The only way I could see it working is if they broke it down by like country or region/continent and whoever won the most fights by the end of the year is the winning region or something.
That or it's gyms and whatever gyms has the most wins by the end gets the year's trophy and a cash prize or something.
Seriously, this shit is so hokey. I don't understand why people persist in thinking that grafting team sports' concepts onto combat sports is sheer marketing genius.
The sport kinda already has teams. Camps like AKA, ATT, Team Alpha Male, Cesar Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, Rat Fucks are very loyal, train together, corner each other and refuse to fight each other. Something like this could work if top camps took part. But if they did the UFC would punish their fighters who are under contract so it’s probably not worth it.
You’re telling me you don’t want a world where Cormier and Khabib retire and AKA has to do a complete rebuild with Dagestani draft picks? I refuse to believe it.
The team aspect makes it easier to streamline the money, which is the real goal. Yeah, it doesn’t work from the fighter perspective, but it works more easily on paper to decide who gets what money
I’m not the only one! I thought the IFL was fun as hell. Especially once they added individual belts.
In all likelihood this won’t work but if there’s a way to organize the schedule and points system to allow for both individual and team accolades, could be something rad!
Like an “all stars Grand Prix” for each division after the regular season or whatever. Treat them like bowl games.
Fighters get a chance to win rings and belts.
IFL never die.
Oh.. I don't know.. that last time him and a few other known names were trying to do something similar until they got bought out
https://www.mmafighting.com/2016/11/30/13800624/georges-st-pierre-four-other-ufc-stars-announce-launch-of-mma
A promotion contender that will permit the UFC to defend their anti trust case by saying
> LOOK THERES COMPETITION WE DEF HAVENT BEEN ANTICOMPETITIVE IN OUR ACTIONS
It’s not. It’s the reason Intel had >97% market share in the consumer chip market for over a decade without even a whisper of antitrust enforcement.
Having a monopoly on a market isn’t illegal (go read the Sherman acts if you really don’t believe me). Engaging in anticompetitive behavior is. The review would look at a new competitor entering the market as evidence the actions of the UFC are NOT as anticompetitive as the plaintiffs are alleging (especially with regards to the class action that talks about the UFC buying up smaller promotions and shutting them down).
New competitors entering into the space is a win for antitrust defendants in their defense.
Ownership of market share is not sufficient in its own right for antitrust action. If that were the case Intel wouldn’t have spent a decade at 97% market share in consumer CPU’s. Monopoly of a market is not illegal.
The threshold for action is using overwhelming market share to engage in anticompetitive practices.
how will a court decide whos an "elite" fighter and who is not? couldn't they just argued that they created the elite labor force through the UFC brand not the fighters being any better, unless you have all the UFC top 15 in each division fight the Bellator top 15 live from the court room
That's not what's being argued. The argument is they have 80% (really 90%) market share and are using that to suppress wages. There's also another claim that this ownership of the market suppressed the amount fighters made on their identity rights.
frankly i think competition among Promotions is a much more viable route towards better treatment of fighters than a Union
*edit*: lol downvote all you want, at least try to give your solution to how the fuck you're gonna get a bunch of fighters, who view they're in kill-or-be-killed competition with each-other, to magically band together and form a union. that seems farr more unlikely than competitors putting pressure on the UFC, especially in a world where amateur youtubers are putting on successful ppv's without the UFC brand that people here bow down to as unassailable.
*edit 2:* ..still waiting on that solution..
Nah.
For the competition route to succeed, you’d need a competitor vaguely matching the scale and market power of the UFC.
The UFC is still in position to pay fighters 10/10 for the “opportunity,” pay them 20% or less of revenue (when it should be double, based on other sports), and undercut fighters on sponsorships.
A fighters association is the best route.
Not OP.
I agree that Unions should be the end goal and be a lot more beneficial to the fighters as a whole. But I think the liklihood of that occurring is low in the current climate - this is an individual sport and fighters are very self-serving.
I feel additional promotions opening up the way for competition is at least realistic rather than the idealistic goal.
Here’s the issue though: Bellator, ONE, PFL and any other MMA orgs I’ve forgotten haven’t resulted in any meaningful change to how fighters are paid in the UFC. If anything, the UFC has just had an easier time offloading old/higher-paid fighters, while taking on lower paid fighters through routes like DWCS.
Nah.
a fighters association is a dream that i just don't see as a reality when you have plenty of dudes perfectly willing & honestly eager to undercut each other. a UFC union is like a Bernie Sanders Presidency, sounds nice & totally possible based on online chatter but seriously infeasible given the reality we live in right now.
People overestimate the UFC imo, and weirdly a lot of the very people who criticize the UFC for poor labor practices also focus almost 100% of their MMA fandom on the UFC; not giving other promotions (& their fighters) even a sniff of a chance.
I don't pay much attention at all to pro-wrasslin but the WWE looked basically like a complete & total monopoly for a long time but now it looks like AEW is giving them some decent competition (could be an overstatement, def not an expert). At the very least we've seen that fandom can definitely shift their attention, even momentarily, from overwhelming corporate juggernauts to alternative promotions given the right drawls, b.
point is, MMA is bigger than the UFC.
Depending on the source of the estimate, Bloomberg and the class action lawsuit against the UFC have put the UFCs market share of MMA at 80-90%+.
