Elite XC has officially filed for bankruptcy, with only their millions in debt to show for their efforts in putting together a successful MMA promotion. The International Fight League has lost their television deal, and has closed the office listed in their Chapter 11 filing. Earlier this year, the parent organization to bodogFight reportedly laid-off close to 400 people, many of which were involved in bodogFight directly, then closed down the show completely after reporting an estimated loss of $38 million. M-1 Global still hasn’t put on their first self-promoted show, after splintering off its business relationship with renowned MMA promoter Monte Cox. Now, in under a year’s time, Japanese upstart Dream has cancelled what would have been their eighth show without a definitive rescheduling, and has fighters from their last event complaining about going unpaid for competing. Meanwhile, the UFC’s Dana White sits back and watches everything he’s ever said about the competition’s future coming true, one thing after another in rapid-fire succession.

With that said, we begin our look at the could’ve been, might’ve been, and still may be potential contending promotions to have debuted in the last three years, to take a shot at the UFC’s long-held reign as the top MMA organization in the United States. As one after another fails, and the UFC continues to expand its market share, it almost makes you wonder… has Dana White just been stroking himself this whole time as he’s gone on about who “knew this business,” or was he actually onto something?

The Arrival of Their Rivals
The UFC has only seen a fraction of the success they’ll see as an organization over their lifetime, and yet, the competition pool remains as shallow as it’s ever been as of late. Worse yet, recent news about Elite XC’s implosion has made the outlook for the competing market as bleak as ever. Yet, even as their competitors have notched up worthy performances in spite of the almighty’s continued domination, the UFC continues to enthrall the American Mixed Martial Arts market, with a combined 20 events slated for 2008, a #1 total grossing figure for pay-per-view sales two straight years, and some of the best talent in the world under contract. Since Pride disappeared, MMA fans have all but awaited the day that an organization would reemerge as a viable threat to the throne now occupied by Zuffa’s Ultimate Fighting Championship. In the last three years, those same fans have seen some hot prospects come and, sadly, go.

The IFL would be the first crack at putting together an original, thought-out and novel approach to the now-standard format used abroad In MMA promotions like the UFC. Here, fighters found themselves geographically teamed up, and coached by a roster of iconic veteran fighters. Frank Shamrock, Bas Rutten, Pat Miletich, and Renzo Gracie were only some of the fighters who headed up teams in the IFL, in what promised to be an interesting approach to team MMA competition.

StrikeForce held their debut event, the first Mixed Martial Arts event ever sanctioned in the state of California, on March 10th, 2006. To this day, this event holds the record for the largest paid attendance at a North American Mixed Martial Arts event (17,465), and at that time also broke the record for total attendance at 18,625. With Frank Shamrock fighting Cesar Gracie in their main event, StrikeForce arrived loudly on the MMA scene, and immediately emerged as an organization with a professional approach, quality production sense, and a product that conceivably could compete with what the UFC had been putting out for a decade and a half. To date, StrikeForce continues to grow, albeit a bit slowly, behind a prototype roster, strong marketing and intelligent business decisions.

The founding of bodogFight in the second quarter of 2006 by billionaire money-machine Calvin Ayre, profitable gambling website owner and aggressive venture capitalist, added a more modest approach to marketing an upcoming MMA promotion. While a smaller organization reliant on investor capital with less money to invest had just struck a deal with a largely syndicated television network, bodogFight was content to air episodes of its reality series on an obscure channel only aired in the basic package for subscribers of the Dish Network, and its website, www.bodogfight.com. "Having a passion for MMA as a sport, I wanted the BodogFight TV series and interactive website to set new standards for fans," declared an elated Ayre. From the start, bodogFight made clear their intention to cater directly to the dedicated MMA fan.

Elite XC arrived in December of 2006, and stormed into MMA with the same type of grandeur and extravagance they hoped to achieve in a first event. Two months after their founding, they hosted Frank Shamrock fighting Renzo Gracie as their main event. Four months later, they made waves by giving Brock Lesnar, the UFC’s newest sensation, his first shot in MMA. Within their first four events, they were co-promoting with Showtime, thanks mainly to the boxing ties afforded to them by Gary Shaw, deemed Elite XC’s organizational Director foremost. Well into their promotion with Showtime, Elite XC struck a huge deal with CBS, the first of its kind for the network and a groundbreaking opportunity for not only Elite XC, but Mixed Martial Arts in general. Surely, Elite XC looked more poised to pose a threat to the UFC’s market share in the North American market than any competitor before them.

