Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting (Yourself)
Jordan Breen Jul 28, 2008
Their May 31 debut effort combined poor time management,
ill-advised production cues and shady stoppages, but EliteXC's
second go-around with "Saturday Night Fights" on CBS was markedly
and thankfully improved. However, I get the unfortunate feeling
that I may have been the only person who noticed.
All aspects, from the simple, like keeping the telecast within the allotted two hours, to the uncontrollable, such as the actual in-cage action, were vastly improved. However, the one major success that the initial “Saturday Night Fights” broadcast had was ass-kicking name-taking ratings, which served as an elixir for the other ills of fans and suits alike. The numbers game isn't particularly kind to the promotion this time around.
The sophomore “Saturday Night Fights” was tabbed at a 1.9 rating
which may be bumped slightly be a few tenths into the low 2.0's
after all markets report their ratings. In the key 18-49
demographic, they drew a 1.0/3 and 2.62 million overall viewers.
Contrast that with the 1.9/6 and 4.3 million overall viewers that
the May 31 card garnered, and it certainly isn't fantastic.
Moreover, the May 31 card's real drawing power, the Kimbo
Slice-James
Thompson (Pictures) main event, garnered an overall
4.1 rating and a total of 6.51 millions viewers at its peak, which
came after primetime, and thus wasn't even included in the
aforementioned numbers.
These numbers have already been interpreted into distinct fashions by MMA pundits, either the half-cocked "EliteXC is an epic failure and will die within the week" and the more tempered but still not fully thoughtful "This is what was expected without Kimbo Slice and Gina Carano (Pictures).” Yes, a 40 percent drop in viewership certainly isn't positive, and of course, it could have been largely forecasted by the absence of superstar power on the card, a fact that CBS and EliteXC execs had planned on.
July is an absolute dead zone for sports on the whole. There's a reason that sports' talking heads have nothing to discuss but Brett Favre foolishness ad nauseum, why Sportscenter's Top 10 is dominated by the same redundant throws to first base, and why Major League Lacrosse is suddenly pseudo-important. The competition in terms of sports broadcasting just isn't there in major sports. Therefore, when CBS and EliteXC almost immediately reneged on the idea to wait until autumn in order to put on a star-studded lineup, it didn't seem like a bad idea for the promotion to put together an in-between offering, giving fans and fighters alike more of what they wanted. However, good promotional ideas were few and far between then and now.
Even if the impetus for slapping the July card together was advertisers, who didn't want to wait until October to cash in on their investment, promotion for the event itself was weak. Google trends, search tags and all the online detectors of pre-event heat were lacking. I talked to some fans and journalists from all over, trying to get a sense of the overall push for the event had been like in their area. While some major market dwellers in New York and Los Angeles said they had been hit with commercials, billboards and the like, those outside of the US's major metropolises had seen virtually nothing, although a few fans told me that they had seen a curious amount of commercials during the Price is Right. Unfortunately for CBS and EliteXC, people outside NYC and LA have television sets (a lot of them, in fact), and the sorts who dote on Bob Barker and Drew Carey are not a demographic priority.
If that is not empirical evidence enough of poor regional promoting, one need only look to the actual gate and turnstiles. Preliminary numbers put the live gate at about 250,000 dollars, with approximately 3,700 tickets sold, and 2,800 comped for an arena that can seat over 10,000 for hockey games. Although the arena was scaled down for the event, and the compromised crowd was still insanely electric (a fact that seldom translates to the telecast), there is no reason there shouldn't have been a larger attendance.
When hometown favorite Nick Diaz (Pictures) fought a completely unknown Ray Steinbeiss (Pictures) in Stockton on a local low-budget ICFO card in May 2006, over 5,000 fans showed up. Am I to believe that an earnestly, honestly promoted EliteXC event can only draw less than an additional 1,500 spectators, with over 40 percent of the tickets being handouts?
And even though we're amidst a vacancy of popular stick and ball sports, boxing doesn't have a season. However, because major fights are generally spread out, that should not be a difficult obstacle to bypass. Still, CBS and Pro Elite put this card head-to-head with the biggest boxing bout of the year, with Antonio Margarito and Miguel Cotto meeting in a classic Mexico vs. Puerto Rico clash.
Even though their product was free, general combat sports fans and probably some more MMA-preferrable fans were willing to pony up 50 bones for what turned out to be an absolute classic boxing fight. Furthermore, bars know what sells, and it's certainly not programming content that people could sit on their couch and watch for free.