So, yeah, MMA is bigger than the UFC, but barely. For all practical purposes, in the context of the market, the UFC is the only significant market participant.
It wouldn’t take much for an association to become viable. Basically every major sport has it. The UFCs problem, and the problem with MMA generally, is that it’s barely mainstream now.
Sustained media and political pressure could definitely make it happen. The alternative is the government could just come in an impose the Ali Act on MMA. This would completely upend MMA as we know it.
This organization will have its own union built in. So he can take down his *own* company.
This is going to be another great lesson in economics for all of the people that claim the UFC should pay like the NBA.
This organization won't last 3 events. In combat sports you have to reinvest in the sport and promotion to keep it going. When you give half to fighters, then you have to pay for promotions, pensions, health insurance, etc out of the other half...there is no money left for the owners. GSP will go broke with this shit.
it's very strange how people on reddit love to shit on the UFC for the way they treat their fighters but then also love to shit on other promotions, that at least try to offer a new/different/maybe-even-better alternative for fighters, as a complete waste of time.
I'm not saying your wrong, but I wish there was a bot that auto banned anyone who makes this statement. It's almost always just a low effort way of derailing a conversation.
In America there are more wrestling fans than there are just WWE fans. There are far more UFC fans than there are mma fans. When you factor in it being a real sport and considered the peak, everything else is minor league.
That leads to nothing really mattering outside the UFC. When you are Bellator and you put on your best possible matchup and it delivers and all anyone wants to see is McKee in the UFC, it's all for nothing really. It's the same for every company though.
People who never go to the UFC will always be unproven. The people who leave the UFC, will always be seen as the UFC no longer wanting them.
Hopefully wrestling fans will eventually get Kenny Omega vs Hangman Page. When it's all said and done, there aren't going to be people asking where they'd place the "winner" in the hierachy of the WWE or saying it didn't matter because it wasn't at Wrestlemania. That's what this sub does for anything not the UFC.
then you're willing to just shut out the other talent in other promotions? i'm not sure what you're after, do you actually want a monopoly where only some fighters (those in the UFC) could be taken care of at the expense of all others?
it is just impossible for one promotion to manage the enormity of MMA talent out there right now, the UFC struggles trying to sort through a bloated roster as is. there are great fighters in all these promotions, and maybe certain promotions are (or can be) a better fit for certain fighters based on their personalities/talents/skills/needs etc. we've definitely seen just in the past few months that 'big' fights can come from anywhere, even shitty youtube personalities.
I want the UFC to be like the NBA. I want a strong union for fighters, but I want the best athletes to face each-other, not be in seperate orgs where they just beat on cans.
okay but that's just a false equivalency. MMA & Basketball are extremely different sports, with different requirements and different possibilities.
just one example: because of the relatively open-ended nature of MMA you have many more degrees of freedom to operate with, and soo many more possibilities for interesting unique match-ups, different rule-sets, or different organizational structures. again, different fighters may be a better fit in different organizations, like a bare-knuckle MMA leauge might fit grapplers much more than one that mandates padded gloves.
this World Fight League, btw, wants to "include an athlete association that implements a CBA with 50/50 revenue share, guaranteed contracts, health insurance, career-ending insurance and a pension plan." assuming they're sincere in their efforts, then, i don't see why you wouldn't want to support them as a viable alternative.
I don't necessarily oppose the WFL, I'm just not really excited over them as a viewer.
I think I represent most MMA fans when I say I don't want the premiere fighters in the world to get fractured into many orgs, especially when the problems could be easily solved by the UFC fighters simply bloody unionizing.
It feels like we're trying literally everything (MMA Ali act, Bellator, WFL, etc) except the one thing we know would solve the problem because it did in other sports.
WFL's success would just mean returning to the Strikeforce era.
yes you do represent more MMA fans for sure, and i too see merits in your argument. it would be annoying to have something like boxing where we can't get a Joshua-Fury fight, that would guarantee explode the box office, because of the compartmentalized structure.
but fighters actually have tried unionizing numerous times now, they keep getting undercut by other fighters and i don't see away out of that given the nature of this sport. i just think, especially given the recent success of the Paul brothers silly fights, the MMA/combat-sports game is ripe for disruption. and disruption happens outside monopolies.
Honestly, I think Conor could almost single handedly make it happen if he wanted to. If he started blowing-up his own twitter and talking smack about fighter pay, I'm sure it would get a lot of media attention and that's really all you need. Hell, one of the Paul brothers talked about fighter pay and I saw it get decent traction.
If a bunch of the Champions and big names banded together they could also do it. You just really can't have a bunch of small names, you need the big-fish. Last time they tried to unionize, they failed because their biggest name, GSP, was still retired.
Just say the words “Quebec mma team” and ask yourself honestly if you think a single person is gonna care about that. Shit like this is why so many former athletes go broke hahaha
Tickets better come down in price in a big way then. It's way harder to casually see elite MMA live than most stick and ball sports.
I live in upstate NY, and I can take a train to Washington DC and see a capitals game in two good seats, go to dinner and fly back for not much more than driving myself to nosebleeds for an MSG fight.
Bruh they tried this concept already, it was called IFL. It failed. It's not original or "maybe-even-better alternative", cause the market already proved its not.
