much time to promote events, matchups and fighters. However, Rebney believes that his week-to-week model will be the key to Bellator FC's success.
"The thing that we've tried to do, which makes us different, is we've tried to create objectivity," he said. "We've tried to create a dynamic in the fighting sports that really hasn't been created in the fighting sports in this country in MMA or boxing, where fighters control the ability to become champions themselves (and) where there's not a matchmaker sitting behind a desk saying, 'Hernandez vs. Johnson. Oh, I can sell that.'
"... I think you gotta be week-to-week. I think you got to just consistently put on higher-level, more exciting, more compelling fights with great back stories behind the fighters to build to that crescendo. I think that once a month programming is a very, very difficult dynamic to be able to capitalize on to get to that promise land."
I admire the value-add Bellator is trying to incorporate here, but I have some apprehensions. Most notably, my experience in attending and being a part of local or regional shows - shows, mind you, that already have some measure of brand recognition in their operating territories - is that the middle level shows that have promising talent with at least moderately well-known commodities still require time to cook. It's not a rush to boil the water, but to slowly simmer. The shows outside of the UFC and perhaps Strikeforce need time to penetrate the local media, galvanize the local fan base and position the fighters/their fights in the proper limelight and context. Without the UFC's muscle and popularity, that simply takes time. Perhaps the business model Bellator works under somewhat minimizes the need for live gate attendance with television rights fees, but if Bellator is expecting to fill arenas on the strength of "competitive MMA" without coveted and adored local fighters who've spent sufficient time parading around the community and local media, I've got my doubts it can work.
Here's to hoping they prove me wrong.
UPDATE: USA TODAY's Sergio Non points me in the direction of an interview he did where Rebney states he uses a business model such that the casinos they use for venues are the ones who are in charge of and worry about attendance. I've seen this model proposed for other fight organizations and clearly it buys Bellator some time, but Rebney alluded to the possibility of the show drawing anywhere from two thousand to six thousand attendees. I don't have all of their attendance figures in front of me, but if memory serves me correctly they've yet to clear three thousand. Perhaps all in due time, particularly if the show moves to ESPN 2 and is aired live. We'll see.
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Getting on ESPN would be huge for this model. You don’t go to the fight to see fighter X, you go to the Bellator show. Like a touring rock concert. Like HFestival. Sure you want to see fights when you get there, but the name is the feature people come to. They don’t have a name without ESPN. The UFC trades on both name and fighter rep. Bellator has neither currently.
I get all that. I’m just asking: does that actually work? I’m not so sure it does. It might, but I’m unconvinced until I can see it.
And shit, I went to HFStival in 2000, but I went to see Rage and STP.
but most of the tickets were sold by the time they anounced the bands. They are banking on selling ticket to Bellator, not the fights on the card. Like after HFS was dead and they held HFStival in baltimore a few years. My main point is No ESPN = No Bellator. They need it and Deportes won’t cut it when they are running shows in the north east. There are not enough eye balls for that on deportes.
I’m inclined to agree. I predict the ESPN logo probably dominates the signage, because even ESPN Deportes has more brand recognition than Bellator. I turned it on after the Manny Pacquiao fight, and my friends were confused at the “different kind of UFC,” but stuck around because they saw that it was on an ESPN channel. Once they get English-language offerings, they might find an audience, because the fights are exciting, and the show is pretty “sticky.”
Every new promoter has a “new” business plan for MMA. I have yet to see one succeed outside the UFC. Strikeforce is still in the working out phase of going national, and yet to be proven at that level.
I don’t think being on ESPN would really have a huge impact on their live gates. It’s very hard to get good crowds to smaller level shows. And that is exactly what Bellator is.
Plus, having a weekly show is instant burnout for fans. 12 straight weeks? Even a devoted fan as myself wouldn’t watch every show.
I believe if Bellator gets onto ESPN or ESPN2, it will make a nice show, but not really have a huge impact on the sport. It will be filler TV, not something people actively engage in like a UFC Fight Night or HBO Boxing.
But you don’t have to watch every show. It’s an ESPN network, with the Mothership having a viewership of 90 million households. And between the synergy, a weekly show doesn’t demand fanatical viewership, just a sliver of the fanbase who watches semi-regularly, but is constantly rotating. The true test would be the Finale, which is meant to gauge whether they’ve succeeded in capturing the stray eyes who’ve stumbled onto their product. I’d say that it’s about establishing a ceiling, and continuing to raise that ceiling every year.
But is that going to produce enough revenue to keep the company afloat.
Dana got shit for not taking a CBS deal before Elite, but it came out after the fact that CBS wasn’t offering enough money for the thing to make business sense.