Two late-breaking additions to the roster of competitors in the market came in the form of M-1 Global, who teamed with Affliction in 2008 in the early-goings of the promotion of their Affliction: Banned MMA event, and Dream, a Japanese-based MMA promotion founded in early 2008 by former Dream Stage Entertainment executives, and members of the Fighting and Entertainment Group, both of which are based in Japan and heavily vested in martial arts markets. Dream is an entity within the MMA sphere that has ties to K-1, the largest Kickboxing promotion in the world, and had already played Fighter-Swap with Elite XC on two occasions while obligating to eventual co-promotion with them. M-1 Global co-promoted the ‘Yarennoka!’ event that would serve as the roots for the eventual union of the minds behind Dream, then went on to splinter off into M-1 Global and Adrenaline MMA. A splinter-cell of M-1 Global, Adrenaline MMA aided businessman Tom Atencio in the first Affliction MMA event in July of 2008. Affliction made a surprising advancement towards the business end of the MMA circuit by signing Fedor Emelianenko, the long sought-after Heavyweight archetype in modern MMA, along with many other unsigned, yet high-profile free agent combatants. Affliction’s first live gate, based mainly on the quality of combatants and effort promoting the event, drew over two million in revenue.

The Challenge
The uphill climb that any debuting organization is going to face, at least for now, is the seemingly insurmountable task of separating the abbreviations “UFC” and “MMA” in the minds of the casual fan. As it stands, the UFC brand name is so synonymous with the sport itself that some of its less informed viewers still call it “Ultimate Fighting”. A remarkably high number of these fans cite the UFC as the sport’s foremost league, without even so much as knowing what other competitors are out there and signed with other organizations. Challenge number one, of course, would be successfully branding your name to the sport of MMA in a way that may distinguish a new competitor from the industry leader, in the eyes of the viewers. Many organizations are content to brand their own name, rather than aiding the public in separating the terms Ultimate Fighting, and Mixed Martial Arts. Although the sport’s come a long way, competitors should realize the long-term value of branding the sport for what it is, and differentiate it from the brand of the single organization that’s brought it to the mainstream for more than 15 years now. Without doing this successfully, Sportsbook websites will continue to list MMA lines under the “UFC/MMA” section justifiably.

Challenge two comes in the form of acquiring a viable talent pool, one that might hopefully combine the elements of competitive quality and star power that would not only draw the attention of the fans, but the interest of the paying viewer.

Challenge three is strictly PR-relative. The UFC has always marketed itself as the Superbowl of modern martial arts competition, the be-all and end-all of stateside MMA. As an aspiring organization, how do you contend with the girth of market share this kind of industry juggernaut has already established? After all, it’s not “MMA” that we’ve seen promoted for the last 15 years. On Semaphore Entertainment Group’s watch, and even on Zuffa’s watch in the post-sanctioning era, it’s been seen to that we are sold the UFC’s product. Such is the genius of their enterprise business model, as evidenced by their ability to build and brand a sport, while simultaneously embedding in the minds of new fans their own brand name. Surely, that element alone has created more speed bumps, uphill climbs and obstacles, both exponentially and philosophically, for not only the new MMA organization but the casual fan trying to comprehend anything but the UFC as being “real MMA.”

That Which Burns Brightest, Burns Fastest
The IFL Rode all the hype in the world to their spot on channel 13, then seemingly tapered off all efforts to continue the advancement of the organization. The unions assembled by the coaches tasked with heading up their respective teams were mostly relatively unknown, with very few fighters entering the ranks as previously “known” athletes, and only a few marquee star-power match-ups in the form of coaches jumping in on occasion to compete. This factor alone made it difficult for the company to compete against other star-studded promotions from the start. Despite the favorable time-slot in prime time and a reasonable push to market the product, the IFL seemed to go flat within months of their inception, and did their best to offset the reality that they were hemorrhaging money left and right in an attempt to market their product to profitability.

