The problem Strikeforce has is that Fedor is still a relative unknown. The serious fan (us) will certainly watch his fight, but we also want to watch UFC 10_ and will almost certainly do so because the card in general will be much better top to bottom. The casual fan will not be drawn to Showtime as much as they will be drawn to a UFC ppv because that is what they know – Spike and PPV.

Going heads up against the UFC is just as bad an idea as giving them months in advance to counter-program.

like alot have mentioned, if they were to do this on CBS, that would make a BIG difference to me. not so much on showtime though.

I liked the idea, but a couple of things:

1) If you are going to take on the UFC and Brock I would want to do it on CBS for the following reasons:
 it’s on more homes. If you are going to take advantage of the interest generated by going against the UFC go all out. Use advertising during the NFL games and get as many people as possible talking about. When people hear the fight is on this weekend, the casual fan is not going to plop down $50 to watch it, they’re going to turn on the TV. Now you’ve introduced millions to MMA and more importantly to Strikeforce and Fedor not the UFC and Brock.
In addition, most bars that carry the UFC do not carry Showtime. But they do show CBS. Enough fans will ask for the Fedor fight that basically every bar showing UFC will also have a captive audience watching Strikeforce, You want and need to get it into these consistent, but maybe not hardcore, fans that Strikeforce also offers quality fights.
2) If you do it on CBS you can stack the card. And stack it with, if not your best, at least your most marketable fighters. Mayhem Miller is in, you can advertise on his show. Cung Le is in, he has a large following, especially in the west coast. Maybe Cyborg-Carano II. Maybe Frank Shamrock. Now you have a card that’ll attract attention, especially from the media, the fans, and those just curious.

Now maybe this isn’t possible. Maybe they can’t get on CBS yet. Maybe these fighters aren’t all available for a fall fight. In which case I’ve just laid out the plan for Fedor’s next fight – opposite Lensar-Nog in 2010.

In yesterday’s post you claimed the media rub from the first Affliction card going head to head with the UFC resulted in Affliction doing 80 percent better than was initially projected. According to whom, and what are the specific numbers to back this up? The first Affliction card was a huge money loser either way. All the extra attention did was cause Affliction to put on a second card and lose even more money.

And how does this hypotehtical head to head matchup with UFC help Strikeforce’s bottom line? Great, Kimbo did huge numbers against a taped UFC event. They still went out of business four months later, and many of the same Showtime clowns involved with EXC are still calling shots here. Creating a buzz for its own sake didn’t help Elite XC or Affliction make it in the long run. So running Fedor, who has already been the face of several promotional failures, against UFC is somehow magically going to make a difference? Sorry, not buying it.

I gladly make a sig bet with anybody

I’m sure the usual suspects from the comments will pounce soon : ).

All I can say is that I’m in agreement with this strategy.

What I think people aren’t getting is this is the best of bad options for SF. Going up against any other PPV and especially any free UFC show is a worse option.

Of course I’m sure proponents of this strategy would agree, if SF can get on CBS it would work infinitely better. But having low standards on showtime isn’t a bad thing. It makes a ‘good’ rating that much easier to achieve.

Remember – the point of this strat is NOT to steal viewers from the UFC. It’s to increase Fedor’s profile and increase the size of the pie.

He’s not. Look at the affiction shows. Arlovski and Sylvia were the big names and Fedor was nonexistance. As long as Fedor doesn’t fight in the ufc he won’t be a big draw…ever!

But hes boring. His calm and cool demeanour does not grab the casual viewer to watch him

I think you are grossly overestimating the effect that press coverage will have on the bottom line. The MMA media was all over Sharock versus Le on Showtime, and that was one of the least successful cards in Showtime’s short history with MMA.

Press coverage doesn’t mean squat. Press coverage doesn’t drive viewership or PPV buys. The only thing that drives those things is saturation bombing the airwaves with branded programming.

What we’re talking here is a very, very thin margin. On Showtime, 300k would be a bad number, and 500k would be a home run. That’s the whole advantage of running on Showtime.

Dammit Rome, stop giving them ideas. I want the UFC to win this war.

Again all of this hyperbole and dream weaving fails to take into account one simple fact and that’s reality.

