Showtime executives considering ending SF Challengers, and keeping M-1 Challenge

The actual quote in the article only vaguely suggest that but with only 6-8 Strikeforce cards for 2012, they'll likely have to sell a few challengers worthy cards as "arena" series cards..so this is probably a good move for Showtime.

http://www.mmafighting.com/2011/12/19/showtime-exec-talks-scrapping-strikeforce-challengers-keeping/


The main difference between the old and new Strikeforce deal is the cancellation of the Challengers series in favor of quality fight cards from top to bottom, says Showtime Sports executive vice president Stephen Espinoza.

"Instead of having two stand alone events," Espinoza said Monday on The MMA Hour. "To make it into one huge night of MMA action."

Espinoza made the announcement with UFC president Dana White and Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker last Thursday that Strikeforce will continue producing events for Showtime.

Espinoza says it made more sense to focus on building both the main and preliminary portions of the Strikeforce cards. Strikeforce undercards are often non-televised/streamed and figure minimally in Strikeforce's long-term plans.

But starting with the Jan. 7 event headlined by Luke Rockhold vs. Keith Jardine, all the preliminary bouts will air on Showtime Extreme leading into the featured bouts on the primary Showtime channel.

Currently, the deal calls for Strikeforce to produce up to eight events in 2012. Showtime then has to make the decision to whether or not continue the agreement.

"We have an option to do additional events beyond that," Espinoza said.

In addition to working with the UFC, Showtime also carries M-1 Challenge events. Although UFC and M-1 are competitors, M-1 will likely continue producing events for Showtime as well.

"We are in discussions with M-1 to continue our relationship and we actually hope that we are going to be contiuning for at least another year," Espinoza said. "And things looks good that we are going to be able to do so."

Read More: Strikeforce NewsStephen

Didn't I read this on this forum like days ago already?

Possibly...i didnt see it.

This article was made yesterday

With prelims now being aired on extreme, we don't need the challengers.

As expected showtime will air non-zuffa promotions. M-1 prob gets more then 4 events per year. Would not be suprised if yet another promotion is brought into the mix as well.

I was informed that Challengers is dead? Why can't Showtime keep both?

OU wrote:

I was informed that Challengers is dead? Why can't Showtime keep both?

Cause they are only relunctantly resigning with a feeder league to begin with?

It's beneficial to all parties. Showtime is going to do MMA regardless, so why not be the primary league on the network? Fact is, whatever Showtime chose to sell as big time fights could soon become big time fights with proper promotion. It wouldn't take long for legitimacy to be found in the blogs and on these forums. Once hardcores are in, you have a chance. Zuffa is preventing competition from developing here instead. Showtime is still able to promote non Zuffa related MMA while maintaining a significant deal with Zuffa, the quality and legitimacy of a Zuffa promotion. White is involved, Coker is still involved. These guys know how to promote in the fight game.

how is Zuffa preventing competition? Did u miss the part about M-1?

The way they used to promote the big cards was by making the undercard out of locals, and not taping or broacasting them. This kept cost down. Challengers was an ill-conceived brand to begin with. Challenger type fighters now fight in the taped prelims. The types of fighter you see on Challengers varied from women's champion and men's contenders like Luke Rockhold down to prospects, but there was not enough appreciable difference between Challengers and Fight Night preliminary fighters in over all talent to justify the different designations. The UFC doesn't have any stratification between Fight Night and numbered cards. You can be main card on a PPV, Facebook prelims on a Fight Night next and turn around and be on the main card again. But with Strikeforce, people were pigeon holed into a half formed "Challenger" status and there was talk about if it's time to be "moved over". It was dumb, this is better. Challengers sucked.

captain organic wrote:

how is Zuffa preventing competition? Did u miss the part about M-1?

I should add real to that. While Strikeforce is there, Strikeforce does the big fights. Zuffa does the big fights. If they leave, someone else does the big fights. M-1 really doesn't threaten them too much because they don't promote in the same regional markets, don't recruit the same fighters as much and Zuffa has the much better TV deal with their only American TV partner. If Strikeforce was gone, Showtime would rebrand something new. Maybe they would run it in house, maybe they'd get Pro Elite, maybe they would repackage M-1, but they would try to promote big fights. MMA is part of their strategy and I think it is bigger than any one brand. Showtime built Strikeforce in a matter of months, they would try again. This way, they do their big fights with the best guys in the fight game. They are preventing real competition.

Ill agree with that. airing the prelims on extreme is a good thing for fans.


I don't know is there was a "challengers stigma" or anything like that, I thought it was a pretty good way to build fighters, but condensing everything to one card, while airing prelims, works just as well.

But one positive in the Challengers series is some of those fighters would be buried in the prelims and their names wouldn't be mentioned with the event, but Challengers series allows them to be headliners and main card fighters. Their names are more out there on mma sites then if they were on the undercard. It allowed some of those prospects to be featured and then eventually moved up to the real cards and in title contention. Guys like Woodley and Rockhold got there name out there as headliners and were made into contenders.

There was a stratification that hurt Challenger cards and the legitimacy of the fighters on the card. Just call the shit Strikeforce and shut up. I remember some fighters speaking out about that back then too.

These guys could have been built the same way without "Challengers" if they just called it "Strikeforce". Rockhold being a "Challengers" fighter also hurt his marketability. He was universally written off as not ready.

