Bellator 210 pulls 270k viewers

[null]

I don't know how someone could criticize Bellator's roster now out of anything they are doing. Bellator has a good mix of talent nowadays, not just fomer UFC fighters that they signed, but still some of the stalwarts that have been with them a long time like Michael Chandler and Patricio Pitbull. Plus they have a new generation of younger fighters that were scouted as prospects like Aaron Pico and a bunch of NCAA wrestling standouts plus a long list of good European fighters added recently to support the many Euro shows they have planned in 2019. The way that the roster has grown is one of Scott Coker's greatest successes.

 

[FrankieNYC]

it may have been a much needed cash injection but I knew the dazn deal would hurt bellators ratings.

Bellator is averaging 422,000 viewers for 2018, down 33.6 percent from last year.

Amazing how cold MMA is these days
But both UFC & Bellator should have record breaking years in 2019

 

[skylolow]

it may have been a much needed cash injection but I knew the dazn deal would hurt bellators ratings. Those who dont subscibe to dazn will just stop following bellator because they're missing out on cards and those who do subscribe will just watch


I dont believe for a second they are getting 33 million a year.

Well according to news reports its was 100 million dollar deal for a 3 year guarantee and option for two more years.

Look at the money they have thrown around its insane. Matchbox boxing deal was 1 billion for eight years, Canelo $365 millon over 11 fights, 10 year deal with J League soccer for $2 billion, and all the other stuff they been doing. Not too mention all the deals around the world the involve some of the top sports in America. Those don't come cheap either. It's mind blowing, but they have to take the conquer all approach quickly to ever make a big enough impact to survive long term. If they slowly built it, as soon as they starting seeing any success the massive streaming companies would jump in and squash them immediately.

I don't know if it will all work out. But they can become the Netflix's of Sports and get 50 milllion+ subscribers world wide they will have hit a home run.

 

[RODNEY83]

So you'd rather see Dada 5,000 fighting the reanimated corpse of Ken Shamrock? Those fights got better ratings, it wasn't a better product. Or you'd rather see them forgo signing world-class talent, just so they can say all of their talent is "Bellator only" talent? That is a ridiculous, and frankly, childish point of view. If you're running an MMA organization you want it to be the best and most relevant organization it can be. If you want an org full of completely non-UFC fighters you can go to your local shitty small org and watch a bunch of dad bods throw haymakers at each other. Coker is trying to make Bellator a legitimate organization at the highest level, any thing less would not be doing his job.

Dada 5000 vs Kimbo Slice was all Scott Coker. I'm dealing with facts, all time low ratings, no profit made under Scott Coker's tenure, and exactly who are the Bellator stars he has produced in going on 5 years in? Still Bjorn Rebney's signees for the most part, Michael Chandler, Patricio and Patricky Pitbull Freire, Douglas Lima, Andrey Koreshkov, Darrion Caldwell, Baby Joe Taimanglo, Eduardo Dantas, and MVP. Coker has attempted to shortcut by signing plenty of ex-UFC past their prime fighters or down slumping ex-UFC fighters. Ben Askren would beat Rory MacDonald today, and Ben Askren was a Bjorn Rebney signee. He signed Gegard Mousasi, who arguably lost to Bjorn Rebney's signee Alexander Volkov. Under Coker Bellator let heavyweights Alexander Volkov and Augusto Sakai go to the UFC and left Bjorn Rebney's signee Cheick Kongo out of the heavyweight tournament and we haven't seen Minakov. Give it up with the rhetoric

 

[FKA]

Bellator is done

Sorry, Scott, you should have just let Bellator be Bellator. Every Friday night, tournament structure. No freakshow fights, no RANDOM tournaments in the deep divisions while the shallow ones go under the radar, and so fourth.

It should also be renamed, Bellator was Bjorn Rebney's baby, not Coker's.

Bjorn sold out and then got the boot theres a reason Bjorn got removed and after his first year he got more money its because he had BETTER numbers.Process repeated year 2 with better numbers and an increase in bankroll for coker....he also negotiated multiple sponsorship deals and broadcasting deals making bellator money and he helped negotiate the DAZN deal.

No one wanted to deal with Bjorn no free agents were wanting in on his redundant product.


Also if bellator should be renamed so should the UFC....that name wasn't built originally by zuffa or wme

 

[Gmork]

Dada 5000 vs Kimbo Slice was all Scott Coker. I'm dealing with facts, all time low ratings, no profit made under Scott Coker's tenure, and exactly who are the Bellator stars he has produced in going on 5 years in? Still Bjorn Rebney's signees for the most part, Michael Chandler, Patricio and Patricky Pitbull Freire, Douglas Lima, Andrey Koreshkov, Darrion Caldwell, Baby Joe Taimanglo, Eduardo Dantas, and MVP. Coker has attempted to shortcut by signing plenty of ex-UFC past their prime fighters or down slumping ex-UFC fighters. Ben Askren would beat Rory MacDonald today, and Ben Askren was a Bjorn Rebney signee. He signed Gegard Mousasi, who arguably lost to Bjorn Rebney's signee Alexander Volkov. Under Coker Bellator let heavyweights Alexander Volkov and Augusto Sakai go to the UFC and left Bjorn Rebney's signee Cheick Kongo out of the heavyweight tournament and we haven't seen Minakov. Give it up with the rhetoric

Friere, Lima, Koreshkov, Caldwell, Dantas, MVP, Chandler, ALL OF THOSE FOOLS still fight for Bellator. Adding in elite, world level talent to that talent pool only enriches the product, it doesn't make it worse somehow. That's literally ridiculous. And Coker has Aaron Pico, AJ McKee, Ed Ruth, James Gallagher, Dillon Danis, Logan Storley, Juan Archuleta, Joey Davis and a bunch of other up-and-comers and prospects moving up in Bellator. Acting like he relies solely on free agents is disingenuous.