Within 33 months of their inception, on September 15th of 2008, The IFL filed for Reorganization Relief under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. The filing can be surveyed here, and although it’s entirely possible that the IFL is gearing up to salvage their efforts, it’s unlikely. The office listed in their Chapter 11 filing has closed, there are no future IFL events planned, all of their top-tier talent is signing away to other organizations, and they’ve since lost their television deal.

Preferring to remain a bit more subtle with the manner in which their demise came to fruition, bodogFight arrived much in the same manner as they departed: quietly, and with only the slightest of mention. Foregoing the customary press release or grandstanding explanation, bodogFight slipped quietly into the annals of MMA by laying off a significant number of employees company-wide, claiming thirty-eight million dollars in losses, and ceasing the operations of bodogFight in sudden fashion. Professional Fighter Matt Lindland was on the losing end of the deal, having only fulfilled one fight on his three-fight contract, and remaining exclusive to the organization while passing on the opportunity to talk to other organizations.

Further outlining that more thought went into the meltdown of this venture than it’s prolonged success, Matt Lindland details his hardships in collecting not only what he may be owed per his contract, but the manner in which bodogFight conducted itself in their final hours. "My contract was with Sixth Row Productions,” Matt explains. “Bodog and Sixth Row intermingled funds. I mean, I could go after Bodog Fight, but they have no assets. They set up these shell companies and they're not paying their fighters. They don't honor their contracts. It was very disappointing. I was upholding my end of the bargain and dealing with them with integrity and honesty. I was being forthright, but they weren't doing such. It was very difficult."

Aside from a splinter-cell effort now headed by Monte Cox, M-1 Global has all but disappeared without a trace, or any mention of passing. Early in 2008, Monte Cox confirmed that former owner Vadim Finklestein had foregone his role as owner of M-1 Global, apparently to focus on the management of free-agent Fedor Emelianenko. From the looks of it, the ploy may have initially been to build an event around the world’s undisputed number one heavyweight in MMA, yet somehow those plans fell through, and Fedor never actually consummated any type of agreement with M-1. Many of Affliction’s early press material advertised M-1 Global as “in affiliation” with Affliction for the promotion of their Banned event, yet as much as possible was changed by the date of the event to reflect that Adrenaline MMA was associated with Affliction for this event. As of this time, M-1’s official website returns a notification that the domain expired. Additionally, the website belonging to Sibling Entertainment Group (later renamed Adrenaline MMA) also appears to have been taken down.

Elite XC’s tales of woe could be the most intriguing, yet disappointing of them all. Founded by renowned boxing promoter Gary Shaw, who helped to stage what was at one time considered the highest-grossing fight in boxing history (Mike Tyson vs. Lennox Lewis, which took $106.9 million via 1.95 million Pay Per View buys, with a live gate of 15,327 attendees), Elite XC immediately exploded onto the scene by signing the likes of such fighters as Frank Shamrock, Robbie Lawler, Nick Diaz, Cung Le, and Renzo Gracie. In addition, Elite XC brought Women’s Mixed Martial Arts to live television for the first time in the sport’s history, debuting Gina Carano vs. Julie Kedzie on primetime syndicated TV and breaking records with the ratings their debut show drew in the process. As their first main-event ever, Frank Shamrock fought Renzo Gracie, two fighters who have long eluded Ultimate Fighting Championship contention. This made a statement to die-hard fans right away.

To these fans, it seemed like this would be the place where all those renowned anti-UFC fighters ended up. Elite XC would go on to host 20 events total, each one streamlined with all the best fighters in the world that ended up not signing to Zuffa contracts, and a good portion of which were co-promoted with StrikeForce or Elite XC, before imminence was upon them. Despite ratings that exceeded expectations and even bested the UFC’s ratings for their Spike TV events in some instances, the lack of return on investment for multiple reasons, and lack of sponsorship investment over the course of 22 months was enough to have Gary Shaw announcing the demise of the effort at just under the two-year mark. To show for their efforts, Elite XC will take a whopping fifty-five million dollars in losses as a souvenir.

