It didn’t take long for Spike to re-emerge in the MMA world as officials today announced the news by press release.Spike.com will stream undercard fights during Bellator’s 12-week season from 7:00-9:00 p.m. ET/PT weekly.”We are thrilled to join forces …
It didn’t take long for Spike to re-emerge in the MMA world as officials today announced the news by press release.
Spike.com will stream undercard fights during Bellator’s 12-week season from 7:00-9:00 p.m. ET/PT weekly.
“We are thrilled to join forces with Spike.com,” said Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney. “The Spike brand is synonymous with mixed martial arts worldwide and is another member of the MTV family, who does an incredible job in resonating with the hard-to-reach 18-to-34-year-old male audience.”
Bellator 49 will mark the beginning of the relationship between the organization and Spike.
Bellator’s 5th season kicks off with the aforementioned event from Caesar’s in Atlantic City, N.J. this weekend.
Spike.com and MTV 2 are both divisions of MTV Networks, so the decision to stream Bellator’s preliminary fights isn’t that surprising.
MTV 2 will air Bellator’s main card action, so the move to stream on Spike.com makes sense for both parties.
Bellator’s champions are Zach Makovsky (Bantamweight), Joe Warren (Featherweight), Eddie Alvarez (lightweight), Ben Askren (Welterweight), Hector Lombard (middleweight), Christian M’Pumbu (Light Heavyweight, Cole Konrad (Heavyweight), and Women’s 115-pound title holder Zoila Gurgel.
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Filed under: MMA Media Watch, Bellator, NewsAs the longstanding relationship between the UFC and Spike TV comes to an end this year, Spike is reaching out to Bellator Fighting Championships as it looks to stay in the MMA market. And in the strongest si…
As the longstanding relationship between the UFC and Spike TV comes to an end this year, Spike is reaching out to Bellator Fighting Championships as it looks to stay in the MMA market. And in the strongest sign yet of Spike and Bellator developing a partnership, the promotion announced Tuesday that its undercard fights will be streamed online at Spike.com.
Bellator already had a relationship with Spike’s parent company, MTV Networks, because Bellator’s Saturday night fight cards are televised by MTV2. Erik Flannigan, the executive V.P. of Digital Entertainment for MTV Networks, said it’s a natural fit for Spike.com to bolster that relationship.
“Fight fans have been coming to our site for years for great mixed martial arts clips and information,” Flannigan said in the network’s announcement. “Now we are thrilled to provide them with action-packed live fighting each week.”
For Bellator promoter Bjorn Rebney, getting closer to the longtime basic cable home of the UFC has to be considered a major step forward for his fledgling promotion.
“We are thrilled to join forces with Spike.com,” said Rebney. “The Spike brand is synonymous with mixed martial arts worldwide and is another member of the MTV family, who does an incredible job in resonating with the hard-to-reach 18-to-34-year-old male audience.”
The live streams on Spike.com will begin this Saturday and continue throughout Bellator’s fifth season, which means an already crowded fall MMA calendar will give fight fans will have even more Saturday MMA offerings than they had before. The big question is whether this announcement signals an even bigger deal between Bellator and Spike next year, when UFC programming has left Spike for FX, and Spike will be looking for new MMA content. If things go well for the rest of 2011, Bellator could find itself on Spike TV in 2012.
Filed under: Bellator, NewsWith the UFC joining forces with FOX instead of inking a new deal with Spike TV, it only seems natural that Bellator will eventually fill the MMA void for Spike TV. But as much as fans and pundits alike have already pegged Be…
With the UFC joining forces with FOX instead of inking a new deal with Spike TV, it only seems natural that Bellator will eventually fill the MMA void for Spike TV. But as much as fans and pundits alike have already pegged Bellator as Spike TV-bound, Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney says it’s not that simple.
“Viacom is hugely, hugely successful entertainment empire that has motion pictures and television networks underneath that umbrella and they do extremely well on multiple fronts,” Rebney said Monday on The MMA Hour. “And there’s a lot of really smart people who makes decisions as to who goes where and who does what, when certain programming premieres and when certain programmings does the things that it does.”
