Despite the rumors that he could potentially be making his long awaited return at December 10’s UFC 206 from his home of Canada, legendary former welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre announced on yesterday’s (October 17, 2016) edition of The MMA Hour that his lawyer had terminated his contract with the UFC and that he was
Despite the rumors that he could potentially be making his long awaited return at December 10’s UFC 206 from his home of Canada, legendary former welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre announced on yesterday’s (October 17, 2016) edition of The MMA Hour that his lawyer had terminated his contract with the UFC and that he was now a free agent.
St. Pierre admitted that negotiations had stalled and that he had become tired of the drawn out process after once again finding his fire to compete. However, he didn’t say that he wasn’t going to once again fight, but he did say that he wasn’t sure what this free agency period would hold for him.
While it’s incredibly difficult to see “Rush” fighting outside of the world famous Octagon, that could indeed be a possibility once we are made aware of just how “free” St. Pierre is from his contract.
With that being said, we have compiled a list of seven fights that GSP could take if he indeed ends up leaving the world’s largest MMA promotion.
This is one of the most pivotal times in the history of Mixed Martial Arts. Companies being sold. Finally being legal in all 50 states. Fighters becoming more focused than ever on their careers and futures. All of these things changing and bringing MMA that much closer to legitimacy amongst the public. Who better to discuss these topics with than the CEO of one of the top 3 MMA Organizations in the country? We spent some time with World Series of Fighting CEO Carlos Silva.
Mr. Silva was generous with his time and talked about all the happenings right now in not only World Series of Fighting, but in the MMA community as a whole. Including his thoughts on if or when MMA would be considered on the same level as the NFL or MLB. “I think it’s already on that level. I don’t think it has the potential, I think it’s already on the level….Are there still some sports that are bigger? Absolutely….I just think the kind of audience we have in MMA is so engaged….”
In the full interview we discuss how Carlos ended up in the fight business, his thoughts on fighter pay in the future, and even how he sometimes secretly jams out to UB40 “Red Red Wine” in his car. All that and much more. Listen and find out why it’s no surprise that World Series of Fighting is undoubtedly one of the top 3 organizations out there. Success hasn’t gone to his head, it’s just made him hungry.
https://youtu.be/L0Suc3cTXvQ
This is one of the most pivotal times in the history of Mixed Martial Arts. Companies being sold. Finally being legal in all 50 states. Fighters becoming more focused than ever on their careers and futures. All of these things changing and bringing MMA that much closer to legitimacy amongst the public. Who better to discuss these topics with than the CEO of one of the top 3 MMA Organizations in the country? We spent some time with World Series of Fighting CEO Carlos Silva.
Mr. Silva was generous with his time and talked about all the happenings right now in not only World Series of Fighting, but in the MMA community as a whole. Including his thoughts on if or when MMA would be considered on the same level as the NFL or MLB. “I think it’s already on that level. I don’t think it has the potential, I think it’s already on the level….Are there still some sports that are bigger? Absolutely….I just think the kind of audience we have in MMA is so engaged….”
In the full interview we discuss how Carlos ended up in the fight business, his thoughts on fighter pay in the future, and even how he sometimes secretly jams out to UB40 “Red Red Wine” in his car. All that and much more. Listen and find out why it’s no surprise that World Series of Fighting is undoubtedly one of the top 3 organizations out there. Success hasn’t gone to his head, it’s just made him hungry.
(“Y’know Rousimar, it’s a shame how imbalanced the profit distribution is in this sport. Sometimes, it feels like we-OW OW OW OW OKAY I’LL STOP TALKING.” / Photo via Sherdog)
World Series of Fighting turned some heads yesterday — as in, we briefly looked up from our General Tso’s chicken — when the promotion announced that it will begin putting on pay-per-view shows beginning next year. In other words, the second-tier MMA promotion that very few of you watch on cable wants you to start paying for their shows. Make sense so far?
And, because WSOF has no superfights to sell you at the moment, the promotion is trying to generate interest through a unique financial arrangement: Half of the revenue that WSOF takes in through pay-per-view sales will go to their fighters. From the press release…
LAS VEGAS (Sept. 23, 2014) – In a radical move that could forever change the earning potential of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighters, World Series of Fighting (www.wsof.com) has announced that it will enter the pay-per-view business in the second half of 2015 with an unprecedented revenue sharing model that will pay 50 percent of all net revenue earned from live pay-per-view events it produces, to the fighters featured on the telecasts.
“This is a proud day for the sport of mixed martial arts and our organization and one that we hope will create a better opportunity for the fighters who put everything on the line every time they step inside the cage,” said World Series of Fighting President, six-time world champion and two-time Hall of Famer Ray Sefo.