The Failure of the Business Model
Privately held Zuffa LLC, the parent company that owns the UFC, legally does not have to report earnings. ProElite Inc. (parent company of Elite XC) and the IFL went a different route in their attempts to develop their organizations, taking on the contributions of potential investors for stake in the respective companies and a share of what would have been the earnings. Dream, Adrenaline MMA, bodogFight and StrikeForce are all, for the most part, smaller companies protected by the girth, legal aura or security of larger organizations, if not from a corporate organization standpoint then through business affiliation. Japanese based Dream is run by former DSE executives and current FEG employees, while a multi-million dollar company backed bodogFight, and a K-1 executive heads up StrikeForce.

In large part, the upstart organizations that have taken upon themselves the task of competing with the giant found themselves reliant on capital from investments in the organizations’ efforts, and sponsor relationships they’d hopefully build over the tenure of a successful product. Where these organizations sought to gather capital from investors hopeful that this business model would succeed, vested parties such as the shareholders of the IFL and Elite XC found themselves quickly losing more money than they were making. The IFL is now in the process of bankrupting, and Elite XC has called it a day after losing $55 million.

The IFL’s approach was genuinely thought-out, and unique. Putting fighters into a team atmosphere in such a one-on-one sport was a new way to present an otherwise individually-vested sport into an experience that united fighters around their training affiliations and teamwork. There was a goal, an end result, and a perpetual tournament / seasonal structure that allowed teams to advance based on performance, and declare supremacy as a unit. Had this organization been able to sign more known talent into the ranks of this effort, rather than focusing so intently on aligning such a vast and impressive array of superstar coaches, their effort may have succeeded.

Elite XC looked like they had a lot more going for them than they apparently did, quickly striking a deal with a major player in the pay-per-view fight market and signing some of the most elusive talent in MMA’s modern day. They continued to make waves by signing controversial talent, and putting them into main-events for no other reason than the entertainment of the fans, foregoing any regard for where said main-event contenders may have factored into anyone’s title picture in their weight class, let alone the promotion itself. They brought in record ratings, by putting the first Women’s MMA bout ever on live prime-time television, and continuing to build up the ranks of their women’s division by introducing new and competitive talent to the picture.

However, the organizational structure was flawed inevitably, essentially foregoing experience on the most key of fronts: their management. Gary Shaw seemingly handed off upper-rank shot calling duties within the organization to his son, Jared Shaw… a move which doomed them. “I’m not saying the rest of us were always on the same page, but we all could present very logical arguments,” says Turi Altavilla, ex-Elite XC executive and former stateside Pride FC executive. “Jared often wanted to do things just his way, and he was very stubborn about it. At the end of it all, you’re talking about guys with years and years of experience that have seen and done this on many levels, and then you’re talking about Jared, who was basically a fan. It often seemed to me like he was a fan who won some reality show and got to be a part of an MMA company.”

Tragically, at the end of the day, Elite XC’s efforts accumulated to paying out more than they made over the course of twenty events. Dana White considered Elite XC bad for the sport from the start, citing everything from the Kimbo Slice / Tank Abbott main event they put on some time back, to their last-minute effort to replace Kimbo’s opponent Ken Shamrock with Seth Petruzelli in an effort to salvage their main draw fight. Fight Industry political inner-workings and competitive animosity aside, the only loser when a competing organization falls to the wayside after an effort like Elite XC’s is the fans.

It would also seem that Dream, despite an incredible surging effort in their emergence as a Japanese MMA organization aligned by founding Pride FC executives and friends, is in a downward financial spiral as well. Some have been quoted as stating that fighters waiting months to be paid on a fight by Japanese promotions, whether MMA or Pro Wrestling is common practice… yet it’s awkward that we’d never hear about practice this common in the instance of Pride FC’s athletes. On the contrary, most of their fighters were well taken care of by their hosts in Japan, and such news is shocking considering the level of respect and tradition surrounding competitive Martial Arts sport in Japan. They’ve recently announced the cancellation of their New Year’s Eve event, and the combination of the finals of their middleweight and lightweight tournaments into one early-November show. They have no TV contract, and although they have sought to put forth a respectable effort, inner turmoil within the organization, according to insiders, may see its undoing.