Worse yet, while the Mexican and Puerto Rican anthems were belted out while the live east coast telecast of “Saturday Night Fights” went off the air, EliteXC started up on the west coast (see: major boxing hotbed and where the Mexican Margarito supporters are) amidst Margarito and Cotto already smashing one another, meaning pacific time viewers had already left to their favorite watering hole, or would've sooner died than changed their channel at home. EliteXC will never be able to escape the fact that Spike TV and Zuffa can do damage to their product at the drop of the hat with marathon replays of “Ultimate Knockouts” compilations. However, with no other summer boxing blockbusters in sight, CBS and EliteXC just had to go head-to-head with an instant pantheon-level prizefight?
While detractors have been quick to fly off the handle and overreact to perceivedly weak television ratings, this is no coffin nail for EliteXC or their marriage with CBS. However, it is simply not good enough to give these parties a pass because Kimbo Slice and Gina Carano (Pictures) were beside the cage and not in it.
Since both Kimbo and Carano appeared on the telecast to pimp their next fights and they repeatedly hyped their forthcoming Oct. 4 card (you know, the one they care about), why wouldn't they at least advertise this card to turn it into a more successful infomercial for their fall foray in Florida? Hell, even if this card is interpreted as a favor to advertisers, it doesn't add up: don't advertisers want people to actually see their advertisements?
The card EliteXC staged on Saturday was monumental improvement over the painful May 31 telecast. We had a polished and palatable commentary team, a rarity in MMA, which will only continue to improve as Gus Johnson gets more comfortable with being an MMA lead man. There were no hour-long gaps between fights filled with plastic strumpets "dancing" like jerky epileptics. No Phil Baroni (Pictures) entrances on a ramp the size of a football field. It didn't run even a second overtime, and the fight action was outstanding if not a tad predictable. They put their best production foot forward, and their fighters did their part, and yet they compromised their own potential viewers because CBS and EliteXC just couldn't be assed to actually promote their own product, a show that they went out of their way to have.
CBS and EliteXC have legitimate problems to worry about in the future. They have a hectic schedule for the remainder of 2008 with a thin roster. They have few contendership possibilities for their middleweight champion Robbie Lawler (Pictures) and their heavyweight champion Antonio Silva (Pictures), and virtually none for their welterweight champion, Jake Shields (Pictures). Gina Carano (Pictures) can't make weight, and Kimbo Slice may not be as ready-for-primetime as previously thought. A promotion with these very real issues on their horizon should be fighting their problems, not themselves.
All aspects, from the simple, like keeping the telecast within the allotted two hours, to the uncontrollable, such as the actual in-cage action, were vastly improved. However, the one major success that the initial “Saturday Night Fights” broadcast had was ass-kicking name-taking ratings, which served as an elixir for the other ills of fans and suits alike. The numbers game isn't particularly kind to the promotion this time around.
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These numbers have already been interpreted into distinct fashions by MMA pundits, either the half-cocked "EliteXC is an epic failure and will die within the week" and the more tempered but still not fully thoughtful "This is what was expected without Kimbo Slice and Gina Carano (Pictures).” Yes, a 40 percent drop in viewership certainly isn't positive, and of course, it could have been largely forecasted by the absence of superstar power on the card, a fact that CBS and EliteXC execs had planned on.
However, the more salient and overlooked point here is that even if
ratings weren't going to be through the roof, a point known well
ahead of time, things could have been much better for EliteXC and
CBS if they had actually done a damn thing to promote it.
July is an absolute dead zone for sports on the whole. There's a reason that sports' talking heads have nothing to discuss but Brett Favre foolishness ad nauseum, why Sportscenter's Top 10 is dominated by the same redundant throws to first base, and why Major League Lacrosse is suddenly pseudo-important. The competition in terms of sports broadcasting just isn't there in major sports. Therefore, when CBS and EliteXC almost immediately reneged on the idea to wait until autumn in order to put on a star-studded lineup, it didn't seem like a bad idea for the promotion to put together an in-between offering, giving fans and fighters alike more of what they wanted. However, good promotional ideas were few and far between then and now.