Even though Bellator is under a contract with MTV Networks, which owns MTV, MTV2, Comedy Central, Spike TV and many other channels, it depends on the overall strategy of MTV. Where Bellator ends up in the near future will be left up to programming executives and it’s not his call.
“My job is really, truly to build this brand,” Rebney said. “To produce unbelievable shows, deliver them to our partners and try to keep signing world class fighters like the Pat Currans of the world, the [Rene] Nazares and the Mike Chandlers and the Eddies (Alvarez).”
Bellator debuted in 2009 with ESPN Deportes and then ran season two and three on Fox Sports Net in 2010. This past April, Bellator left the land of tape-delay when the Chicago-based company signed on with MTV 2.
Whether or not Bellator finds itself on Spike TV, the promotion, now around 10 months into its three-year deal with MTV Networks, is very happy with its current situation, consistently putting up solid numbers for MTV 2.
“What happens in the future will ultimately happen in the future wherever it goes, but boy, have we been happy in our place with MTV2, what’s going on and the building out of stronger ratings and bigger numbers and the expansion of the demo,” he says. “It’s just been awesome.”
Rebney would agree though, that the UFC’s deal with FOX was a positive for everyone. Rebney says UFC’s presence on FOX and its family of networks will only introduce the sport to more fans.
“I think it’s good for Bellator, I think it’s good for the sport of MMA and it remains to see how that will work out with the UFC, but on its face, it sure doesn’t look like a bad situation.”
The MMA Hour returns on Monday with another two-hour live show. Here’s a list of who will be stopping by.
* MMA legend Royce Gracie will talk about the UFC’s return to Brazil on Saturday night and whether he still wants to fight again inside the Octagon.
* Phil Baroni will discuss his ONE FC fight on Sept. 3 against Yoshiyuki Yoshida.
* Kendall Grove will stop by to discuss life after the UFC and his ProElite debut on Saturday night against Joe Riggs.
* Reagan Penn, BJ Penn’s younger brother, will also talk about fighting on the ProElite card and why he chose to make his MMA debut.
* Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney will talk about Bellator 48, the organization’s upcoming season and more.
* And MMA Fighting’s Mike Chiappetta will stop by to preview UFC 134 and discuss the UFC’s new television deal with FOX Sports.
And of course, we’ll be taking your calls. Give us a shout at: 212-254-0193, 212-254-0237 or 212-254-0714.
*** You can also stream the show live on your iPhone or iPad by clicking here.
Watch the show live below beginning at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT. Subscribe to The MMA Hour on iTunes: audio feed here; video feed here. Download previous episodes here. Listen to the show via Stitcher here.
The MMA Hour returns on Monday with another two-hour live show. Here’s a list of who will be stopping by.
* MMA legend Royce Gracie will talk about the UFC’s return to Brazil on Saturday night and whether he still wants to fight again inside the Octagon.
* Phil Baroni will discuss his ONE FC fight on Sept. 3 against Yoshiyuki Yoshida.
* Kendall Grove will stop by to discuss life after the UFC and his ProElite debut on Saturday night against Joe Riggs.
* Reagan Penn, BJ Penn’s younger brother, will also talk about fighting on the ProElite card and why he chose to make his MMA debut.
* Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney will talk about Bellator 48, the organization’s upcoming season and more.
* And MMA Fighting’s Mike Chiappetta will stop by to preview UFC 134 and discuss the UFC’s new television deal with FOX Sports.
And of course, we’ll be taking your calls. Give us a shout at: 212-254-0193, 212-254-0237 or 212-254-0714.
*** You can also stream the show live on your iPhone or iPad by clicking here.
Watch the show live below beginning at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT. Subscribe to The MMA Hour on iTunes: audio feed here; video feed here. Download previous episodes here. Listen to the show via Stitcher here.
Bellator 48 at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, CT featured and amazing night of fights with the entire card putting on an exciting show.After the event, Bleacher Report was able to catch up with the Bellator CEO, Bjorn Rebney, and get his tho…
Bellator 48 at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, CT featured and amazing night of fights with the entire card putting on an exciting show.
After the event, Bleacher Report was able to catch up with the Bellator CEO, Bjorn Rebney, and get his thoughts on the evening.
