By Ron ‘The Yacman’ Yacovetti
Commentator for Call to Arms MMA- www.calltoarmsfights.com
It’s the half-way point in the year 2009.
We’re told this recession thing is in its final throes.
Major corporations, like General Motors, is battered like a mismanaged start-up company. Yet, the Mixed Martial Arts industry continues to grow. Has it slowed in its blooming? Sure.
Nevertheless, it is not a bad idea to look at some of the things that have not only bolstered this sport we love, but also struck almost everyone as a negative at the time it happened.
ELITE XC
This MMA brand, under the parent company of ProElite Inc., received brutal reviews at almost every stage of its existence. It seemed that no matter what adjustment they did or did not make to the fans’ reaction, a ton of MMA fans simply hated it.
It is no mystery that I, The Yacman, was employed with ProElite for its entire run. My main arena was for ProElite.com.
And now that the company is gone, some web bloggers continue to beat the dead horse at any opportunity to take a shot at EliteXC despite its being expired.
However if any of them consider themselves a fan of the sport itself, then they should look at the bigger picture.
SHOWTIME AND CBS
No matter what anyone else claims, says or thinks, EliteXC broke ground with being the first MMA Promotion on premium cable television as well as being first on primetime network TV. It is an undisputed fact.
Now, anyone can suggest why they were able to, in such a way as to discredit this major achievement, but it is desperate at best.
Dana White stated that companies like EliteXC were themselves desperate and willing to give away the farm to be on those media outlets. He continued saying that the UFC would not stoop to that level, or so to speak.
The truth is, the UFC didn’t and didn’t need to accept the same type of deal that EliteXC did. They are the brand that made the sport.
It is also reasonable that different companies at different stages of development will not all be best served by the same type of deal.
No start-up promotion should hold onto as much control in a TV deal, as the UFC would’ve wanted to have with HBO or CBS.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship is a fine-tuned machine. But others, such as EliteXC, the IFL and Bodog for example, had enough to worry about without the broadcast intricacies.
That all said, EliteXC and its two television breakthroughs were not the failures many made them out to be, at all.
Plus, let us not forget that the exposure their TV deals reaped is now paying dividends to Strikeforce in its taking of the MMA baton and running with it on SHO and CBS.
EliteXC, still seen by many as a bad brand, sure did benefit MMA, some of its best fighters and Scott Coker’s Strikeforce.
MAINSTREAM = MONEY
Sorry hardcore people, but if the UFC was still like its early days, the sponsors and media attention and every aspect of commercialization would not exist either.
MMA would be like grunge music, in one day, out the next. At best, it would’ve remained a small buzz on and underground level.
Nowadays, it can be like soccer, a global success yet not quite as big a thing in the United States as the NFL or NBA.
So if you consider that, and a thinking person should, then EliteXC’s exposure on Showtime, a solid broadcaster of quality boxing, is a big deal. Additionally, the primetime expansion onto the airwaves of CBS was monumental.
Those two advances of MMA by EliteXC are like a nitrous kick in a tricked out car. It didn’t last very long after it kicked in, but man did it make a difference while it lasted.
Even the now defunct IFL played a role in this building process, along with the initial Strikeforce deal on NBC.
These promotions made steps forward and reached larger audiences, that at one time, were about as reachable for them as other solar systems are to NASA.
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