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That's a good point and might work. Not sure it will be worth it in the long run but worth a try.
Bellator 169 Does 643k Viewers, Bellator Kickboxing Does 316k
- Thread starter CC27
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That's a good point and might work. Not sure it will be worth it in the long run but worth a try.
Jason Floyd @Jason_Floyd
Bellator 169 peaked during Gallagher vs. Taylor and is the most-watched Bellator MMA international event to date
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Bellator should throw some promotional weight behind Gallagher. Real promotional weight. This card wasn't really promoted in the states, yet Gallagher seemed to be the top draw.
Was also rewatching the fights from this event, and heard the commentators say that the event was sold out. Not sure if the entire arena was sold out, or only the sections that were made available(if some were indeed closed off). Still, not bad for a 20 year old kid. No wonder they are already looking to re-sign him.
Throw some weight behind the kid; he has the potential to be a solid draw.
Bellator 169 peaked during Gallagher vs. Taylor and is the most-watched Bellator MMA international event to date
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Bellator should throw some promotional weight behind Gallagher. Real promotional weight. This card wasn't really promoted in the states, yet Gallagher seemed to be the top draw.
Was also rewatching the fights from this event, and heard the commentators say that the event was sold out. Not sure if the entire arena was sold out, or only the sections that were made available(if some were indeed closed off). Still, not bad for a 20 year old kid. No wonder they are already looking to re-sign him.
Throw some weight behind the kid; he has the potential to be a solid draw.
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Ok so you can name three fights that got something, what about the other ones? Thats the problem. They dont do shit for them and the big fights nobody even knows there is any specials.
Only special I remember Bellator doing that I watched was a King Mo one with him and Paul Daley having lunch talking about how Bjorn was a good dude. Funny that Mo hates Bjorn now.
Spike isn't a sports channel, so it's not like Fox which has all sports channels FS1 & FS2 which have timeslots aplenty for hour after endless hour, 52 weeks per year, to fill with UFC shoulder programming including specials, countdown shows, weigh-ins, re-packaged old fights, talk shows, magazine style shows and everything else. Bellator does run shoulder programming including weigh-ins on YouTube and on their web site for every single card. If it's that important to you go to the Bellator web site or YouTube and click 'Play All' and it will play back to back nicely in full screen. That's what I do.
Coker started with kickboxing promotion and was very successful with it. So he is kind of like a guy that owns a restaurant that hasn't changed his menu for decades and doesn't know why he can't get new customers because "people use to love this stuff."
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Funny Spike found open spots for UFC, how many countdown shows, unleashed, WEC/pride unleashed shows did they air back in the day?
Dont give me they dont have the spots bullshit, they just have no interest in giving those spots and promoting Bellator cause they dont care about Bellator.
It is odd that they show less shoulder programming for Bellator now when they own it outright and have more reason to promote MMA than they did back when they had a deal with the UFC to broadcast it. Maybe they're doing so much better ratings for cheaper nowadays just running Cops re-runs and with Lip Sync Battle and the like.
Do you actually watch the weigh-ins on YouTube and the several video clips promoting the fights and fighters on Bellator.com that they have for every card? Do you watch the Bellator prelims? Or is complaining about the lack of shoulder programming on Spike really just an end unto itself unrelated to actually enjoying MMA? I always find it strange that some of the fans on these forums act like they are television executives or writers covering the industry rather than people that want to watch fights and related programming.
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You hit he nail on the head with ratings. That is exactly why we don't get more Bellator "shoulder programming" or whatever you want to call it. They've done some ok ratings with some of it but the truth is they only have a few guys anyone would give two seconds of there time to tune in and watch. So its just much easier throwing up COPS.
Nothing is going to change in Bellator's world of ratings until they take a different approach to the product. I'm sure ratings will be solid the first part of 2017 but I doubt it will sustain itself.
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What @CC27 isn't taking into account is that the UFC foot the bill for all of that programming. They produced it themselves, so it cost Spike nothing. Now that Viacom owns Bellator, everything Bellator does, Viacom has to foot the bill. So if the put the money into that should programming and it doesn't do well, then they are out money. Worse, if it doesn't help the Bellator live shows do well, they just spent all that money for nothing.