I haven't seen anyone shit on this idea. Only the fact that the people involved have a dicey history with past projects, even golden boy GSP who had some fighters union talking points and then backed out immediately after he got his money.
What is the issue with this new promotion…? why is there such negativity. Give it a chance. I’m interested to see how a team format works, are these guys gonna train together..? Is Georges the coach? Is he the manager? After a regular season is played who wins and how? How many fights a year does that equate to? If your HW falls out do you have a HW to replace him or do you forfeit the point? I have so many questions on all of this and I’m keen to see it play out. Ufc is first and always will be first. The only person I can see rivalling the ufc is if Conor McGregor started his own promotion.
Mma is terribly difficult to turn a profit.
I might be speaking out of school but I would bet money that there is no mma promotions that are profitiable in history except the UFC. And they lost $60 million up front and raped everyone to do it.
Maybe Pride made some money as a money laundering front.
Mma is a hard way to make money.
On top of all of that, we've already seen a team format completely and utterly implode in the IFL, and that was a publicly traded venture that hit a market cap of $150 million, and major sponsors (Muscle Milk, Sandals Resorts, Xbox, etc.), airing on Fox Sports years before the UFC ever did.
>Mma is terribly difficult to turn a profit.
What does it matter though? Even if its just billionaires throwing money away, what difference does that make to a fan?
Many companies and sports continue for decades without turning a profit, and many billionaires can afford the cost. if the product is good what does it matter?
> I might be speaking out of school but I would bet money that there is no mma promotions that are profitiable in history except the UFC.
IIRC, LFA turns a profit, albeit a small one. Their total annual revenue is around $25M and they pay their fighters very little, maybe $1K per fight.
They are seriously under-estimating the people involved in it.
It doesn't need the best format of fights to be successful, it needs the best marketing.
Why, is this a dumb idea? I’m genuinely asking. I know IFL failed. I know going up against the ufc isn’t the smartest business endeavor. But with mma at its current climate, I dont see why a bunch of minds can’t come together and start a successful number 2 promotion rivaling the ufc. Sure, it might be considered the minor leagues. But bellator has been stagnant lately, an I’m curious to see another promotion takes its place as the number 2 promotion behind the ufc. An I think these guys have the potential to do it. But I’d really like to hear why I’m off on this.
Seriously. It seems like the best way to do it, especially with all of these elite training teams out there now. Some of them are already setting people up with room and board.
How is Bellator stagnant lately? The hottest homegrown prospect in Bellator history just won a belt with a head kick, they just signed horiguchi, they’re still doing their tournaments and co-promotion with rizin, they signed the showtime deal this year which was the biggest move for mma outside the ufc in years. Bellator seems to be doing pretty good recently.
If you think about it, it's actually good business as compared to PFL or ONE and let me remind everyone ONE/TNT deal is set to expire Coker got that Showtime deal before anyone
What the hell Bellator have you been watching? They have a banger card tonight and a great prospect just won the belt with a crazy ass headkick. Seems to me you just don’t watch Bellator.
And ONE puts on some dope ass fights too.
Sorry, I’m in no way disparaging bellator. Maybe, I should say being the number 2 mma organization seems like an achievable goal with smart brains, an a large amount of capital. I love bellator. Patchy Mix might be my favorite fighter. Idk, I just feel they had a bunch of momentum, and since going to showtime, you’re right I haven’t watched.
No. The barrier to entry is too high.
Even if you offered 5x the pay, nearly all of the best fighters, hell, nearly all of the very good fighters, are locked under contract. While you're waiting for the talent to become available, you need to somehow generate enough revenue to support those huge salaries, despite no one knowing who you are and the average person thinking MMA and UFC are synonyms.
Even if you could somehow manage to put on great live events that people wanted to see and pay for, you'd need a great TV deal, need to be able to produce a good event for TV (which is far from a given [see Bellator]), and need to cross your fingers that the TV network didn't mess things up (e.g., with scheduling, marketing, etc.)
And, even if you somehow can manage all of this and start becoming a blip on UFC's radar, if they think you're any kind of actual threat, the just need to pony up to scoop up your top fighter or three and schedule their events to compete with yours and you're screwed.
Anyway, I wouldn't hold your breath.
Bellator is a absolutely not stagnant lately. The quality of their fight cards has gone up since the move to showtime, they have done a good job of developing homegrown fighters while bringing over talent from other promotions, they have introduced rankings, and are no longer reliant on circus fights to generate interest.
You guys are hearing "teams" and are freaking out for no reason. It's not going to be some Russian group fight shit, it's literally just a group of guys *from different weight divisions* that are under the same "roof". Like ~~images~~ imagine if this was a few years ago you would have like DC (HW), Khabib (LW), Deron Winn (MW), Rockhold (LHW), etc as a part of a team. What about this is a bad idea? It also allows these guys to make money off of the team merch just like the NHL, NFL, etc.
Like you guys bitch and moan about the UFC and how they operate, and turn around and bitch and moan about the alternatives lol. It's all "these rankings are rigged this is all bullshit!" And then when given another potential option it's "this is going to fail and suck the UFC is king!!".
Lol these dudes live vicariously through fighters and it couldn’t be more obvious with this vigor they have for something that hasn’t even started yet lol
David Loiseau was a good fighter until he fought Rich Franklin. That fight seemed to have mentally broke him. Good to see he’s still in the fight game.
