On the heels of the landmark agreement between EliteXC and CBS to air mixed martial arts programming on a major national network for the first time ever, Strikeforce and NBC are now apparently set to also ink a deal that will get the San Jose Calif.-based promotion airtime in the near future.
Dave Meltzer at Yahoo!Sports.com reports that the agreement calls for a “52-week commitment for a Saturday night weekly program that is tentatively slated to start on April 12.”
These 30-minute broadcasts will air at 2 a.m., following the “Saturday Night Live” episodes and feature stars such as Frank Shamrock, Cung Le, Gilbert Melendez and others.
It’s important to note that these will not be live events. Instead it will be something similar to the “UFC Unleashed” series, which airs on the SpikeTV network.
This is great news for the sport even if it’s not as sexy as a primetime slot such as the agreement EliteXC recently landed. And as Meltzer notes, Strikeforce and NBC will not be under pressure to deliver monster ratings with the current arrangement.
However, if it prospers it can certainly lead to bigger and better things.
An official announcement is expected sometime soon that will reveal all the details of the partnership. For now this latest news means that two networks — for the time being — have passed on working with the most popular promotion in North America, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
UFC President Dana White has been quoted recently as saying that the company is not about to “sign a bad deal.”
Certainly a 2 a.m. time slot for the organization does not make sense. But with the competition beating them to the punch on the network television front, one would imagine that it’s only a matter of time before the UFC realizes that a deal needs to be struck sooner rather than later.
Strikeforce has a show slated for March 29 at the HP Pavillion in San Jose, featuring a middleweight title fight between it’s two biggest stars, Shamrock and Le.
Don’t be surprised if this is showcased in the debut episode on NBC — it’s going to be a good one.
12 Comments »
Can’t wait for Shamrock vs Le.
I don’t really blame Dana for not getting one of those two tv deals. They already have UFC unleashed, and do they still have that Wired show on?
Does the UFC really need these prime time guys? They some to do pretty well on Spike TV. The upcoming fight night is probably going to get over 2 million viewers.
People seem to have this notion that unless your sport in on one of the “top dog” stations your not an official sport.
So no live events at all will be aired? I’d like to see Shamrock vs Lee. If not, I’d still like to see some of the past fights I’ve missed.
im not a huge fan of shamrock, but i hope he exposes Lee. theres a lot of people running around talking about Lee being some kind of God. that is all
It would certainly be nice if the UFC had more frequent fight nights on Spike. There’s several lower level fighters I enjoy watching and they’re always doomed to the undercards.
I’d love to see some up-and-comers get a weekly shot at showing us why they belong on the Pay-Per-View fights. This would give a lot more people time to shine and give the UFC more ways to promote new fighters.
Think shamrock will wtf pwn lee, lee dont seem to good from what ive seen, but hes definitely not bad either.
the other promotions are heamorraging money
i seriously doubt they even get close to breaking even on their big shows
tv may help them improve and possibly attract better fighters
tito frank shamrock would be a huge fight
matt lindland appears to be available too
so guys are out there if they can afford and are willing to pay them
its too early to consider the other promotions a serious threat to ufc… they are at the stage ufc was back when the shamrocks were their top guys
dream on the other hand could easily fill the pride void in japan and give dana a huge headache in the near future as they would be able to tempt guys back and also grab fedor and the other pride guys who are still refusing to sign for /not wanted by the ufc
I heard the NBC execs wanted to put Strikeforce on at 3:30 a.m., but you guys really hammered them in negotiations to get that coveted 2:00 a.m. slot. Way to go!
Just an interesting fact–
The Strikeforce logo is a blatant rip off of the 1980s band Skrewdriver, who happens to be white power.
And Strike Force is one of their songs.
Discuss.
[quote comment=”367404″]Just an interesting fact–
The Strikeforce logo is a blatant rip off of the 1980s band Skrewdriver, who happens to be white power.
And Strike Force is one of their songs.
Discuss.[/quote]
thats pretty sick if its true. as far as it being on so late i’ll stay up yo wwatch it if i dont catch it live. i love all mma.
“I don’t really blame Dana for not getting one of those two tv deals. They already have UFC unleashed, and do they still have that Wired show on?”
Exactly. The UFC already has a sweet deal with a network that caters to 18-35 yr old men that give the UFC prime slots of t.v. time. Anyone have a hot clue what the documented target audience of the UFC is? Wow, what a coincidence 18-35 yr old men.
Folks, the NBC and CBS deals are crap. Plain and simple. 9 times out of 10 I would choose a UFC Unleashed rerun on Spike (that I’ve already seen 3 times) over another b league mma show.
Cool enough, we Canadians get Bodog Fight on the Score periodically too.
STrikeForce signed Kazuo Misake!