Fox Sports Radio to simulcast UFC on Fox

Dana White made the PR rounds today and had a stop with Southern California’s Petros and Money show. Of the notable things said during the half-hour interview was the fact that Fox Sports Radio would simulcast the UFC’s first show on Fox.

Other notable mentions during the interview:

■White indicated that the Fox deal came out of nowhere. A relationship with former Direct TV exec Eric Shanks helped foster the deal.
■The ESPN “car wash” was yanked after the Fox deal was announced, but the issues with ESPN have been resolved. The car wash is the media tour within ESPN where White would have been on multiple ESPN shows in one day to promote UFC 134.
■White stated that 40 million Brazilian fans will watch UFC 134.
Payout Perspective:

The radio broadcast is a throwback to the “old days” of boxing when radio announcers described the fights. This is will be interesting to see if this will catch on or whether the radio simulcast will be just a one off to promote the first UFC show on Fox. In today’s world of instant media, will the old fashion use of one’s mind to visualize an event catch on? Obviously radio works in baseball, basketball and football. But its a little harder with sports like golf and boxing where viewing is needed much more to understand what is going on. Play by play will be key for people to follow along with a radio broadcast.

As it relates to the ESPN “car wash” cancellation, White stated that the issue has been “resolved.” It was not clarified what that meant, but perhaps cooler heads have prevailed and ESPN will grant White the opportunity to promote UFC 134.

Yeah I read about that yesterday, very interesting. Pretty cool though.