A Sumo idea to promote more exciting fights?

Every once in awhile, people try and offer ideas to make fights more exciting and prevent "safe" fighters.

I kind of like this match sponsorship idea. Fighters sponsors have another way to get visibility, should increase fighter pay, and sponsors can pick and chose what fights they want their name associated with (I'd skip sponsoring Jon Jones for examples due to drug use, cheating, plowing hookers, fleeing the scene of a crime, etc.)
 
Possibly, except incentivising performance in a different way.
If say each boxer was given a base pay, and the winner would then get the lion's share of the sponsorship money and the other gets nothing. One could argue that it would actually lead to a safer fighter, but they would not be able to get to that position without gaining a following, typically from putting on good matches.

And you think by making this complicated system to decide who fights who would bring us better fights? Fights would be delayed (like Floyd's) all the time so they could gather new sponsors and more money. It would become all about the money then and not about the actual match itself. Not to mention cards would be all about promoting one big fight while in the past with the current system UFC has managed to bring us some epic cards. The fighters would now have yet another thing they have to concentrate on which could take time away from training. Matches would take forever to organise which would bring us less goods fights instead of more. I just don't see it working the way you intend.
 
The only things I want brought over from Sumo are the outfits and the hairstyles.
 
And you think by making this complicated system to decide who fights who would bring us better fights? Fights would be delayed (like Floyd's) all the time so they could gather new sponsors and more money. It would become all about the money then and not about the actual match itself. Not to mention cards would be all about promoting one big fight while in the past with the current system UFC has managed to bring us some epic cards. The fighters would now have yet another thing they have to concentrate on which could take time away from training. Matches would take forever to organise which would bring us less goods fights instead of more. I just don't see it working the way you intend.

I don't see how this is a complicated system:

An organization pays its fighter their regular contract pay they decide.
The organization holds an event and decides the best matchups possible.
Sponsors are then free to buy advertising on any match they choose.
50% of sponsor money goes to the org, the other goes to the winner.

My idea was to bring back the epic cards, instead of what we have now. All cards used to be epic, now there are too many. They are not going back to less events, so trying to build excitement at each event is the point.

I think there is actually a maximum amount each sponsor can spend to promote using their money towards other matches. Organizations would like to get people interested in more than one fight, since they stand to make more money.

Ya, I am not saying it would necessarily transition well to MMA, but it is just an idea. I do miss the epics cards, so if we can get back to that somehow by any method, I would be very happy.
 
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I don't mind having a disclosed base pay and win bonus. And I agree with you that belts really don't freaking matter, to most any. I am just thinking if they had more stake in being exciting and dynamic instead of trying to point fight, it might increase the amount of entertaining matches.

I don't enjoy watching professional poker. Many like watching the strategy, but I think to many, its the stakes involved. Having that element in a fight would make it more fun in my opinion. In sumo, when an underdog beats a higher ranked person and literally takes money out of his pocket in the ring, the crowd goes wild. I think it is fun.

As a former professional poker player that is the exact example i use. How many people would ever watch a poker tournament that was being played for an undisclosed amount of money?

You could be watching one right now on YouTube, Twitch, or PokerGo. But nobody cares. However, when they advertise everywhere that the main event will be played for a 10 million dollar top prize on ESPN, then dump 10 million in cash on the table before heads up starts, everybody is watching. People tune in just to look at 10 million dollars in cash in a pile.

And the suggestion I've made for the issue with fighters being boring is completely replacing win bonuses with finish bonuses and performance/fight of the night bonuses.

Right now you can have a guy like Elias Theadorougheaux win a boring split decision in the worst fight of the night and collect a win bonus. Then you could have a main card like UFC 189, where you had Stephens-Bermudez, Lawler-MacDonald, and McGregor-Mendes. Dennis Bermudez gets KO'd in the 3rd round against Stephens in a spectacular fight and gets no bonus. Lawler and MacDonald steal fight of the night. And Lawler, MacDonald, McGregor, Stephens get performance bonuses. Maybe even Mendes.

But my point is, if you lose the 2nd best fight of the night, you get no bonus. But if you win the worst fight of the night, you do get a bonus. That makes no sense from an entertainment standpoint.
 
As a former professional poker player that is the exact example i use. How many people would ever watch a poker tournament that was being played for an undisclosed amount of money?

You could be watching one right now on YouTube, Twitch, or PokerGo. But nobody cares. However, when they advertise everywhere that the main event will be played for a 10 million dollar top prize on ESPN, then dump 10 million in cash on the table before heads up starts, everybody is watching. People tune in just to look at 10 million dollars in cash in a pile.

And the suggestion I've made for the issue with fighters being boring is completely replacing win bonuses with finish bonuses and performance/fight of the night bonuses.

Right now you can have a guy like Elias Theadorougheaux win a boring split decision in the worst fight of the night and collect a win bonus. Then you could have a main card like UFC 189, where you had Stephens-Bermudez, Lawler-MacDonald, and McGregor-Mendes. Dennis Bermudez gets KO'd in the 3rd round against Stephens in a spectacular fight and gets no bonus. Lawler and MacDonald steal fight of the night. And Lawler, MacDonald, McGregor, Stephens get performance bonuses. Maybe even Mendes.

But my point is, if you lose the 2nd best fight of the night, you get no bonus. But if you win the worst fight of the night, you do get a bonus. That makes no sense from an entertainment standpoint.
I completely agree with you. Just because the UFC fucked up handling Mcgregor, everyone thinks money is a bad idea. They all fight for money, it is their profession. I can't imagine how anyone could think the UFC cares about anything but their profits. The goal is to align it so everyone benefits. If they distribute it in a more entertaining way that raises the stakes for the fighters, it would be more fun.
 
An organization pays its fighter their regular contract pay they decide.
The organization holds an event and decides the best matchups possible.
Sponsors are then free to buy advertising on any match they choose.
50% of sponsor money goes to the org, the other goes to the winner.

When you put it like that it doesn't sound all that different from how they used to have it when fighters were allowed sponsors in the octagon. Companies sponsored exciting fighters instead of exciting fights. It could work. I would just worry that they might delay fights for the sole purpose of gathering more sponsors, which is kinda what happens a lot in boxing I believe.
They really do need to get rid of having Reebok the only sponsor for fighters though. I honestly think that decision slowed the progression of MMA financially at least for the fighters.
 
When you put it like that it doesn't sound all that different from how they used to have it when fighters were allowed sponsors in the octagon. Companies sponsored exciting fighters instead of exciting fights. It could work. I would just worry that they might delay fights for the sole purpose of gathering more sponsors, which is kinda what happens a lot in boxing I believe.
They really do need to get rid of having Reebok the only sponsor for fighters though. I honestly think that decision slowed the progression of MMA financially at least for the fighters.

You're right. That is very similar to how individual sponsorship worked. The Reebok deal is probably a huge part of the problem.

I am seriously happy that you are a person that I can have a conversation with, both see each other's point, and no one is being an asshole. Cheers my man!
 
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