Even if the impetus for slapping the July card together was advertisers, who didn't want to wait until October to cash in on their investment, promotion for the event itself was weak. Google trends, search tags and all the online detectors of pre-event heat were lacking. I talked to some fans and journalists from all over, trying to get a sense of the overall push for the event had been like in their area. While some major market dwellers in New York and Los Angeles said they had been hit with commercials, billboards and the like, those outside of the US's major metropolises had seen virtually nothing, although a few fans told me that they had seen a curious amount of commercials during the Price is Right. Unfortunately for CBS and EliteXC, people outside NYC and LA have television sets (a lot of them, in fact), and the sorts who dote on Bob Barker and Drew Carey are not a demographic priority.
If that is not empirical evidence enough of poor regional promoting, one need only look to the actual gate and turnstiles. Preliminary numbers put the live gate at about 250,000 dollars, with approximately 3,700 tickets sold, and 2,800 comped for an arena that can seat over 10,000 for hockey games. Although the arena was scaled down for the event, and the compromised crowd was still insanely electric (a fact that seldom translates to the telecast), there is no reason there shouldn't have been a larger attendance.
When hometown favorite Nick Diaz (Pictures) fought a completely unknown Ray Steinbeiss (Pictures) in Stockton on a local low-budget ICFO card in May 2006, over 5,000 fans showed up. Am I to believe that an earnestly, honestly promoted EliteXC event can only draw less than an additional 1,500 spectators, with over 40 percent of the tickets being handouts?
And even though we're amidst a vacancy of popular stick and ball sports, boxing doesn't have a season. However, because major fights are generally spread out, that should not be a difficult obstacle to bypass. Still, CBS and Pro Elite put this card head-to-head with the biggest boxing bout of the year, with Antonio Margarito and Miguel Cotto meeting in a classic Mexico vs. Puerto Rico clash.
Even though their product was free, general combat sports fans and probably some more MMA-preferrable fans were willing to pony up 50 bones for what turned out to be an absolute classic boxing fight. Furthermore, bars know what sells, and it's certainly not programming content that people could sit on their couch and watch for free.
Worse yet, while the Mexican and Puerto Rican anthems were belted out while the live east coast telecast of “Saturday Night Fights” went off the air, EliteXC started up on the west coast (see: major boxing hotbed and where the Mexican Margarito supporters are) amidst Margarito and Cotto already smashing one another, meaning pacific time viewers had already left to their favorite watering hole, or would've sooner died than changed their channel at home. EliteXC will never be able to escape the fact that Spike TV and Zuffa can do damage to their product at the drop of the hat with marathon replays of “Ultimate Knockouts” compilations. However, with no other summer boxing blockbusters in sight, CBS and EliteXC just had to go head-to-head with an instant pantheon-level prizefight?
While detractors have been quick to fly off the handle and overreact to perceivedly weak television ratings, this is no coffin nail for EliteXC or their marriage with CBS. However, it is simply not good enough to give these parties a pass because Kimbo Slice and Gina Carano (Pictures) were beside the cage and not in it.
Since both Kimbo and Carano appeared on the telecast to pimp their next fights and they repeatedly hyped their forthcoming Oct. 4 card (you know, the one they care about), why wouldn't they at least advertise this card to turn it into a more successful infomercial for their fall foray in Florida? Hell, even if this card is interpreted as a favor to advertisers, it doesn't add up: don't advertisers want people to actually see their advertisements?
The card EliteXC staged on Saturday was monumental improvement over the painful May 31 telecast. We had a polished and palatable commentary team, a rarity in MMA, which will only continue to improve as Gus Johnson gets more comfortable with being an MMA lead man. There were no hour-long gaps between fights filled with plastic strumpets "dancing" like jerky epileptics. No Phil Baroni (Pictures) entrances on a ramp the size of a football field. It didn't run even a second overtime, and the fight action was outstanding if not a tad predictable. They put their best production foot forward, and their fighters did their part, and yet they compromised their own potential viewers because CBS and EliteXC just couldn't be assed to actually promote their own product, a show that they went out of their way to have.
CBS and EliteXC have legitimate problems to worry about in the future. They have a hectic schedule for the remainder of 2008 with a thin roster. They have few contendership possibilities for their middleweight champion Robbie Lawler (Pictures) and their heavyweight champion Antonio Silva (Pictures), and virtually none for their welterweight champion, Jake Shields (Pictures). Gina Carano (Pictures) can't make weight, and Kimbo Slice may not be as ready-for-primetime as previously thought. A promotion with these very real issues on their horizon should be fighting their problems, not themselves.
