MMA Fighting reports that Shine Fights is moving its September 10th lightweight tournament from Fairfax, Virginia to a yet to be determined venue in Oklahoma. The reason for the change appears to be its promoted fan voting for matchups.
From MMA Fighting:
According to a source close to the promotion, the issue at the heart of the move was a marketing push by Shine that gave fans the opportunity to choose the matchups for the first-round bouts in the tournament. That apparently didn’t sit well with Virginia’s commission, which operates under the Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation. The commission wouldn’t issue Shine a license because of the fan matchmaking, the source said.
So the promotion had to seek a state that would sanction the tournament, given the unique situation of the promotion letting the fans play matchmaker, and a new venue. Shine’s official website still had the event listed for Virginia as of Saturday morning, along with a link to purchase tickets.
Payout Perspective:
As of Sunday night, the site of the event remains Fairfax, Virginia. If the report is true, the last minute change does not bode well for the success of the event or the company. Without the name of a venue in Oklahoma, how does one purchase tickets. Furthermore, how will Virginia ticket holders seek a refund? According to a previous report, a license was issued to Shine Fights by Virginia. This appears to be incorrect.
A necessity in marketing is performing research to ensure that the execution of the promotion is flawless. Failing to check with the Virginia commission to see if fan matchmaking was acceptable was another misstep by a company that has not a good year with putting together events. It is understandable that a young promotion would want to draw fan interest by standing out with a unique event. However, this is the second occasion where planning and attention to detail have fallen short.
We could be in store for another case study on how not to put on an event thanks to Shine Fights. It should be interesting to see what this week brings for Friday’s event.
Orgs like this one make you appreciate the WEC, UFC and Strikeforce
Bellator as well 🙂
Forget Bellator, they are losing millions!!
Via MMA Junkie, Twitter message by Shine Fights COO confirms move.
http://mmajunkie.com/news/20545/fridays-shine-fights-lightweight-grand-prix-moves-from-virginia-to-oklahoma.mma
Unfortunately things like this have been going on since the start of MMA/NHB. I remember a few years back there was a mma event during sturgis bike week. One of the promoters of the festivities ran off with all the money and they couldnt pay the fighters. You used to hear about these scumbags on a weekly basis. But with the growth of MMA more promoters are making money and running events but the scumbags are still out there just as much as always but you just dont hear about like before. But when things dont work out you see them take off letting someone else hold the bag.
http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=12534&zoneid=13
Looks pretty bad… no government regulation for this event means that the onus for safety and payouts is on Shine. Let’s hope we don’t hear about more unpaid fighters in the near future, and let’s REALLY hope there are no major injuries and that Shine provides the proper medical staff for the event.