Bellator195 did 465,000 viewers Friday night

[FrankieNYC]

Paul is a friend of mine & a MMA statistician & a SDer @DezWalker


View: https://twitter.com/PaulAceFontaine/status/971040829312847875


After the low Nelson/Mitrione numbers I was curious as to the next card without a big name

 

[Trojanlegal]

Jon Fitch was on The MMA Hour yesterday proclaiming Scott Coker the best promoter. I can’t see how Jon and others continue to make that claim when: (1) Bellator’s ratings continue to slide; (2) Bellator pays most of their fighters well below the UFC (compare the fights purses for UFC 222 and Bellator 195 as an example); and (3) Bellator’s overhead has increased significantly without any signs of ratings improvement.

 

[FrankieNYC]

Jon Fitch was on The MMA Hour yesterday proclaiming Scott Coker the best promoter. I can’t see how Jon and others continue to make that claim when: (1) Bellator’s ratings continue to slide; (2) Bellator pays most of their fighters well below the UFC (compare the fights purses for UFC 222 and Bellator 195 as an example); and (3) Bellator’s overhead has increased significantly without any signs of ratings improvement.

John Nash recently tweeted Bellator loses money as a company.
I know the PPV was a huge sink-hole, but that was the first I heard that

 

[Bubba32]

I wonder how much Bellator is losing. If we use elite xc, ifl and the others as an example they were losing like 20 to 40m a year or something.

 

[lsa]

John Nash recently tweeted Bellator loses money as a company.
I know the PPV was a huge sink-hole, but that was the first I heard that

Well I am not really surprised.
Its not like SF was a huge money machine. And Coker is pretty much doing the same now as then.
I think a lot of people have the I hate Dana / UFC goggles on when talking about Scott.
He is just another promoter he treats some fighters better than other.

 

[skylolow]

It all goes back to not building the brand and utilizing the roster better through out the year.

All Coker cares about is the here and now and usually that is consumed by one event in the horizon with everything leading up to it and shortly after it gets overlooked.

They have the roster to give us much better events through the year on average than they currently do. Poor roster management gives you blah ratings just like they have seen.

 

[FrankieNYC]

Well I am not really surprised.
Its not like SF was a huge money machine. And Coker is pretty much doing the same now as then.
I think a lot of people have the I hate Dana / UFC goggles on when talking about Scott.
He is just another promoter he treats some fighters better than other.

I hear that

 

[lsa]

It all goes back to not building the brand and utilizing the roster better through out the year.

All Coker cares about is the here and now and usually that is consumed by one event in the horizon with everything leading up to it and shortly after it gets overlooked.

They have the roster to give us much better events through the year on average than they currently do. Poor roster management gives you blah ratings just like they have seen.

Yeah I hear you.
To me it looks like Bellator and Scott is about here and now and not building for the future.
I dont get Scott at all.

He throws millions after Chuck, and on the other end he offers a guy 500USD / fight.
If that was Dana the HW would be going crazy, but somehow Scott gets away with things.

 

[juanM3]

hmmm... hmmm... solid numbers guys

 

[FrankieNYC]

I wonder how much Bellator is losing. If we use elite xc, ifl and the others as an example they were losing like 20 to 40m a year or something.

Well, remember that there is no middle person between Viacom/Bellator.
They can lose money on Bellator as an entity but come close to break-even with Viacom TV end.

but that won't last long IMO
Viacom purchased them to be inexpensive programming on slow TV nights.
if they lose money, there is no reason to keep them.

Paramount network has gone up a bit since the re-brand & Bellator has gone down (sadly)

 

[skylolow]

I wonder how much Bellator is losing. If we use elite xc, ifl and the others as an example they were losing like 20 to 40m a year or something.

It truly is so hard to say.

Bellator has more going for it than Elite XC, IFL, and even Strikeforce.

I think it really all depends on how much money Paramount/Viacom is comfortable with giving to Bellator each year to a make the product happen. Some numbers were released on some shows when Bjorn was around and it was pathetic to say the least (like less than 50K). Now we know they weren't on the same page so I'm sure there contribution to the product is much better now. But with out knowing that we won't know until Bellator goes belly up or is sold off. Many reports say they lost money big time on the MSG/PPV events.


P.S.: The biggest issue they have is figuring out how to increase avg. ratings so they can charge more to advertisers. If they don't right the ship on ratings this year I'm not sure how long Bellator is going to be around. The money is being spent, its time for the people in charge to do something with it, and so far they haven't done much better than what use to be a shoe string budget Bellator in the ratings department. You can blame it on all kinds of things but the results have to start showing. IDK maybe streaming is going 10 times better than 4 years ago or whatever and there making a ton more money on that end than ever before. Attendance is one area with out a doubt they have drastically improved upon. Who really knows in the end on what they need to be making to keep the suits happy.