- Joined
- Dec 23, 2003
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In every sport, athlete pay correlates with what maximizes revenue for the owners. This is a fact that no amount of wishful thinking will make go away.
It is, unfortunately, not at all clear to me that "best fights" versus "money fights" is the best long-term revenue maximizing strategy for WME, or if they even care at all about long-term. If they don't, then money fights will continue to be the thing.
But lets suppose that WME really plans on being in this for the long haul and so they do have some interest in the long-term growth of the sport. Is money fights a losing strategy? I'm not sure. How many casual fans actually know that some Bisping-GSP is not legit? How many casual fans see Conor as anything other than the best guy fighting the best opponents (2 title fights and then boxing an all-time great!)? How many hardcore fans will actually stop watching, and does that decrease even matter compared to the casuals gained by money fights?
Maybe it will come down to who does a better job with the media: WME in convincing people that money fights are actually the best fights, or the collected hardcore fans and journalists with their blogs, sites, twitters, etc. letting people know what the real best fights are.
It would help if the sport got to the point where every top level fighter had enough money and sense to hire top level personal marketing so that everyone at the top is at least somewhat marketable, but who knows if that is feasible.
It is, unfortunately, not at all clear to me that "best fights" versus "money fights" is the best long-term revenue maximizing strategy for WME, or if they even care at all about long-term. If they don't, then money fights will continue to be the thing.
But lets suppose that WME really plans on being in this for the long haul and so they do have some interest in the long-term growth of the sport. Is money fights a losing strategy? I'm not sure. How many casual fans actually know that some Bisping-GSP is not legit? How many casual fans see Conor as anything other than the best guy fighting the best opponents (2 title fights and then boxing an all-time great!)? How many hardcore fans will actually stop watching, and does that decrease even matter compared to the casuals gained by money fights?
Maybe it will come down to who does a better job with the media: WME in convincing people that money fights are actually the best fights, or the collected hardcore fans and journalists with their blogs, sites, twitters, etc. letting people know what the real best fights are.
It would help if the sport got to the point where every top level fighter had enough money and sense to hire top level personal marketing so that everyone at the top is at least somewhat marketable, but who knows if that is feasible.