“Until now,” continued Sefo, “one of the main things holding this sport back from becoming even bigger than it is today has been fighter compensation and the inability of the sport’s top athletes to earn on par with top-level professional athletes in other sports.
“If fighters can’t earn a fair share of the money at the top,” said Sefo, “the fighters lose hope or become disenchanted with the sport, which impacts their commitment to training and preparing properly for title fights. That is about to change, thanks to this major step we are taking now fighters will train harder than ever to become a champion giving the fans some epic championship bouts to enjoy. We want to thank NBC Sports and NBC for giving us such an amazing stage to grow World Series of Fighting since its debut…
Additional details about World Series of Fighting’s 2015 pay-per-view launch will be announced soon.
It’s not bad for a publicity stunt. But can this revenue-sharing model actually work? Let’s do some quick math…
(“Y’know Rousimar, it’s a shame how imbalanced the profit distribution is in this sport. Sometimes, it feels like we-OW OW OW OW OKAY I’LL STOP TALKING.” / Photo via Sherdog)
World Series of Fighting turned some heads yesterday — as in, we briefly looked up from our General Tso’s chicken — when the promotion announced that it will begin putting on pay-per-view shows beginning next year. In other words, the second-tier MMA promotion that very few of you watch on cable wants you to start paying for their shows. Make sense so far?
And, because WSOF has no superfights to sell you at the moment, the promotion is trying to generate interest through a unique financial arrangement: Half of the revenue that WSOF takes in through pay-per-view sales will go to their fighters. From the press release…
LAS VEGAS (Sept. 23, 2014) – In a radical move that could forever change the earning potential of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighters, World Series of Fighting (www.wsof.com) has announced that it will enter the pay-per-view business in the second half of 2015 with an unprecedented revenue sharing model that will pay 50 percent of all net revenue earned from live pay-per-view events it produces, to the fighters featured on the telecasts.
“This is a proud day for the sport of mixed martial arts and our organization and one that we hope will create a better opportunity for the fighters who put everything on the line every time they step inside the cage,” said World Series of Fighting President, six-time world champion and two-time Hall of Famer Ray Sefo.
“Until now,” continued Sefo, “one of the main things holding this sport back from becoming even bigger than it is today has been fighter compensation and the inability of the sport’s top athletes to earn on par with top-level professional athletes in other sports.
“If fighters can’t earn a fair share of the money at the top,” said Sefo, “the fighters lose hope or become disenchanted with the sport, which impacts their commitment to training and preparing properly for title fights. That is about to change, thanks to this major step we are taking now fighters will train harder than ever to become a champion giving the fans some epic championship bouts to enjoy. We want to thank NBC Sports and NBC for giving us such an amazing stage to grow World Series of Fighting since its debut…
Additional details about World Series of Fighting’s 2015 pay-per-view launch will be announced soon.
It’s not bad for a publicity stunt. But can this revenue-sharing model actually work? Let’s do some quick math…
– If the worst UFC pay-per-view card and greatest Bellator card can both pull about 100,000 buys, how many buys do you think World Series of Fighting can draw from a burned-out MMA fanbase, with verrrry little in the way of mainstream stars. Let’s be super generous and say 50,000.
– Bellator’s PPV price tag was anywhere from $30-$45, depending on cable provider. We’ll assume that WSOF’s PPV will cost an average of $40/pop.
– Generally, cable providers collect half of the gross PPV revenue. So, for every pay-per-view that WSOF sells, they’d get $20 in this hypothetical scenario.
– 50,000 x 20 = $1,000,000 net revenue for WSOF.
– 50% of that = $500,000 for the fighters “featured on the telecasts” which could mean just the ten fighters on the main card. If that’s the case, those fighters would receive an additional $50,000 apiece on average. (“Everybody! Gets! A Performance Bonus!”) If that money is distributed to prelim fighters as well — say, ten more fighters — then each fighter would get a $25,000 bump, on average. Obviously, we’d expect headliners to get a bigger cut of the pie than local curtain-jerkers.
What this exercise proves is that even a terribly-performing pay-per-view show can generate real money for fighters, if half of the money actually goes to them. Try to imagine the UFC doing this: Let’s say the UFC puts on a solid PPV card that draws 300,000 buys, at an average consumer price of $50. The UFC would collect $7,500,000 in net revenue (300,000 x 25). Half of that — $3,750,000 — would go to the fighters. Based on a UFC card with 24 bodies, each fighter would get an average payout of $156,250. And if the UFC just wants to share the cash with the 10 fighters on the PPV broadcast (which would make more sense), each main-carder would earn an average of $375,000. Holy crap, now we’re talkin’. Assuming it’s distributed sensibly, every damn one of those fighters would be thrilled.
