Filed under: UFC, News, Sports Business and Media
The first domino fell just two weeks ago, when the UFC and FOX announced a landmark, seven-year deal that would put the world’s biggest MMA promotion on network television for the first time.
Now, the second has fallen, after the UFC announced on Friday that its FOX debut, set for Nov. 12 in Anaheim, California, would host a heavyweight championship bout between Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos.
The blockbuster matchup officially signals the arrival of UFC on the worldwide sporting landscape, and FOX executives say they will utilize all the resources at their disposal to ensure a massive audience turns out for network’s premiere MMA offering.
And in fact, it may feel like a Hollywood premiere, all the way down to the pre-fight presentation.
“One thing we will be doing is launching the UFC on FOX with a Super Bowl-style red carpet and tailgate party with every star in Hollywood and every dignitary that we need to get out there to launch this thing,” FOX Sports media group co-president and COO Eric Shanks said. “It will be a la Super Bowl tailgate and Super Bowl red carpet with a huge party outside before the event.”
Promotion for the event will begin immediately on FOX television properties. UFC president Dana White said he’s already been blown away with the network’s proactive approach through the early days of their deal, noting that they were already promoting the UFC on FOX partnership with in-program advertising just hours after their original announcement was made on August 18.
“We’ve never been treated like this,” White said. “We’ve never been happier.”
Shanks said that beginning with Saturday afternoon’s college football and Major League Baseball programming, promotions would air for the Velasquez-dos Santos clash.
“We’re jumping on this thing and we’re making it as big a deal as we can,” Shanks told MMA Fighting. “Guaranteed we’ll be promoting it across all of our sports and entertainment properties as well.”
Though the broadcast is only scheduled for one-hour, FOX is expecting to have a “mini pre-game show” and then head straight into the fight. Depending on the actual length of the scheduled five-rounder, the network will either pump in a taped fight or show highlights of the entire card during the broadcast. That decision, however, is yet to be made.
FOX executives declined to set a ratings expectation, though White said he is expecting to blow the old MMA ratings records out of the water, and FOX Sports chairman David Hill agreed. A match held on EliteXC’s CBS May 2008 show holds the all-time record for viewers, with 6.51 million fans watching Kimbo Slice defeat James Thompson via TKO. UFC’s highest-rated all-time fight came in September 2009, when 6.1 million tuned into Spike to watch Roy Nelson defeat Slice via TKO.
With a major championship fight to promote, both the promotion and network know the job in front of them: making sure as many eyes as possible are on what may be the most important fight in UFC history.
“We knew these guys were going to deliver,” Shanks said. “And we’re going to deliver for them to bring a huge audience to it that night as well.”