M-1 Global hasn’t even fully promoted their first full-blown show yet, although they did have a co-promotion hand in the Yarennoka! Event put on by several co-promoting organizations as a “Last Hurrah” for Pride. Their best asset, Monte Cox, has split off to run Adrenaline MMA, which is putting on smaller shows but seemingly seeing some type of success, as they focus more on the production of a profitable and entertaining event, while building something that justifies the effort to those running the business.

The distantly-orbitting bodogFight is perhaps the most embarrassingly tragic story of them all. Given $38 million dollars to realize the dream of running your own MMA organization, having an opportunity to intelligently approach some of the best talent in the world and break some ground in a sport that’s still doing the same every day, I have a younger brother in high school who could’ve done better than the minds running the show at bodogFight did (and he would’ve done it for half that salary). Their approach, although contributory to the sport in some sense for the duration of their stay, was half-hearted, and seemingly focused on the ideal that MMA could somehow serve as a vehicle to bring Bodog, not MMA, into more homes. Surprisingly, this effort failed on every front. From an obscure television deal on Ion that they eventually lost due to lack of interest from fans, to the poorly-executed efforts they’d put forth in producing a quality pay-per-view even once, to the millions they spent on developing a website intended to attract all kinds of traffic it simply didn’t get, bodogFight failed to do anything aside from generate a whole lot of buzz, and spend a whole lot of money.

Initially introducing themselves to the MMA community by making high-profile, ridiculously overpriced contracts to two contractually-obligated UFC fighters (Randy Couture and Matt Hughes). Only Fedor Emelianenko, interested in making himself a quick million after Pride FC’s sudden implosion, made a jump at such offers from millionaire Calvin Ayre. Soon enough, it would seem that Mr. Ayre started making those same types of offers to anyone who looked good on tape. That kind of ethic, while heartfelt and perhaps a bit too kind in modern business resulted in millions in losses. Consider the money they spent promoting their fighters, fostering sponsorship deals, working for more exposure, finding themselves a better TV deal on a more widely syndicated network, and what they put into advertising their product, and you’d have about what you had in weekly allowance when you were about ten. Add up how much they paid those running their company to turn the sincerest of efforts from a mindlessly-trusting millionaire into a multi-million dollar vapor trail, and you come up with about $38 million dollars.

The Few Who Stand Fast
As every other competitive organization that’s cast their stone in the last few years is deemed a failing effort, it would seem to some that although they’ve recently “rescheduled” an intended November event for the middle of January, Affliction’s MMA product is the only one consistently gaining the attention of MMA fans in the face of the industry giant, Zuffa’s Ultimate Fighting Championship. While Zuffa has recently gained some negative buzz of their own while putting up virtually no competition to oppose middleweight powerhouse Anderson Silva and delivering questionably on the quality of those they’ve recently put into main event situations, Affliction MMA is poised to put on some of the more anticipated fights in recent history, having found a way to bring the champions of two former organizations into one new organization for a match-up that MMA fans have wanted for years. In the same effort, they’ll put the top competition from many of the recent fallen efforts at new MMA organizations into contention against one another, and look that much better for the effort in hindsight. Affliction’s first gate for their Banned event totaled more than $2 million, impressive for any organization in this sport in their debut effort, and certainly in excess of what bodogFight did in their effort to match Fedor intriguingly.

StrikeForce also holds strong in their continued effort to not only cement themselves as a legitimate contender, but build up the ranks and profiles of their fighters by bringing in new talent, and working with other promotions to put on shows that could actually compete with the star-filled roster the UFC current holds in so many divisions. American K-1 promoter Scott Coker and the organization that operates the NHL’s San Jose Sharks, as well as the HP Pavilion arena, have put an honorable and forthright effort into matching MMA’s greats from the start, beginning with their match-ups of Frank Shamrock against the Gracies, and again most recently in matching The Legend against San Shou champion and K-1 veteran Cung Le. In doing so, they’ve laid the groundwork for what could be a fascinating rivalry between two veteran fighters, however unintentionally that may have been.

