Bellator could move from its current Saturday night slot according to Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney. MMA Junkie reports that “it remains to be seen” where the promotion will place its sixth season which starts in the first quarter of 2012.
Via MMA Junkie:
Bellator, which has promoted 54 shows since its 2009 debut, now airs on MTV2 on Saturday nights. But those events frequently face competition from the UFC, Strikeforce and other weekend-loving promotions. And though it’s hard to determine if it’s solely that competition that’s affecting ratings – season-five Bellator events have peaked with up to 269,000 viewers and recently bottomed out with 103,000 – MMA fans often are forced to make a choice.
Bellator’s move could depend on whether it will move to Spike TV. And that move will depend on whether the UFC will purchase the rights to its library from Spike as Spike has retained the rights to it for 2012. The network cannot feature another MMA promotion so long as it has the rights to the UFC library.
Payout Perspective:
A move to another night is not as simple as one might think. Rebney points out the ease of selling tickets to a Saturday night event as one reason Bellator remains on Saturday night. However, viewers would have a better chance of watching Bellator programming if it moved to another night when it does not go up against the UFC. Of course, without the NBA, Bellator has one less competitor on Saturday nights the first quarter of 2012. It would mainly have to work around UFC PPVs.
Another option could include holding events on another night and giving away the event tickets to ensure attendance while finding other ways to recoup the gate revenue. It could also just move its start times on nights of the UFC PPVs although that move could become confusing since it could lose viewership if people are confused about the start times.
As a viewer I enjoyed having Bellator on Thursdays. Fridays I like to watch Friday Night Fights and whatever is on HDNet or Showtime and Saturdays are for the big shows – UFC, SF, Boxing (Showtime, HBO and PPV). Not that I think Rebney should relegate his promotion to also-ran status by avoiding the big Saturday night and slightly less big Friday night slots, it just made it easier for me to consume all of the fight sport options available in a given week.
I love to watch Top Rank Boxing on Saturdays, but too often I miss it because there are so many other things on. Up to now I make it a point to catch every Bellator show (especially now that I can get it on HD) but it’s tough some weekends.
On another note, what a great problem to have. There is so much boxing and MMA on that I can’t keep up.
A bit off topic, but… could Spike TV not broadcast the Bellator replay?
I noticed this from the MMA junkie article:
Spike TV owns the UFC’s library rights until 2013, and as long as that’s the case, a competing organization’s live shows can’t air on the cable station.
If this is the case, I wonder what truly constitutes ‘live’ programming? We know Spike wants to broadcast Bellator, I wonder if they could get away with preempting the broadcast, 15min, 30min, 1hr?
EK,
Interesting idea. There must be a legal definition. I would guess “live” refers to a show that has previously aired, otherwise just put the sucker on 5-second delay and show it on Spike.
I wonder if the MMAJunkie article is accurate when it mentions live programming in the first place. It must be that Spike can’t show any MMA footage from another promotion. If not, Bellator should be pushing for Spike to do an “Unleashed” type show with Bellator footage. There have been some great KOs and submissions in Bellator. Spike could alternate UFC and Bellator shows when they do their Unleashed marathons and substantially raise Bellator’s profile. How about leading or following TUF with a Bellator greatest-hits show? I’m guessing they aren’t doing that because they can’t under the current terms of the deal.