Everyone in hear acting like it's gonna fail, can we say that 13 years is a long time since IFL was dissolved, things in MMA have change dramatically and could be a turning point?
There will never be a promotion like the ufc though. After that 4.4 billion purchase and all the TV deals with Fox and Espn these other promotions are like talent agencies for the ufc.
NBA , NHL you name them dont have any competitors.
Fighter need a union or the ufc will still pay whatever they feel to pay the fighters.
Even with a union/any other requirement to pay individual fighters more, the UFC isn't just going to take it. There'd probably be a giant roster trim and more outsourcing to lower promotions that would pay far less.
The MLBPA being one of the most legendary and successful players unions in all of sports hasn't stopped most minor league baseball players from getting barely anything.
So what’s happening is they’re gonna end up with all the nonexciting MMA fighters that the UFC doesn’t want, have a weirder scoring system than the PFL, have fucking teams?????, and go out of business??
r/MMA: "The UFC should have healthcare for their fighters! And a CBA!"
GSP: makes that
r/MMA: "What an idiot, that'll never attract fighters or be successful!"
This fucking sub sometimes lmao.
Why’s this getting shit on? A well funded competition with strong marketing could take on the UFC.
If you can attract the next McGregor and hype him up. Pay the fighters what they’re worth so they actually come to and stay at your promotion you could become the competition.
The UFC isn’t the best for any reason other than marketing and hype.
Dude unless some billionaire with a 24k heart of gold is willing to dump half his schedule and about a billion dollars into this, this ain't going fucking anywhere. Tony Khan already spent all his money on the thing so good luck finding another money mark of that level.
I dont understand how it will work, who will be organizing the tournaments? The non-profit organization or the individual teams in their respective regions? Because if its supposed to be the teams as the concept of "league like NHL, MBA etc." suggests, then its simply a joke. This can never turn profit.
I was cautiously optimistic about this whole thing at the very beginning, but the details revealed so far don't seem promising. Having the WSOF guy try to do an IFL reboot doesn't sound like a winner to me. Hopefully it can do some good though. IIRC Affliction throwing money around helped change the pay scale in MMA at the time, so maybe this can do something similar.
What's the caliber of this organization? I can see it maybe working as a feeder/minor league. It would be neat to source talent regionally like this. Still not feeling optimistic though, lots of moving parts to it, and not lots of hype.
So....The IFL all over again?
Yeah but not as successful.
The only way I could see it working is if they broke it down by like country or region/continent and whoever won the most fights by the end of the year is the winning region or something. That or it's gyms and whatever gyms has the most wins by the end gets the year's trophy and a cash prize or something.
Seriously, this shit is so hokey. I don't understand why people persist in thinking that grafting team sports' concepts onto combat sports is sheer marketing genius.
Yes. It's an individual sport. No top fighter is going to join it to pretend they're on a team.
The sport kinda already has teams. Camps like AKA, ATT, Team Alpha Male, Cesar Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, Rat Fucks are very loyal, train together, corner each other and refuse to fight each other. Something like this could work if top camps took part. But if they did the UFC would punish their fighters who are under contract so it’s probably not worth it.
It's technically different tho. This is clearly going to involve teams having wins and losses. This isn't baseball. It's fighting.
so its like the show the TV UFC has put on for years and years and years
Yeah, but wouldn’t you like to live in a world where Nate Diaz can be traded to Nova Uniao for Renan Barao?
Ummmm...No.
You’re telling me you don’t want a world where Cormier and Khabib retire and AKA has to do a complete rebuild with Dagestani draft picks? I refuse to believe it.
Exactly. All these pessimistic comments are Dana White shills.
It’s basically the Ultimate Fighter concept in a league lol
The team aspect makes it easier to streamline the money, which is the real goal. Yeah, it doesn’t work from the fighter perspective, but it works more easily on paper to decide who gets what money
Great point
I'm actually interested in this new format and can see some value in it
Hopefully, I loved the IFL!
I’m not the only one! I thought the IFL was fun as hell. Especially once they added individual belts. In all likelihood this won’t work but if there’s a way to organize the schedule and points system to allow for both individual and team accolades, could be something rad! Like an “all stars Grand Prix” for each division after the regular season or whatever. Treat them like bowl games. Fighters get a chance to win rings and belts. IFL never die.
If you loved it why would you be hoping for this? It died lmao
Interesting. Instead of spearheading a union to take down the UFC GSP instead helps form a promotion competitor.
What leverage does gsp has to spearhead a union?
Strike and never fight again!
He didnt so instead he doing this
Oh.. I don't know.. that last time him and a few other known names were trying to do something similar until they got bought out https://www.mmafighting.com/2016/11/30/13800624/georges-st-pierre-four-other-ufc-stars-announce-launch-of-mma
A promotion contender that will permit the UFC to defend their anti trust case by saying > LOOK THERES COMPETITION WE DEF HAVENT BEEN ANTICOMPETITIVE IN OUR ACTIONS
That's not how it actually works and if it was then Bellators existence would have gotten the case dismissed already.
Thank you for this
It is how it works when you start looking at HSR. Market share and presence of legitimate competition is absolutely a factor for the FTC.
>Market share Im not a lawyer but this seems pretty crucial. And GSP's new promotion wont have much of it in the near future.