The fall of bodogFight, the International Fight League, and ProElite Inc. all represent blows to the mass of the MMA market, but not necessarily the quality of the talent pool that will be on display at this point. Continued effort from competing factions is what drives the quality of any product forward, and most certainly, we’re at a point in MMA where it’s quite possible that Zuffa may not have such a tight grasp on the MMA market as they’ve had in the last decade and a half, leading up to this next five years of the sport’s continued growth. As the sport grows, new talent emerges left and right, and presence is opportunity. Give StrikeForce or Affliction a reasonable crack at a worldwide talent pool, the way they used to scout back in the old days, before The Ultimate Fighter was even forethought. Let them have a good year or two to pick and choose who they get to put on display in their shows.

Surely, Affliction and StrikeForce have to know that their survival on the market hinges on their ability to put together not only a competitive product, but a superior product… one that puts into perspective for MMA fans the reality that an alternative to Pride FC may have finally arrived, somewhere... whether stateside, or here. If that organization is StrikeForce, I hope to see them utilize their industry ties and relationships with Showtime, and their business savvy thus far to tactfully and strategically navigate the market into some sense of sustainable profitability. Through their talent, they have the marketing strength to approach the fans of all those fighters who simply would not fight in the UFC, and present to them their dream matches. Affliction very much has the same kind of opportunity, and all the same kind of talent to do the job. Between these two organizations, a combined effort could eventually see the rebirth of a competitive MMA product, and a true alternative in a market that always seems to be a step away from some type of monopoly, whether in business or in available fighters.

StrikeForce’s continued effort in the MMA pool shows not only a successful venture thus far, but justification business-wise to continue in their efforts. Affliction looks forward to their next show, postponed reportedly at first due to a lacking ticket-sales figure after months of marketing, but now looking to boom in January with a stacked card and the potential to sign some free-agent talent on not only the male MMA market, but the female MMA market, through the disintegration of all the organizations around them. Gina Carano and Christiane “Cyborg” Evangelista is a fight that fans still eagerly await, whether Elite XC is there to give it to us or not. As well, Robbie Lawler and Tito Ortiz are now hot prospects on the free agent market. Neither seems interested in a return to the brand of fighting and politicking the UFC has reputedly trademarked in the minds of some fighters who’ve dealt with them in the past, and could very well sign with Affliction or StrikeForce. And as the last two years in a competitive MMA market has shown us, business smarts trumps investment dollars on every front. It doesn’t take millions in capital. It takes a smart approach to marketing a quality product.

The UFC has spent more than ten years putting everything their organization is worth into creating an aura about our sport that transcends stereotype and scrutiny. They created a sport where spectacle once was, and in doing so, brought it all back into regulatory perimeters and began building something noble. Government politics were not surpassed through anything other than the example of an organization that could collect quality talent, impose rules that considered safety and decency before shock and awe, and break ground where ground had not been broken since the very early days of the sanctioning of boxing. To insinuate that anything less than two-hundred percent effort, a collection of some of the most genuinely talented fighters in the world, and a perpetually-scanning eye for up-and-coming talent could position itself against the monolithic presence of the UFC is ridiculous, naïve, and wishful. All the millions in the world can’t buy fans that have seen some of the best fights in the sport put on by one organization for the last fifteen years.

Affliction could be successful in this aim based solely on the strength of their heavyweight division in spite of the UFC’s at this point in the organizations’ paths, and if marketed correctly, could see incredible advancement in the market over the next year. Simply throwing billboards out there that say “Affliction” with an event name will not do it. Their advertising needs to more clearly brand the MMA product, to attract the casual MMA fan. Considering that Fedor’s fight in the United States was unseen by so many fans because no one knew about it, it’s clear that the effort to market to MMA fans is failing in some area. Otherwise, considering the minds doing the accounting, the ones developing relationships, and those working together within the Affliction organization, they’ve collected almost all the talent they’ll need to begin building quality talent pools in all weight classes, and they’ll see much success if they stay on the path of acquiring new talent and breaking new ground. As proven, success for any MMA organization is a win for the fans, which gives us a lot to be excited about heading into 2009.

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