Wolfgangsta wrote:

There was a stratification that hurt Challenger cards and the legitimacy of the fighters on the card. Just call the shit Strikeforce and shut up. I remember some fighters speaking out about that back then too.

Would you be more comfortable if they called it SF: Fight Night like the UFC?

Wolfgangsta wrote:

These guys could have been built the same way without "Challengers" if they just called it "Strikeforce". Rockhold being a "Challengers" fighter also hurt his marketability. He was universally written off as not ready.

I dunno man,he had some good momentum built up before he suffered injuries that kept him out for a year. People caught onto Woodley pretty quickly and think Rockhold would have got more love if he wa able to stay active.

That would be better. Remove all talk that indicates this is a shallow end show. Fight Nights don't do that. That "before they're contenders they're challengers" or whatever mantra seems like it is a hold over from Showtime's ShoBox series and fits boxing promotion better. MMA don't need that shit.

Wolfgangsta wrote:

captain organic wrote:

how is Zuffa preventing competition? Did u miss the part about M-1?

I should add real to that. While Strikeforce is there, Strikeforce does the big fights. Zuffa does the big fights. If they leave, someone else does the big fights. M-1 really doesn't threaten them too much because they don't promote in the same regional markets, don't recruit the same fighters as much and Zuffa has the much better TV deal with their only American TV partner. If Strikeforce was gone, Showtime would rebrand something new. Maybe they would run it in house, maybe they'd get Pro Elite, maybe they would repackage M-1, but they would try to promote big fights. MMA is part of their strategy and I think it is bigger than any one brand. Showtime built Strikeforce in a matter of months, they would try again. This way, they do their big fights with the best guys in the fight game.

This I disagree with, the new SF is a step down from the old SF, and there is next to zero in terms of growth potential.

Showtime will try to grow M-1, and they prob remain on the lookout for a rising promotion. Difference between now, and when they originally signed Elite and then SF, is the #2 promotion is locked up on another network. So if they wanted to maintain any semblance of credibility they had to re-up with SF. But I doubt they see Sf as the long term provider of "big fights".

OU wrote:

Wolfgangsta wrote:

These guys could have been built the same way without "Challengers" if they just called it "Strikeforce". Rockhold being a "Challengers" fighter also hurt his marketability. He was universally written off as not ready.

I dunno man,he had some good momentum built up before he suffered injuries that kept him out for a year. People caught onto Woodley pretty quickly and think Rockhold would have got more love if he wa able to stay active.

Ya but these guys should have been on main Showtime cards months before they were moved finally, or the cards they headline should have been sold as on par with the main cards. Strikeforce isn't big enough to have two sub stables. I am sure Dana was the one who killed that shit himself.

OU wrote:

Wolfgangsta wrote:

These guys could have been built the same way without "Challengers" if they just called it "Strikeforce". Rockhold being a "Challengers" fighter also hurt his marketability. He was universally written off as not ready.

I dunno man,he had some good momentum built up before he suffered injuries that kept him out for a year. People caught onto Woodley pretty quickly and think Rockhold would have got more love if he wa able to stay active.

Woodley, Luke, Fodor, Cormier, plenty of guys came through the challengers series. Kennedy too?

I agree the name was lame, and the Mantra "before they were champions..." was cringe worthy. But fighters were built up pretty well.

Only people I remember complaining were woman champions.

Quote :

This I disagree with, the new SF is a step down from the old SF, and there is next to zero in terms of growth potential.

I don't get this cynicism. Look at how invested everyone was into the WEC. Entertaining fighters will still be found and compelling fights will still be created. I have no doubt in my mind that Strikeforce will produce a good stable of interesting fighters, and every so often they will jump on over for bigger fights in the UFC. No one is going to put on bigger non UFC MMA than Strikeforce. It will still be the second best show in town.

Wolfgangsta wrote:

OU wrote:

Wolfgangsta wrote:

These guys could have been built the same way without "Challengers" if they just called it "Strikeforce". Rockhold being a "Challengers" fighter also hurt his marketability. He was universally written off as not ready.

I dunno man,he had some good momentum built up before he suffered injuries that kept him out for a year. People caught onto Woodley pretty quickly and think Rockhold would have got more love if he wa able to stay active.

Ya but these guys should have been on main Showtime cards months before they were moved finally, or the cards they headline should have been sold as on par with the main cards. Strikeforce isn't big enough to have two sub stables. I am sure Dana was the one who killed that shit himself.

I disagree that they were moved over too late, I like the process they took with those guys. They built up solid wins as the headliners before transitioning into title contender fights. I think they did a decent job of developing names for those guys while getting more experience at the same time. Most of those guys weren't ready to be thrown to the "names" right away. I think they did a good job of easing them into contention.

Casuals had no clue who they were, Diaz is a house hold names. Guys like that should be fighting on the main card of the big shows. Oh, now they will be. Issue solved.


Challengers sucked. RIP. Won't be missed.

Wolfgangsta wrote:

Casuals had no clue who they were, Diaz is a house hold names. Guys like that should be fighting on the main card of the big shows. Oh, now they will be. Issue solved.


Challengers sucked. RIP. Won't be missed.

We are different kind of fans, I'm not thrilled about Challengers being gone and I will miss it.

Dan Henderson (@danhendo)
Posted Wednesday 21st December 2011 from Seesmic

Happy birthday @mauroranallo RT @SHOsports: Everyone at SHOWTIME & @Strikeforce wants to wish our most passionate #MMA announcer @MauroRanallo a happy birthday! Enjoy it, good sir.