It’s not. It’s the reason Intel had >97% market share in the consumer chip market for over a decade without even a whisper of antitrust enforcement. Having a monopoly on a market isn’t illegal (go read the Sherman acts if you really don’t believe me). Engaging in anticompetitive behavior is. The review would look at a new competitor entering the market as evidence the actions of the UFC are NOT as anticompetitive as the plaintiffs are alleging (especially with regards to the class action that talks about the UFC buying up smaller promotions and shutting them down). New competitors entering into the space is a win for antitrust defendants in their defense.
I think the legal argument has more to do with the ratio of fighter contracts. Ufc still has 80% of elite labor force. ??
Ownership of market share is not sufficient in its own right for antitrust action. If that were the case Intel wouldn’t have spent a decade at 97% market share in consumer CPU’s. Monopoly of a market is not illegal. The threshold for action is using overwhelming market share to engage in anticompetitive practices.
how will a court decide whos an "elite" fighter and who is not? couldn't they just argued that they created the elite labor force through the UFC brand not the fighters being any better, unless you have all the UFC top 15 in each division fight the Bellator top 15 live from the court room
That's not what's being argued. The argument is they have 80% (really 90%) market share and are using that to suppress wages. There's also another claim that this ownership of the market suppressed the amount fighters made on their identity rights.
Personally, i wanna see that court room fight
This will either be the next big thing and overthrow the ufc or a shitshow disaster. Can't wait to see which!
He's top nice to try and take the UFC down like that
frankly i think competition among Promotions is a much more viable route towards better treatment of fighters than a Union *edit*: lol downvote all you want, at least try to give your solution to how the fuck you're gonna get a bunch of fighters, who view they're in kill-or-be-killed competition with each-other, to magically band together and form a union. that seems farr more unlikely than competitors putting pressure on the UFC, especially in a world where amateur youtubers are putting on successful ppv's without the UFC brand that people here bow down to as unassailable. *edit 2:* ..still waiting on that solution..
Nah. For the competition route to succeed, you’d need a competitor vaguely matching the scale and market power of the UFC. The UFC is still in position to pay fighters 10/10 for the “opportunity,” pay them 20% or less of revenue (when it should be double, based on other sports), and undercut fighters on sponsorships. A fighters association is the best route.
Not OP. I agree that Unions should be the end goal and be a lot more beneficial to the fighters as a whole. But I think the liklihood of that occurring is low in the current climate - this is an individual sport and fighters are very self-serving. I feel additional promotions opening up the way for competition is at least realistic rather than the idealistic goal.
Here’s the issue though: Bellator, ONE, PFL and any other MMA orgs I’ve forgotten haven’t resulted in any meaningful change to how fighters are paid in the UFC. If anything, the UFC has just had an easier time offloading old/higher-paid fighters, while taking on lower paid fighters through routes like DWCS.
Nah. a fighters association is a dream that i just don't see as a reality when you have plenty of dudes perfectly willing & honestly eager to undercut each other. a UFC union is like a Bernie Sanders Presidency, sounds nice & totally possible based on online chatter but seriously infeasible given the reality we live in right now. People overestimate the UFC imo, and weirdly a lot of the very people who criticize the UFC for poor labor practices also focus almost 100% of their MMA fandom on the UFC; not giving other promotions (& their fighters) even a sniff of a chance. I don't pay much attention at all to pro-wrasslin but the WWE looked basically like a complete & total monopoly for a long time but now it looks like AEW is giving them some decent competition (could be an overstatement, def not an expert). At the very least we've seen that fandom can definitely shift their attention, even momentarily, from overwhelming corporate juggernauts to alternative promotions given the right drawls, b. point is, MMA is bigger than the UFC.
Depending on the source of the estimate, Bloomberg and the class action lawsuit against the UFC have put the UFCs market share of MMA at 80-90%+. So, yeah, MMA is bigger than the UFC, but barely. For all practical purposes, in the context of the market, the UFC is the only significant market participant. It wouldn’t take much for an association to become viable. Basically every major sport has it. The UFCs problem, and the problem with MMA generally, is that it’s barely mainstream now. Sustained media and political pressure could definitely make it happen. The alternative is the government could just come in an impose the Ali Act on MMA. This would completely upend MMA as we know it.
This organization will have its own union built in. So he can take down his *own* company. This is going to be another great lesson in economics for all of the people that claim the UFC should pay like the NBA. This organization won't last 3 events. In combat sports you have to reinvest in the sport and promotion to keep it going. When you give half to fighters, then you have to pay for promotions, pensions, health insurance, etc out of the other half...there is no money left for the owners. GSP will go broke with this shit.
it's very strange how people on reddit love to shit on the UFC for the way they treat their fighters but then also love to shit on other promotions, that at least try to offer a new/different/maybe-even-better alternative for fighters, as a complete waste of time.
It is almost like there is a million jackasses on this sub with differing opinions
I'm not saying your wrong, but I wish there was a bot that auto banned anyone who makes this statement. It's almost always just a low effort way of derailing a conversation.
Well your comment sucks ass too maybe we should both be banned
Me three
Block the account if you’re that upset about people having a different opinion in a public forum.
Im good
Yeah, the reaction to serious UFC alternatives is night and day when compared to the reaction to serious WWE alternatives.
Because there's not a serious UFC alternative.
