Most new businesses open their doors with grand opening specials and a great “customer-first” type of attitude. Whether it’s a grocery store, sandwich shop, or in this case a MMA promotion.
Shannon Knapp, the fuel behind the scenes of the Invicta Fighting Championships, has adopted this mentality for the upstart women’s fighting organization.
It becomes increasingly evident with every interview she does that she is truly motivated by the opportunities she is able to provide for aspiring female fighters. As Knapp puts it, she is not in this to “line her pockets.” Her passion for the sport and the direction she is looking to take Invicta FC in is admirable.
Many promotions around the world offer to stream their events online for a fee. Generally the cost to watch those events is about $10. Knapp has made sure Invicta FC was accessible to everyone with a good internet connection. The biggest difference between Invicta FC and many of the other promotions is that Invicta’s fights are free.
The promotion’s first event was streamed by 233,000 viewers according to Knapp in a recent interview with Bloody Elbow. The second show, which took place on July 28, did even better with over 300,000 streams.
For the time being this appears to be a successful way to go about building momentum for WMMA. One has to think ahead and wonder if this is going to be a sustainable way of broadcasting the events. Can Invicta FC and free streams be synonymous with each other for the long run?
I don’t believe it should be expected. Perhaps Invicta FC can finish out 2012 with free events online but Knapp has shown through her promotion that the quality of the female fight cards are worthy of fans chipping in a fee for online broadcasts. In fact, the fans in Kansas City, KS nearly sold out the 3,500 seat arena to watch the last card in person.
In the same interview with Bloody Elbow, Knapp had this to say about the future of streaming the Invicta FC cards:
I can’t ever see a time when we’re not going to be streaming them, or at least part of them. There’s so many people out there that support the women athletes, and want to be involved in this journey with us. If we end up with somebody that doesn’t facilitate the needs for everybody to be able to watch, then I’m sure we’re always going to supplement and go ahead and stream. It’s our goal to make sure everyone has the opportunity to watch our cards.
While it sounds like Knapp may already have a vision for what she anticipates doing to the free streams in the near future, fans shouldn’t be discouraged from watching Invicta FC cards if and when it comes to the point where a fee is being charged. These women have a ton of talent and in order for the talent pool to deepen within an organization fans are eventually going to need to support it financially.
Yes, free streaming is the best business model for the promotion now, as fans that are able to watch it for free now will be the same ones who will pay a fee for it in the future.
Joe Chacon is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report and a Staff Writer for Operation Sports. You can follow him on Twitter @JoeChacon.
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