Sports media company, IMG Media, has signed a three year agreement to represent and distribute all media rights for MMA events put on by World Series of Fighting. WSOF plans on expanding the number of events as well as holding events outside the U.S.
Via press release:
Plans are in place to expand the number of WSOF events to 8-10 for 2014/15 and for the shows to be staged internationally in venues such as Vancouver, Brazil, the UK, and Eastern Europe.
NBC, who has shown the first five WSOF events live on NBC Sports Network in primetime, have a multi-year deal for exclusive coverage in the US.
Hillary Mandel, IMG Media’s SVP, Head of Media North America, said: “MMA continues to be a highly sought after and highly-rated sport with very attractive male demographics. Even though WSOF is less than a year old, it has been exceptionally well-received and has attracted top quality fighters, both experienced and up and coming.”
She added: “We see great potential for ‘blue chip’ fight programming and the value of distributing a series with high-level production values that has a strong foundation through its management, broadcast partners and investors.
Payout Perspective:
Is this an aggressive business move on the part of WSOF? Too soon for a company that is only going into its 5th event? Certainly the expansion of number of events and holding them outside of the U.S. is a sign of its plan for global expansion. With IMG on board, WSOF can ensure itself that it will have every opportunity to see whether expanding into different markets will pay off.
According to its web site, IMG “is the world’s largest independent distributor of sports programming, distributing over 20,000 hours of content to major global broadcasters annually. “ It boasts of over 40 years of advising its clients on how to maximize the value of their assets. We shall see if it can do this for WSOF.
Flop for sure
Shades of victor cui and onefc. he keeps coming with these lofty claims that never seem to materialize . I am pulling for wsof of course.
Yup onefc is all hype keep signing fighters long term but giving them no fights..I think cui just wants fame for himself in the MMA world…likes doing those expos ….but few promotions…wants to be Dana white of asia…lol….
I do like onefc by virtue of allowing soccer kicks and knees to a downed opponent(no stomps but it’ll have to do) ,and because fighting in a ring makes it more of a sport, and(to the uninitiated) less a perceived fight to the death .
Announcements about who you will be working with or what you are about to do are always lame. Save your announcements for when you are actually guaranteed to make something happen or release a product, not before.
I remember when Affliction announced at some event that they are working with Donald Trump or some crap. I knew then they were going to fail. Definitely a crappy press release for WSOF.
I think i saw trumps wamma belt at the goodwill hahaha.thanks for that as i had forgotten about that.
aintitthetruth, OneFC don’t use a ring, it’s a cage they have used since they started, KSW are probably the biggest org using a ring now, even M1 have some kind of TNA wrestling shaped ring, with netting.
Someone has to explain to me how WSOF is even alive. Meltzer said they sold only a few hundred tickets to their last event. NBCSports pays them nothing. How on earth can they do more events when they bleed money? And it sounds like IMG thinks they are jumping on the MMA fad. That fad is over. And the Bellators and WSOFs of the world will be the first to feel it.
Oops!
MFC has a ring. although i think ksw does have more names,even if they are largely washed up. Netting reminds me of ivc; you can’t escape by rolling out. seems more like a sport when you have the option of taking a penalty a la jorge santiago to avoid getting finished.