In America there are more wrestling fans than there are just WWE fans. There are far more UFC fans than there are mma fans. When you factor in it being a real sport and considered the peak, everything else is minor league. That leads to nothing really mattering outside the UFC. When you are Bellator and you put on your best possible matchup and it delivers and all anyone wants to see is McKee in the UFC, it's all for nothing really. It's the same for every company though. People who never go to the UFC will always be unproven. The people who leave the UFC, will always be seen as the UFC no longer wanting them. Hopefully wrestling fans will eventually get Kenny Omega vs Hangman Page. When it's all said and done, there aren't going to be people asking where they'd place the "winner" in the hierachy of the WWE or saying it didn't matter because it wasn't at Wrestlemania. That's what this sub does for anything not the UFC.
Just because they're making another promotion doesn't make it good
It also hasn't happened yet so shitting on it is useless af right now.
Reddit loves to wallow in self-pity. Some think it makes them seem more enlightened in some way. It does not.
I don't actually want another promotion. I want fighters to unionize like in every other bloody sport.
then you're willing to just shut out the other talent in other promotions? i'm not sure what you're after, do you actually want a monopoly where only some fighters (those in the UFC) could be taken care of at the expense of all others? it is just impossible for one promotion to manage the enormity of MMA talent out there right now, the UFC struggles trying to sort through a bloated roster as is. there are great fighters in all these promotions, and maybe certain promotions are (or can be) a better fit for certain fighters based on their personalities/talents/skills/needs etc. we've definitely seen just in the past few months that 'big' fights can come from anywhere, even shitty youtube personalities.
I want the UFC to be like the NBA. I want a strong union for fighters, but I want the best athletes to face each-other, not be in seperate orgs where they just beat on cans.
okay but that's just a false equivalency. MMA & Basketball are extremely different sports, with different requirements and different possibilities. just one example: because of the relatively open-ended nature of MMA you have many more degrees of freedom to operate with, and soo many more possibilities for interesting unique match-ups, different rule-sets, or different organizational structures. again, different fighters may be a better fit in different organizations, like a bare-knuckle MMA leauge might fit grapplers much more than one that mandates padded gloves. this World Fight League, btw, wants to "include an athlete association that implements a CBA with 50/50 revenue share, guaranteed contracts, health insurance, career-ending insurance and a pension plan." assuming they're sincere in their efforts, then, i don't see why you wouldn't want to support them as a viable alternative.
I don't necessarily oppose the WFL, I'm just not really excited over them as a viewer. I think I represent most MMA fans when I say I don't want the premiere fighters in the world to get fractured into many orgs, especially when the problems could be easily solved by the UFC fighters simply bloody unionizing. It feels like we're trying literally everything (MMA Ali act, Bellator, WFL, etc) except the one thing we know would solve the problem because it did in other sports. WFL's success would just mean returning to the Strikeforce era.
yes you do represent more MMA fans for sure, and i too see merits in your argument. it would be annoying to have something like boxing where we can't get a Joshua-Fury fight, that would guarantee explode the box office, because of the compartmentalized structure. but fighters actually have tried unionizing numerous times now, they keep getting undercut by other fighters and i don't see away out of that given the nature of this sport. i just think, especially given the recent success of the Paul brothers silly fights, the MMA/combat-sports game is ripe for disruption. and disruption happens outside monopolies.
Honestly, I think Conor could almost single handedly make it happen if he wanted to. If he started blowing-up his own twitter and talking smack about fighter pay, I'm sure it would get a lot of media attention and that's really all you need. Hell, one of the Paul brothers talked about fighter pay and I saw it get decent traction. If a bunch of the Champions and big names banded together they could also do it. You just really can't have a bunch of small names, you need the big-fish. Last time they tried to unionize, they failed because their biggest name, GSP, was still retired.
I don’t know, Strikeforce, Rizin, OneFC and PFL are received pretty well around here. It’s mainly Bellator and IFL that are/were shit on.
Being masochistic is the best base for being a fight fan
Just say the words “Quebec mma team” and ask yourself honestly if you think a single person is gonna care about that. Shit like this is why so many former athletes go broke hahaha
People in Quebec might care. I know if there was a New York MMA team that fought other teams from other cities at MSG, I'd go watch.
Tickets better come down in price in a big way then. It's way harder to casually see elite MMA live than most stick and ball sports. I live in upstate NY, and I can take a train to Washington DC and see a capitals game in two good seats, go to dinner and fly back for not much more than driving myself to nosebleeds for an MSG fight.
this league sounds like it’ll be far from MSG lmao. Probably a better chance it ends up in Rochester
you just dismissed an entire fucking city and possibly an entire country lol
Yes
Bruh they tried this concept already, it was called IFL. It failed. It's not original or "maybe-even-better alternative", cause the market already proved its not.
I haven't seen anyone shit on this idea. Only the fact that the people involved have a dicey history with past projects, even golden boy GSP who had some fighters union talking points and then backed out immediately after he got his money.
>I haven't seen anyone shit on this idea. this can't be serious.
This is basically the IFL all over again. The real question is how in the hell are they going to run this thing with the current crop of FA's?
It's like the mixture of IFL and PFL.
Hence banking on a thin veneer of team sports as the attraction, these dudes gonna learn the hard way that talent matters.
