Surprise! Affliction and EXC Cohabitate
Posted by Alan Conceicao on September 24th, 2008
In a move that has to be considered stunning at the least, its been announced that Affliction is loaning out Roy Nelson and Andrei Arlovski to EliteXC for the October 4th event roughly two weeks away. Its a move that pleases Arlovski by giving him a fight and a lot of money, it gives EXC a fight for hardcore fans, it provides CBS one of the top heavyweights in the world and a recognizable name for UFC fans, and so, so much more. How much more? Well, depends how much speculation you want to put in to all this.
IS EVERYONE IN TROUBLE?
In short, maybe. EXC seems certain to run out of money, but a solid TV rating will probably bolster their position with Viacom. It’s assets would also make for interesting purchases were someone with deep pockets and a respectable face to purchase them. Maybe that’s Viacom themselves: trim the fat and you have a product you can promote through your own PPV channels. For the Affliction/Golden Boy team, its also an interesting idea. Golden Boy purchasing EXC or at least key assets might seem to some to be a bad idea, but its also a pathway to network TV. Anyone who’s paid attention knows that if there’s anything Oscar wants, its his boxers on network TV. He may have that goal accomplished come January 24th, if all goes well. Will it go well? The running meme these days seems to be that EXC isn’t getting any attention or commercial spots, and that the choices for cross promotion for Kimbo Slice are poorly picked. Of course, those were the exact same claims the last time.
WHAT CAN ZUFFA DO?
Well, not much. The timing of the announcement means that Dana is pretty much beyond being able to fantasy book himself another live show to counter. He’s left with a taped event and some snide remarks. Expect lots of the latter soon.
WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT THE BOXING?:
Oh, that. Well, again we enter the realm of the purely speculatory, but if CBS is okay with boxing programming coexisting with MMA, Oscar may have hit the gold mine. The sport has been off English language network TV in any fashion since 2004 and hasn’t really gotten any sort of push in a decade. Just getting a single fight on every 60 days would be a coup for Oscar. Not only that, he’d be getting paid for it with at least the equivalent rate of a Showtime Championship Boxing event (as that is what EXC currently gets from CBS). The last attempt at putting boxing on network TV, the often delayed Muriqi/Tarver card, was going to be a straight time buy from ABC.
Even without a boxing component to the deal, it opens up Affliction to a national TV audience potentially much larger than any UFC card ever before televised. That alone is important in ensuring any future for the company, and utilizing Arlovski as the backbone for the deal is a smart one, given his skillset and often entertaining bouts.
This is likely not the last second decision that its being made out to be. The chain of events has been pretty rapid and its much more likely that this was part of the plan for the Affliction delay that occurred just about two weeks ago. More will come out, certainly, but its an exciting time to be an MMA fan.