Mixed-martial arts making moves

Bob Thompson Fox Sports

By: Tom Haffarth

If there's a mixed message out there about the sport of mixed-martial arts, it's that bludgeoning an opponent into the fetal position is OK because, before long, it'll be drawing bigger audiences than boxing or fake wrestling.

The pay-per-view phenomenon of the past few years readies for another huge payday, as Ultimate Fighting Championship 68 is set for Saturday in Columbus, Ohio, with a retail price of $39.95. But the real growth has come from the acceptance of it on mainstream TV.

Lately, it's the International Fight League's new arm-twist on the every-man-for-himself concept: A 12-team league competition, giving cities like L.A., New York, Chicago, Seattle, San Jose and Portland a rooting interest. That plays right into the philosophy of Fox Sports Net, which reaches 82million homes through 25 regional channels (including both FSN West and FSN Prime Ticket in Southern California) and is banking on this IFL tribal format to set itself apart from MMA events on Spike TV, Versus, HBO or Showtime.

"We'd been doing mixed martial arts programming for about five years, going back to the old UFC days and continuing with Pride Fighting," said Bob Thompson, president of all of Fox's cable sports networks, which include Speed, Fox Soccer and Fuel TV. "One of the things we've always noticed is that any time you put it on, there's a decent ratings pop regardless of what it's up against. That alone led us to believe we have a diehard audience for the product and if we grow it, we'll have something good here.
"The IFL team concept fits into our architecture of being a regional channel first and a national network second. Now each region has a team that the FSN station can promote, like their local MLB, NBA or NHL team."

The male 18-to-34 age demographic that devours this kind of stuff might actually be skewing younger here, Thompson says. Noting the success of video games like "Mortal Combat," which is a version of mixed martial arts, Thompson thinks that programming like the IFL translates to the TVscreen for the gamer generation.

The IFL, which debuted last Friday on FSN and airs a new show tonight (FSN West, 11 p.m.), has a minimum of 11 fights per hour-long broadcast. As in other team sports, the season will climax with a Sept. 15 final set for the Forum in Inglewood.

The shows produced by the IFL includes MMA star Bas Rutten (the coach of the Los Angeles Anacondas) as a broadcaster and gives FSN 22hours of original shows, up from 13 last year.

(Source)