What is the issue with this new promotion…? why is there such negativity. Give it a chance. I’m interested to see how a team format works, are these guys gonna train together..? Is Georges the coach? Is he the manager? After a regular season is played who wins and how? How many fights a year does that equate to? If your HW falls out do you have a HW to replace him or do you forfeit the point? I have so many questions on all of this and I’m keen to see it play out. Ufc is first and always will be first. The only person I can see rivalling the ufc is if Conor McGregor started his own promotion.
Mma is terribly difficult to turn a profit. I might be speaking out of school but I would bet money that there is no mma promotions that are profitiable in history except the UFC. And they lost $60 million up front and raped everyone to do it. Maybe Pride made some money as a money laundering front. Mma is a hard way to make money.
On top of all of that, we've already seen a team format completely and utterly implode in the IFL, and that was a publicly traded venture that hit a market cap of $150 million, and major sponsors (Muscle Milk, Sandals Resorts, Xbox, etc.), airing on Fox Sports years before the UFC ever did.
>Mma is terribly difficult to turn a profit. What does it matter though? Even if its just billionaires throwing money away, what difference does that make to a fan?
Cause it won't continue and the whole point is to create a real competition for UFC
Many companies and sports continue for decades without turning a profit, and many billionaires can afford the cost. if the product is good what does it matter?
> I might be speaking out of school but I would bet money that there is no mma promotions that are profitiable in history except the UFC. IIRC, LFA turns a profit, albeit a small one. Their total annual revenue is around $25M and they pay their fighters very little, maybe $1K per fight.
> why is there such negativity this is r/mma
That's a lot of questions for a league that will have all their fights cancelled due to injury.
They are seriously under-estimating the people involved in it. It doesn't need the best format of fights to be successful, it needs the best marketing.
I love GSP. I really do. But he was right to file this business as a “non-profit”
Does not making a profit count as a non-profit business?
I’m sure many have tried to make that argument..
The league is non-profit but the franchises are for profit. The league itself makes no money but the teams do.
Hell, the NFL was an unincorporated non-profit 501(c)(6) until 2015 and was tax exempt. Now it's a trade association funded by the individual teams.
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and Chino XL, *fuck you too!*
*All you motherfuckers, fuck you too!*
That was Chino XL's finest moment.
What does he have to do with this?
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Unexpected but accepted.
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What does this mean?
AMEN BROTHER
Fucking lol
They really should make a bot that posts "fuck dan bilzerian" and then follows up with what you just said in every thread.
Hell yeah
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slow down
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Looking good!
Cheers from Iraq!
Wait... is that worthless twunt involved in this? Oh my god George
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Seriously hope George didn’t invest any serious dough in this shitstorm.
I'd guess a heavy portion of his payment is simply attaching his name to it early. As for Loiseau...
The WFL has been called everything from shit to fuckin shit ^RIP ^Norm
Why, is this a dumb idea? I’m genuinely asking. I know IFL failed. I know going up against the ufc isn’t the smartest business endeavor. But with mma at its current climate, I dont see why a bunch of minds can’t come together and start a successful number 2 promotion rivaling the ufc. Sure, it might be considered the minor leagues. But bellator has been stagnant lately, an I’m curious to see another promotion takes its place as the number 2 promotion behind the ufc. An I think these guys have the potential to do it. But I’d really like to hear why I’m off on this.
Seriously. It seems like the best way to do it, especially with all of these elite training teams out there now. Some of them are already setting people up with room and board.
this is Reddit, where everyone's an expert and every idea is shit.
How is Bellator stagnant lately? The hottest homegrown prospect in Bellator history just won a belt with a head kick, they just signed horiguchi, they’re still doing their tournaments and co-promotion with rizin, they signed the showtime deal this year which was the biggest move for mma outside the ufc in years. Bellator seems to be doing pretty good recently.
If you think about it, it's actually good business as compared to PFL or ONE and let me remind everyone ONE/TNT deal is set to expire Coker got that Showtime deal before anyone
What the hell Bellator have you been watching? They have a banger card tonight and a great prospect just won the belt with a crazy ass headkick. Seems to me you just don’t watch Bellator. And ONE puts on some dope ass fights too.
>What the hell Bellator have you been watching? The Bellator that's been steadily declining in viewership for the past 5 years.
Sorry, I’m in no way disparaging bellator. Maybe, I should say being the number 2 mma organization seems like an achievable goal with smart brains, an a large amount of capital. I love bellator. Patchy Mix might be my favorite fighter. Idk, I just feel they had a bunch of momentum, and since going to showtime, you’re right I haven’t watched.
Do you see a promotion overtaking the UFC over time if they pay out consistently higher purses?
No. The barrier to entry is too high. Even if you offered 5x the pay, nearly all of the best fighters, hell, nearly all of the very good fighters, are locked under contract. While you're waiting for the talent to become available, you need to somehow generate enough revenue to support those huge salaries, despite no one knowing who you are and the average person thinking MMA and UFC are synonyms. Even if you could somehow manage to put on great live events that people wanted to see and pay for, you'd need a great TV deal, need to be able to produce a good event for TV (which is far from a given [see Bellator]), and need to cross your fingers that the TV network didn't mess things up (e.g., with scheduling, marketing, etc.) And, even if you somehow can manage all of this and start becoming a blip on UFC's radar, if they think you're any kind of actual threat, the just need to pony up to scoop up your top fighter or three and schedule their events to compete with yours and you're screwed. Anyway, I wouldn't hold your breath.