 

[Bubba32]

Well according to news reports its was 100 million dollar deal for a 3 year guarantee and option for two more years.

Look at the money they have thrown around its insane. Matchbox boxing deal was 1 billion for eight years, Canelo $365 millon over 11 fights, 10 year deal with J League soccer for $2 billion, and all the other stuff they been doing. Not too mention all the deals around the world the involve some of the top sports in America. Those don't come cheap either. It's mind blowing, but they have to take the conquer all approach quickly to ever make a big enough impact to survive long term. If they slowly built it, as soon as they starting seeing any success the massive streaming companies would jump in and squash them immediately.

I don't know if it will all work out. But they can become the Netflix's of Sports and get 50 milllion+ subscribers world wide they will have hit a home run.

the value of the matchroom deal that was reported was for the whole term but only 2 years are guaranteed. I can see Bellator getting 100m for 5 years (the report was 9 figures for 5 year deal), the gaurantee being for only 3 years.

I cant see them paying bellator 100m for 3 years. I mean who was Dazn bidding against for the cost to have gone this high? And Im sure the fees increase over time so they're probably getting the least of the money right now.

If bellator was getting that kind of money they probably wouldve been gunning after eddie alvarez and sage northcutt alot harder.

No doubt Dazn's got money but I doubt they blew their wad on Bellator.

 

[cutch]

Bellator being exclusive to DAZN would be fine, I wonder how Canelos numbers do? He has a massive fanbase but people are still reluctant to sign up for live sports streaming. All sports ratings and general TV ratings are down across the board with cord cutting, even the NFL which is mainly on free TV, it's probably going to get worse, Disney, Apple & AT& T are releasing new streaming platforms in 2019 to go along with Netflix, Amazon prime& Hulu. I would see how much DAZN would pay for a monthly show in North America & one in Europe exclusive to DAZN (UFC runs so many dates its hard to get traction doing 22 shows for the US, Matchroom are doing that with no US TV deal and nobody of note from Al Haymon or Top Rank willing to jump to DAZN or Goldenboy. Viacom could just air repeats on smaller channels & help them produce countdown shows etc, they may even turn a profit.

 

[RODNEY83]

Friere, Lima, Koreshkov, Caldwell, Dantas, MVP, Chandler, ALL OF THOSE FOOLS still fight for Bellator. Adding in elite, world level talent to that talent pool only enriches the product, it doesn't make it worse somehow. That's literally ridiculous. And Coker has Aaron Pico, AJ McKee, Ed Ruth, James Gallagher, Dillon Danis, Logan Storley, Juan Archuleta, Joey Davis and a bunch of other up-and-comers and prospects moving up in Bellator. Acting like he relies solely on free agents is disingenuous.

Now Douglas Lima is a fool? So you calling Darrion Caldwell, who won a NCAA Wrestling Championship and a Bellator Bantamweight title a fool? And so many others like Michael Chandler and former Bellator Welterweight Champion Andrey Koreshkov and former Bellator Bantamweight Champion Eduardo Dantas all fools? Just because you can't deal with facts. Facts Bellator hasn't made a profit in any fiscal year with Scott Coker at the helm. Fact 2 Bellator's ratings are awful and reached a all time low 207,000 viewers on the Paramount Network. Fact 3, Scott Coker and his staff has created the perception all by themselves that Bellator is a UFC retirement home and a UFC dumping ground. But once you start calling professional MMA fighters fools, who have accomplished a lot in their MMA careers, you just lose any credibility in a debate.

 

[bjdiaz]

Maybe they try and get on FOX once the UFC leaves? Showtime doesn't seem like a good fit, i have dish network and i think they just lost all the premium channels. So going to showtime would only make your viewership numbers worse i would think.

Honestly respect to coker for what he did with strikeforce but bjorn had bellator going in the right direction and it seems to have slowly declining since hes left.

 

[Guffman]

I've watched most of the Bellator cards since about 2012. I liked it when they were exclusively on Friday nights. I didn't even realize the last card was on when it was (would have skipped it anyways, as it was weak, weak, weak-I'm not that hardcore of a fan that I'll watch just anything they throw out there.)

The tournament era had it's issues, but also gave some structure to the big picture-something that's often missing now in Bellator and the UFC. I think it's good they are trying to bring it back, but it's just dragging out so long that I often forget about it. Pacing, both on individual shows and with the tournaments in general, is something Bellator is really poor at. Seeing the same old commercials over and over and over, along with the unnecessary between fight talk makes for a hard to watch product. Watching a typical Bellator card is not any kind of "event", like a big UFC PPV can be-it's just some fights to watch. Pick up the pace, Bellator, and you might pick up your ratings.

 

[Lucifer Alpha]

Save us Bjorn!