Beyond the sheer ridiculousness of this, if we accept the insane premise it also depends on an even bigger factor the idea that Fedor is a draw. He isn’t he’s never been and will never be, you simply can’t co-promote something with nothing which is what SF and Fedor mean to the rest of the mma public nothing.

The problem strikeforce runs into with any kind of counter programming is the UFC brands universal recognition. Even now that MMA is far more mainstream, we all know that if you poll 100 people and ask them about MMA about 80-85 wouldn’t know what you were talking about. You call it Ultimate Fighting or UFC fighting and bingo, you’re down to like 20. the point is the vast majority of the casual viewers will respond with “strike what” when asked which event they would watch, regardless of price and would pick Brock over Fedor more often than not even if they did know strikeforce. its UFC champ, the proven king of the mountain, vrs Fedor what’s his face some fella from Japan that a minor league show we’ve barely heard of says is the best.
Even the increased exposure would not recoup the numbers that they would lose trying to counterprogram UFC, even a PPV. its like the Joliet Jackhammers going against the Chicago White Sox bankin they have one player who hits a lot of homers to steal ratings. Not gonna happen

First of all, UFC 106 is on PPV. This is essential to the strategy. Even if it is wildly successful, the very most it will do is in the 1.2 million range. Personally, I’d predict a number close to 800,000 buys given Carwin’s anonymity, but you never know until the week of the show. The UFC could headline a Spike show with two fans in the crowd and do 800,000 viewers.

The rest of your article aside, “buys” does not equal “viewers.” There is more than one person on average in front of any given television set that has bought a PPV. Nielsen “people meters” tend to keep track of total viewership, which is different from the total number of homes watching something. The point that a UFC show on Spike TV will always do more than 800,000 viewers is irrelevant if you’re trying to argue more people will definitely watch a free show on Spike headlined by oh, Bisping and Leben (to say nothing of Nate Diaz and Melvin Guillard), than will watch Lesnar/Carwin on PPV. When you factor in people sharing PPV costs and people watching at bars, 800,000 buys means at least triple that amount of viewers, if not quadruple.

I agree that putting a Fedor match opposite a Lesnar one would bring increased press and thus more interest and possibly more viewers to the Showtime card, but I don’t know how much that’s going to help them in the long run. Showtime gets its money off subscriptions. The people who purchase Showtime mainly Strikeforce, or for whom Strikeforce is the tipping point, would probably prefer that Strikeforce didn’t force them to choose between them and the UFC, at least live. Even if it generates extra viewers I’m skeptical as to how many if any net extra subscriptions this sort of match-up would generate, which is the main thing Showtime cares about.

This is of course putting aside the fact that Strikeforce throwing down the gauntlet like that might just push Dana White to go to greater financial lengths to poach talent from Strikeforce than he otherwise would have. The way Coker has tried to play down his competing with the UFC as not-actually-competing, I seriously doubt we’ll see this.

This strategy..any strategy… should be examined with a cost /benefit analysis and Rome is missing the point about the biggest cost… Fedor. The expense ratio and LONG TERM COST of Strikeforce went up huge when they signed Fedor. Huge to fight Fedor, huge to fight on cards with Fedor, huge to pay Fedor and huge to promote Fedor. Maybe not all in show #1 but most definitely increasing ‘big time’ with every successive new show. And do not forget M-1 stealing half the profits????

Strikeforce/Showtime will be working with less and less margin for every future event. They CANNOT afford to give away any audience now when ‘costs are a risin’ and I for one do not think that a sane person will honestly feel that Strikeforce doesn’t lose viewers when going against Brock and Tito That’s folly and silly internet economics. I will watch Brock and see Fedor on the net. They lost one right there.

And Romans will argue that they will gain non-hardcores from the hype. Not enough to justify going head-to-head. Not enough to think they will gain some sort of new loyalists that help them in the future, and not enough to overcome the ass-kicking they will take in the press as stupid both before and after.

I totally see where Rome is coming from but the bottom line is this, who is going to watch Strikeforce with Fedor over the UFC PPV with Brock/Tito?

We need a poll as to who would watch what. I bet the 300K that watched Carano/Santos are mostly hardcore fans that have Showtime. Those 300K will most likely watch a quality UFC PPV over Fedor facing Brett Rogers.

I agree with the reader above, I will watch the PPV and catch the replay of Fedor. I bet most will do the same.