Of course, the UFC would never adopt this model, because they don’t need to; they already have hundreds of fighters falling all over themselves to fight for $20k/$20k (if they’re lucky). But make no mistake — the money is there.
As for World Series of Fighting, their revenue-sharing model could be a great way for the promotion to attract UFC washouts and young prospects who might otherwise sign with Bellator. After all, putting pressure on Bellator seems to be WSOF’s only reason for existence.
More importantly, the card will kick off at 4 p.m. ET, which means that it’ll finish right around the time that the UFC 175: Weidman vs. Machida prelims get underway. Considering that the TUF 19 Finale is scheduled for the next day, there’s no reason for you to not be watching MMA at any point that weekend. Hope you didn’t have plans with family or anything.
More importantly, the card will kick off at 4 p.m. ET, which means that it’ll finish right around the time that the UFC 175: Weidman vs. Machida prelims get underway. Considering that the TUF 19 Finale is scheduled for the next day, there’s no reason for you to not be watching MMA at any point that weekend. Hope you didn’t have plans with family or anything.
(Newell and Gaethje pose together during the- OH MY GOD MACHETE WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD.)
It’s official: World Series of Fighting has become the latest MMA promotion to sign a network television deal. Previously a fixture on the NBC Sports Network cable channel, WSOF has signed a new multi-year agreement with the NBC Sports Group that will bring its events to multiple broadcast platforms, including a set of events on NBC. MMAJunkie confirmed the news earlier today with World Series of Fighting president Ray Sefo.
While specific details of the new deal have yet to be announced, MMAJunkie writes that the WSOF/NBC agreement runs through 2017, and a second NBC broadcast event is being targeted for December 27th. We’ll keep you posted.
(Newell and Gaethje pose together during the- OH MY GOD MACHETE WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD.)
It’s official: World Series of Fighting has become the latest MMA promotion to sign a network television deal. Previously a fixture on the NBC Sports Network cable channel, WSOF has signed a new multi-year agreement with the NBC Sports Group that will bring its events to multiple broadcast platforms, including a set of events on NBC. MMAJunkie confirmed the news earlier today with World Series of Fighting president Ray Sefo.
While specific details of the new deal have yet to be announced, MMAJunkie writes that the WSOF/NBC agreement runs through 2017, and a second NBC broadcast event is being targeted for December 27th. We’ll keep you posted.
“I am very excited to be fighting for the World Series of Fighting. They have one of if not the best welterweight divisions in the world* and I look forward to fighting great fighters like Jon Fitch, Rousimar Palhares, Josh Burkman, Gerald Harris and more,” Shields said in a statement to Bleacher Report. “I also believe I will now be in an environment where fighters are embraced which will allow my performance at my very best! My first fight for WSOF will be soon so stay tuned. My thanks to the MMA community and fans for all the love and support.”
Between the guys that Shields listed, and other UFC castoffs like Yushin Okami and Melvin Guillard, WSOF isn’t just taking the UFC’s leftovers — they’re constructing a bizarre alternate reality in which we’ve all warped back to the year 2007 or something. WSOF should rename itself “UFC Classic” and see if they can draw Matt Hughes out of retirement. The crazy part is, people are legitimately excited about this. Here’s one representative tweet we got after the news broke:
(If you think I’m going to waste my time thinking of a funny caption for this photo, you are out of your damn mind. / Props: Esther Lin)
“I am very excited to be fighting for the World Series of Fighting. They have one of if not the best welterweight divisions in the world* and I look forward to fighting great fighters like Jon Fitch, Rousimar Palhares, Josh Burkman, Gerald Harris and more,” Shields said in a statement to Bleacher Report. “I also believe I will now be in an environment where fighters are embraced which will allow my performance at my very best! My first fight for WSOF will be soon so stay tuned. My thanks to the MMA community and fans for all the love and support.”
Between the guys that Shields listed, and other UFC castoffs like Yushin Okami and Melvin Guillard, WSOF isn’t just taking the UFC’s leftovers — they’re constructing a bizarre alternate reality in which we’ve all warped back to the year 2007 or something. WSOF should rename itself “UFC Classic” and see if they can draw Matt Hughes out of retirement. The crazy part is, people are legitimately excited about this. Here’s one representative tweet we got after the news broke:
Really bro? Where were all you Jake Shields and Jon Fitch superfans hiding back when it actually mattered? Because those guys might still be in the UFC if you had spoken up back then. But now that they’re tussling with Josh Burkman for free on the NBC Sports Network, you’re psyched all of a sudden?
That’s better. Shields will reportedly make his debut this summer against an opponent to be named later.
* “One of if not the best” — I think we could have just stopped at “one of,” Jake.