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At this point, I just want Rizin to get a TV deal. They'll be a nice contrast to the UFC. Bellator just comes off to minor league even though there's some decent talent there, maybe more people will take a liking to the JMMA does things if they got a better TV opportunity.
I'd wouldn't mind 3 major brands competing at this point, but I think there will always only be room for one other major brand besides UFC. But Bellator's marketing is just terrible. We can all agree MVP hasn't had the toughest opponents yet, but they should be marketing him WAY better than this. It should be close to the level of Kimbo marketing at least.
I'd wouldn't mind 3 major brands competing at this point, but I think there will always only be room for one other major brand besides UFC. But Bellator's marketing is just terrible. We can all agree MVP hasn't had the toughest opponents yet, but they should be marketing him WAY better than this. It should be close to the level of Kimbo marketing at least.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the mma landscape was ALOT different back then. Mma was brand spanking new to the casuals, and the UFC was pretty much the only show in town. If u wanted to watch mma, you would tune in to spike. The ultimate fighter was much fresher and new back then. They drew solid ratings.
Spike can't just produce a knock off reality show like tuf and expect the same type of success. How do we know this? They tried, and it failed miserably.
I agree that Bellator doesn't advertise their events enough, but it's another beast entirely when it comes to shoulder programming especially when comparing today's landscape to back when the UFC was on spike.
It doesn't matter how much money spike would pour into a show like fight master. It would bomb plain and simple.
Bellator has had a few shoulder programs that have done solid, kimbo specials for instance, but those had to do with the fact that kimbo was a straight up star. People paid to watch him; not so much that they put some real marketing weight behind those specials.
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To put Bellator's 2016 ratings in context, Spike averaged 704k prime time viewers overall in 2016 (down 10% from the 2015). That viewership # is live + 7 day DVR views.
http://www.indiewire.com/2016/12/cnn-fox-news-msnbc-nbc-ratings-2016-winners-losers-1201762864/
Bellator averaged 677k viewers in live + same day ratings in 2016. We don't have the live + 7 day #'s for Bellator, but we know that they generally gain about 10% in live + 3 day DVR views. So we can assume that Bellator averaged more than ~740k viewers in live + 7 day DVR views, putting Bellator above Spike's overall average of 704k.
That means Bellator isn't a big ratings hit for Spike, but it isn't a drag, either. And Bellator gives Spike a ton of fresh programming for Fridays, which is the least-watched day of the week.
http://www.indiewire.com/2016/12/cnn-fox-news-msnbc-nbc-ratings-2016-winners-losers-1201762864/
Bellator averaged 677k viewers in live + same day ratings in 2016. We don't have the live + 7 day #'s for Bellator, but we know that they generally gain about 10% in live + 3 day DVR views. So we can assume that Bellator averaged more than ~740k viewers in live + 7 day DVR views, putting Bellator above Spike's overall average of 704k.
That means Bellator isn't a big ratings hit for Spike, but it isn't a drag, either. And Bellator gives Spike a ton of fresh programming for Fridays, which is the least-watched day of the week.
I'm looking forward to watching Rizin tonight at 1 AM and two days from now on NYE morning, but that is in no way a tv friendly product for North America. It's a cool spectacle once in a blue moon when they have events, but it's not a regular promotion with frequent cards, plus it's in the wrong time zone to be live in the Western Hemisphere, not to mention the cards are way too long to fit into any kind of American tv broadcast schedule. I am super happy that they're delivering a live HD stream with English commentary though.
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I wish it to.
But as usual with JMMA they just don't seem to put much effort into North America or really any market outside of SE ASIA side of the world 90% of the time. You'd think any of these little sport networks like NBCSports or CBSSports or one of the million odd little TV channels that do nothing but reruns of other networks programming that they jump at the chance to put a live/short tape delayed sport product on. I doubt at this time Rizin could get much per an event but something is better than nothing I would think.