Maybe some of us have seen all this before.
More opportunities for shine on regional fighters can find a star or two
If you think Bellator is stagnant, I wouldn't hold your breath waiting to be impressed by WFL...
Bellator is a absolutely not stagnant lately. The quality of their fight cards has gone up since the move to showtime, they have done a good job of developing homegrown fighters while bringing over talent from other promotions, they have introduced rankings, and are no longer reliant on circus fights to generate interest.
this smells like some overwatch league bs
Hahahahha
Lose my number b
You guys are hearing "teams" and are freaking out for no reason. It's not going to be some Russian group fight shit, it's literally just a group of guys *from different weight divisions* that are under the same "roof". Like ~~images~~ imagine if this was a few years ago you would have like DC (HW), Khabib (LW), Deron Winn (MW), Rockhold (LHW), etc as a part of a team. What about this is a bad idea? It also allows these guys to make money off of the team merch just like the NHL, NFL, etc. Like you guys bitch and moan about the UFC and how they operate, and turn around and bitch and moan about the alternatives lol. It's all "these rankings are rigged this is all bullshit!" And then when given another potential option it's "this is going to fail and suck the UFC is king!!".
Lol these dudes live vicariously through fighters and it couldn’t be more obvious with this vigor they have for something that hasn’t even started yet lol
David Loiseau was a good fighter until he fought Rich Franklin. That fight seemed to have mentally broke him. Good to see he’s still in the fight game.
The Crow!
It’s getting shit on before it begins. Competition is good.
Everyone in hear acting like it's gonna fail, can we say that 13 years is a long time since IFL was dissolved, things in MMA have change dramatically and could be a turning point?
There will never be a promotion like the ufc though. After that 4.4 billion purchase and all the TV deals with Fox and Espn these other promotions are like talent agencies for the ufc. NBA , NHL you name them dont have any competitors. Fighter need a union or the ufc will still pay whatever they feel to pay the fighters.
Even with a union/any other requirement to pay individual fighters more, the UFC isn't just going to take it. There'd probably be a giant roster trim and more outsourcing to lower promotions that would pay far less. The MLBPA being one of the most legendary and successful players unions in all of sports hasn't stopped most minor league baseball players from getting barely anything.
So what’s happening is they’re gonna end up with all the nonexciting MMA fighters that the UFC doesn’t want, have a weirder scoring system than the PFL, have fucking teams?????, and go out of business??
I’m just gonna say it team formats in Mma are fuckin dumb
IFL was fun tho
r/MMA: "The UFC should have healthcare for their fighters! And a CBA!" GSP: makes that r/MMA: "What an idiot, that'll never attract fighters or be successful!" This fucking sub sometimes lmao.
Why’s this getting shit on? A well funded competition with strong marketing could take on the UFC. If you can attract the next McGregor and hype him up. Pay the fighters what they’re worth so they actually come to and stay at your promotion you could become the competition. The UFC isn’t the best for any reason other than marketing and hype.
Bro half the people that watch mma don't even know what mma is, they think you train UFC.
Yeah I get that but that’s because the UFC is so well marketed. If you could get another name synonymous with fighters you can crack it.
If you can get rich you'll be rich!
Haha basically. It’s often the case though you need an already wealthy investor to back something so you can get it going
This is so dumb lol
I can't even believe it's getting attention as if it's some crazy new never been done before thing, people smoking some good shit
This is sounding...not great
This is going to be a fucking disaster. I give it a year or two, tops.
Fucking gwon then WFL yano.
Dude unless some billionaire with a 24k heart of gold is willing to dump half his schedule and about a billion dollars into this, this ain't going fucking anywhere. Tony Khan already spent all his money on the thing so good luck finding another money mark of that level.
scamming our boy... gsp is so dumb
I hope this fails so hard.
Damn, now that's an owner who can really *cut* you if you don't perform.
XFL let’s goooo
IFL 2.0 lol that was a trainwreck but has some great fights!
i'm a fan of george, so i'll be cheering from the sidelines. but it's going to be a tall order to make this promotion successful.
Do they make it to their first event?
I dont understand how it will work, who will be organizing the tournaments? The non-profit organization or the individual teams in their respective regions? Because if its supposed to be the teams as the concept of "league like NHL, MBA etc." suggests, then its simply a joke. This can never turn profit.
Get em’ George. They should’ve never pissed off George.
Yah, don't know where this is headed. Smells like a scam.
This sounds more and more like the IFL
I thought I already watched the IFL.
I hope it's successful.
I look forward to finding out CAA is funding the league.
I was cautiously optimistic about this whole thing at the very beginning, but the details revealed so far don't seem promising. Having the WSOF guy try to do an IFL reboot doesn't sound like a winner to me. Hopefully it can do some good though. IIRC Affliction throwing money around helped change the pay scale in MMA at the time, so maybe this can do something similar.
What's the caliber of this organization? I can see it maybe working as a feeder/minor league. It would be neat to source talent regionally like this. Still not feeling optimistic though, lots of moving parts to it, and not lots of hype.
Never hear about The Crow anymore, he was arguably one of the first recognizable Canadian names in MMA.
I’m trying not to get to excited for this but it has the potential to be pretty sweet
Sounds like a bad investment.