Bjorn and I spoke briefly backstage before the main card started, and he voiced his concern that some of the fights may not be as good as they could be based on stylistic differences and things of that nature. When asked what he ended up thinking of the fights, he said “they turned out better than I could have hoped.”
When asked what Bjorn would say to the fans in attendance that booed during Cole Konrad’s fight, he said, “as a fan, I can appreciate the desire to see action…but when you look at a guy like Cole, you have to understand the totality of the fact that he just stood with a guy that has one way that he’s going to beat you, and that is left hand and right hand.”
After talking about Joe Warren’s sticky situation, we went on to talk about whether or not Joe Warren would lose some marketability if he loses in the bantamweight tournament. Bjorn did not think so.
To close out our chat with Bjorn, I asked his thoughts on fight night bonuses. He said, “I’ve never been a fan of it. I don’t think it’s wrong. It’s never been something I looked at and thought, ‘hey that’s an incentive'”
After that, I asked whether or not anyone would get a bonus for beating someone in Dennis Hallman trunks, to which Bjorn laughed and said, “I don’t know that if we gave bonuses that would warrant one.”
For the latest news on everything MMA, follow me on twitter @tmt2393. It’s phatter than Roy Nelson.
The UFC has flirted with the idea of moving to a national television network for years, and now it’s official: the UFC is now partnered with the FOX network. Today, UFC and FOX jointly announced that they had reached a seven-year deal to distribute UFC…
The UFC has flirted with the idea of moving to a national television network for years, and now it’s official: the UFC is now partnered with the FOX network.
Today, UFC and FOX jointly announced that they had reached a seven-year deal to distribute UFC programming over their multiple networks beginning in January 2011.
As a result, the longtime romance between the UFC and Spike TV has come to an end.
UFC first joined Spike TV in January 2005 and both have helped one another to build their platforms since then with Spike helping launch “The Ultimate Fighter”, and we all know what that did for the company.
Almost six years later, Spike will air the final season of TUF featuring middleweight standouts Jason “Mayhem” Miller and Michael Bisping, as well as a group of bantamweight and featherweight talent.
With the UFC leaving Spike, it has caused a bit of a stir between fight fans as to whether Bellator FC will fill the void left by the MMA juggernaut.
Bellator have been in the fight game since 2008 and made a name for themselves by putting on high level, exciting action in a tournament format that has helped produce highly-ranked talent including Eddie Alvarez, Hector Lombard and Joe Warren.
Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney has scratched and clawed to get his organization onto a quality network in MTV2 after jumping between stations for the first three seasons.
MTV2 is a division of the MTV Network who additionally owns Spike TV, which leaves plenty of individuals guessing as to whether Spike would look to pick up the number one MMA organization outside of Zuffa, LLC.
Spike has released a statement indicating that their six-year deal with the UFC is over and that they are dedicated to airing distinctive original series such as “Auction Hunters” and “Bar Rescue”.
However, in 2011 we live in a world where television series’ programming doesn’t score as high of ratings as it did in the past.
The main reason being that most households have a DVD-Recorder and with our busy lifestyles, it’s often easier to DVR your favorite television shows and watch them when you have a spare moment.
But this isn’t as much the case with live sport. Being fight fans, you will understand that there’s nothing worse than not being able to see the event live and someone gives away the outcome of the main event.
Most people prefer to watch their sports live, which adds advertising dollars to live sports and an importance to sporting action being on any network.
But at this time, Spike is looking to re-brand their network and cater towards both males and females instead of just the guys.
I think at this stage, with them looking to go in another direction, it lessens the chance of Bellator finding a home there.
If Bjorn Rebney and everyone involved in Bellator were able to pull off a deal with them, it would be a great boost in the right direction for their company.
Not only is Spike a more viewed network than MTV2, but for six-years fans have associated Spike and fighting together so bringing Bellator there would be a great fit.
For now, I’m just throwing gasoline onto the fire of discussion, but don’t be surprised if Bellator decides to set up shop on Spike TV in 2012.
It didn’t take long for Spike to re-emerge in the MMA world as officials today announced the news by press release.
As the longstanding relationship between the 
With the 