Yes, it would be great if they were on ESPN weekly. But if they aren’t getting enough money out of it to survive, what’s the point?
That’s the question. Will ESPN pay them enough to keep the company alive. Nothing else really matters, because the exposure doesn’t count for anything if the company doesn’t exist anymore.
Everything they do seems to be working with flat fees which allows them to predict future cost and income but it also puts a defined cap on how big they can get. They can stick around as long as they keep their ratings but I just don’t see how they can grow with this business model unless they break out enought to demand huge fee increases from ESPN and the casinos where they hold their shows and I don’t see where they will be able to break out unless they can sign higher drawing (and thus way more expensive) fighters.
hmmm
my concern would be the dilution of the talent pool by running weekly shows. at some point that’s gotta happen. and with every mook who can build a ring/cage trying to run shows these days, you could argue it’s already happened.
But the bigger Bellator gets, the easier it is (arguably) for them to attract talent. And with so many organizations signing guys to non-exclusive deals, they might be able to acquire a few hot prospects every year in each weight class.
Have you seen Bellator contracts? They are more controlling and exclusive than UFC contracts.
A man should never waste an opportunity to keep his mouth shut.
I know that. But I was assuming that if they ever needed to draw upon a more extensive pool of fighters than they already have, they could use shorter-term deals or special deals with guys who are signed to other organizations, like Alvarez is.
Umm, they better start signing a whole bunch of new fighters if this has any hope of working. Is he expecting someone to fight multiple times in his12 week tournys? That sounds like a lot of wear and tear to me. Maybe he should just ask them all to live in the same house together and train in teams. jus messin
Filling arenas isn't Bellator's problem...
…it’s the venue’s problem. Bellator gets a flat fee from the venues. See my interview with Rebney back in January:
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/mma/post/2009/01/65356713/1
(It actually ran on the old site, but this is the new URL)
“…the vast majority of the events we do, probably 90% of the fights we do are going to be done according to what’s called a site-fee arrangement with different casinos across the country. Ninety percent of the fights that I did in my previous fight promotion experience were done pursuant to a site fee.
“The most difficult part of being a promoter is selling tickets; placing advertising; working with the Ticketmasters of the world. That is a very labor-intensive, very time-intensive part of this business. The focus of a promoter, in my eyes, in MMA should be putting on incredible show; producing it from a television perspective so that it looks like a million bucks, so that it’s great TV viewing for the audience; and putting together highly competitive match-ups and making sure that as many of those match-ups as humanly possible stick.
“So what we do is, we go out and we structure alliances with both First Nations and non-First Nations casinos across the country, where they pay a set fee and they get the nationally televised event. They pay us a certain amount of money and we, in turn, are able to take that really large, really labor-intensive part of the business out of the equation.
“And also from a business perspective, you go into your events and you know what your margins are going in. In other words, it takes kind of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey aspect out of the fight business. You’re not desperately chewing your nails to a nub the night before the show, hoping against hope that you have a big walk-up. You know what the numbers are coming in. You know exactly what you have in terms of revenue. You know exactly what you have in terms of expense. It boils the fight business down to more of a business and less of a risk, which from the operational perspective is always a good thing to do, if you can do it effectively.
Q: So you get your set fee and it’s up the venue to make its money back.
Yeah, you get your set fee. … They sell all of the tickets and they get all of the concession rights and all the parking.
But also, the biggest part of the equation that people don’t take into account is, casinos have an alternate means by which they make money on mixed martial arts events. It’s the primary driver behind why casinos buy mixed martial events, and that’s what’s called the drop.
What that basically means is, a casino will buy a nationally televised, high-level mixed martial arts event because that event will draw two, three, four, five, 6,000 people to their venue. Ultimately, when that event is completed, those people who are at the venue, at the casino, leave the venue, go into the casino for a night of fun and gambling. And ultimately that affects the amount of revenue brought into the casino that night and it disproportionately affects it in a very positive way.
Casinos, 99 out of 100 times, don’t get into structuring deals with major mixed martial arts promoters and groups so that they can sell the tickets. The tickets are part of the equation, but a bigger part of the equation is being able to draw the right kind of consumer to the casino property so he or she leaves the event and ultimately gambles. And that’s where they make a large percentage of their money.
by Sergio Non on May 5, 2009 11:39 PM EDT reply actions 3 recs
Great stuff. The casino angle I never thought about with Bellator. There are casinos nation wide that are the right fit for what you are saying. The UFC would never go to them because they are simply to big (in most cases). But the issue with a flat rate, it variable cost as the business grows. Very interesting to say the least.
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