With Viacom Deal, Bellator Plans to Increase Number of Tournaments
Bjorn Rebney has retained the controlling position in Bellator.
| Photo: Dave Mandel
The Bellator Fighting Championships made a major deal this week, selling a majority stake in the company to media conglomerate Viacom.
Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney joined the Sherdog Radio Network’s “Savage Dog Show” to discuss the deal, Bellator’s eventual move to Spike TV and more.
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On how long the deal was in the works: “When you’re dealing with a group as large as Viacom, it takes time to put these kinds of things together. It takes a lot of discussions with a lot of really smart people. We’ve been working on it and talking about it for a long time. We signed our deal with MTV networks back in last October, over a year ago, and we’ve been talking about it with them for a long time in terms of what everything could look like and how it could come together.”
On what the deal means: “It means good things for the
company. It means good things for the sport of MMA. You’ve got one
of the most powerful, innovative, forward-thinking entertainment
companies on the face of the earth that’s made a long-term
commitment to what you and I agree is the greatest sport … . You’ve
got a company that reaches 600 million people around the world.
They’re available in virtually every country on earth. They control
brands like Paramount, MTV and Spike and Comedy Central and
Nickelodeon and others, [and they] have said, ‘Hey, we believe in
mixed martial arts. We think this sport is the future and we think
this sport has an amazing connection to fans.’ It’s a good day for
Bellator.”
On whether Bellator could move to Spike TV before 2013: “Everything that we’re planning, everything that we’re structuring, everything that we’re developing from a production perspective is going to be geared toward a 2013 launch on Spike. In TV time, 2013 is coming up very quickly. The planning process starts literally nine months out for programming, nine months out for all of the shoulder programming and all of the highlight shows and best-of and behind-the-scenes shows and features on fighters and all that kind of stuff. We’re kind of in a good spot right now in terms of that planning process, but it could conceptually happen earlier.”
On how Bellator could change its format: “I’m not a big fan of the super fight. Never have been. I didn’t create them out of a desire to say, ‘Hey, I love super fights. I’d love to have our champions fighting when the belt isn’t on the line.’ … But the only way a guy gets to that shot at a title in Bellator is by winning a tournament. You can do the math. The easy way to fix that situation is to do more tournaments more quickly, thereby getting more challengers for the title.”
On whether shrinking the tournaments is a possibility: “It isn’t really an option. We have thought about a lot of different things, and of course … from a women’s tournament perspective, that might be a viable alternative because of the depth and the quality of women’s fighters across multiple weight categories. That might be a way to go, but eight has worked pretty well for us. I don’t know that it would be reducing the number of participants in the tournament. It would be more so taking on more tournaments and expanding the breadth of our distribution platform, expanding conceivably even in the times of shows such that you can get more tournaments done.”
On whether Bellator will push women’s MMA more: “I don’t know that we will push it more, but I think we will stay devoted to the women’s game and that we will stay focused on building out the women’s game. But the difference in Bellator, as we know, is we’re not going to pick someone to promote. The promotable fighter is going to be the fighter who wins … . In our format, there isn’t a way to pick a specific female fighter and to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to really build around this person,’ because sooner rather than later, they’re going to have to step up and fight in a tournament, and then it’s win and go on, lose and go home.”
Listen to the full interview (beginning at 1:29:50).
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