This is a breakdown of what UFC President Dana White's statements regarding the deal of Zuffa LLC, owners of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, buying Strikeforce.
(courtesy The Telegraph)
Zuffa, the parent company of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, announced Saturday that it has acquired Strikeforce, its biggest rival MMA organisation in the USA, making it a single powerful entity. Strikeforce will stay as it is, for the time being, with Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker remaining in place. The company will be run with “business as usual” for the foreseeable future.
With rumours leaking out, UFC CEO Dana White stepped out ahead of a major news announcement rumoured for Monday March 15, and explained the outline of the takeover to MMAfighting.com Saturday afternoon UK time.
The implications of the UFC takeover of the Strikeforce MMA organisation are broad.
Breaking down UFC CEO Dana White’s explanations in broad terms:
“We needed more fights, more fighters.”
“Strikeforce is liked by fans. It made sense. Our job is to put on the big fights – in other countries.”
“It [the deal] happened quickly.”
No disclosure of financial settlement. White admitted that Pride buy-up was bigger.
Strikeforce will run ‘business as usual’, with CEO Scott Coker at the head of it, on Showtime (in the US). On Primetime, in the UK (exclusive current deal).
UFC fighters may go to Strikeforce; and vice versa once out of contract.
Lorenzo Fertitta, not Dana White, will most likely deal with Strikeforce.
There will be no super fights between UFC and Strikeforce champions. White: “We don’t co-promote.”
Fighters banned/suspended/out of favour with the UFC “will have their Strikeforce contracts honoured”.
White: “I’m still not a Paul Daley fan. He will never fight in the UFC. His Strikeforce contract will be honoured.”
Background to the deal and Strikeforce set-up:
Strikeforce, owned jointly by Scott Coker, its CEO, and Silicon Valley Sports & Entertainment, which runs the NHL’s San Jose Sharks, was rumoured to be looking for a business partner. On March 1, Coker described whispers of a UFC takeover as “crazy”. It is believed that ProElite Inc, also interested in acquiring the company, had been offered Silicon Valley’s share for $20 million, and a $20 million capital investment. Draw conclusions from there about the sums the UFC would have paid for what Dana White described as “a very good deal”.
The UFC have bought Strikeforce’s licensing rights as an MMA organisation, all the fighter contracts, and its entire video library. Power tools indeed. Strikeforce have a television deal with Showtime until 2012 (in the US). In the UK, they have a deal with Primetime, owned by media mogul Richard Desmond. Desmond also has Channel 5, two national newspapers, and a magazine empire.
The UFC have systematically acquired PRIDE, the WEC, and now Strikeforce. The next Strikeforce event will be in San Diego, on April 9. The move may create sticking points with fighters who have individual contracts with Strikeforce. That could include the likes of Fedor Emelianenko.
With the UFC reducing its roster to around 30 fighters per weight category, Strikeforce may become crucial as a feeder arena for developing talent, along with experienced, popular fighters who may be sliding down the rankings.
The Telegraph breakdown on the future…
The way forward…Strikeforce should dissolve its championship belts and have men’s Grand Prix and women’s titles.
The effect and the implications it will have on the world MMA scene, are severalfold. The main implications are that Zuffa have eliminated a rival organisation which was looking at expansion outside the US.
For now, Strikeforce will be run as a separate entity, with their current roster of fighters under contract, led still by CEO Scott Coker.
Strikeforce has recently been aggressively going after the UK market for the first time, doing a television deal in the UK, pay per view in Australia, and were talking about doing a show in Japan. They were at least showing the ambition to become the second truly international MMA organisation. Strikeforce already has an exclusive deal with Primetime in the UK, with some free to air events, and other pay per view events.
Even Pride did not have the ambition to do anything other than be a Japanese organisation until the very end, when they were bought out by Zuffa.
Other implications:
It strengthens Zuffa’s position in the global TV market.
When the UFC bought the WEC it was not long before some of its champions, Carlos Condit and Chael Sonnen to name two of them, moved into high positions in the UFC.
One of the conundrums for the UFC is that it does not make sense to have two world champions in the same division under the same umbrella organisation.
The UFC have always said that there is only one champion in a limited number of divisions, that (pre-WEC merger) there were only five UFC champions, and at that, the real champions.
Based on what happened with the WEC, the UFC are likely to be looking to amalgamate the Strikeforce leading fighters when it is contractually viable, and makes sense.
Arguably, given that problem with dual world champions, maybe Strikeforce should have a super-middleweight division with the likes of Dan Henderson, and a new roster of fighters such as Rashad Evans, Michael Bisping and others who are not big enough to be light-heavyweights in the UFC.
It is one way that Zuffa could get around this conundrum, by changing the divisions slightly. Perhaps Strikeforce should drop all its champions, disintegrate its belts, and give its champions over to the UFC to fight in unification contests with champions in the UFC ?
In Strikeforce, perhaps they should consider having just Grand Prix champions, and women’s divisions, so they stay as a separate entity. Or arguably, a feeder organisation.
For example, should Jake Shields now be able to carry the Strikeforce middleweight championship into the UFC ?
One answer could be twelve Strikeforce events a year for women’s title fights and for men’s Grand Prix titles. That way, it would give Strikeforce a chance to have their own identity separate from the UFC, and not just have B-listers as a feeder fighting organisation.
It is not bad in any real sense for MMA globally. Better for the fans, certainly. The UFC will still need smaller organisations like Bellator and BAMMA for prospects to come through, just as Formula 1 needs Formula 2 and Formula 3. The winner of F1, is the ultimate racing driving champion.
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