WSOF CEO Carlos Silva Talks w/411 About UFC’s Sale, More

World Series of Fighting: Who’s The Toughest Teaser Trailer

In July of 2015, World Series of Fighting took a bold step towards consolidating its status as one of the top two or three global MMA leagues in the world with the appointment of Carlos Silva as CEO. Joining up with the likes of President Ray Sefo and PR wizard Mike Afromowitz among others, Silva has been able to bring an excellent business acumen to the table with his varied and impressive résumé. Having worked with Web giants AOL running AOL Sports, AOL News and AOL Money, before joining up with Universal Sports as President and COO overseeing programming and operations as part of his duties, Silva has forged a long and successful career within a variety of multimedia outlets that extends far beyond this abridged list.

Possessing outtstanding sporting knowledge and a drive and determination to take each project on to bigger and better things, Silva’s keen eye for detail and leadership skills have seen WSOF make large strides forward in the last 12 months.

Carlos Silva took time out to speak to 411mania about what kind of progress WSOF has made during his tenure, the true potential of the “Who’s The Toughest” program aimed at providing US Armed Forces veterans with a national platform to practise professional MMA, as well as what WSOF has planned for the future.

The big new story today is the UFC buy out – what do you make of that, will it affect WSOF or the company’s approach in any way?

“We’ve all heard the rumours that were pretty solid rumours over the last two, three, four weeks, so I think it was expected, I was happy to see it finally get announced. I think it’s huge for the sport, it just continues to solidify MMA obviously led by the UFC as one of the top sports here in the States and certainly around the world now. I think it starts to move the sport even more into a mass market to the likes of a PGA Tour or NASCAR, that level of a league, [so] I think it’s a great day for the sport. They’ve done a lot of hard work over the last 15-20 years, they got a great buy out, I think it’s great for everybody, and I think it’s going to benefit everyone quite frankly, I really do.”

So it should have positive repercussions for WSOF?

“Positive repercussions for the sport, [WSOF] being one of the major and international leagues helps us as well for sure.”

It’s coming up to a year now since you took up the role of CEO at World Series of Fighting – one of the goals you stated on Inside MMA was that you wanted to continue to grow WSOF into a multi platform media league, more of an entertainment and TV property than just a fight event – you admitted it was a big ask at the time, how far do you feel that ambition has been realized at this point?

“I’d say we’ve laid the foundations for that. It took a little while to come [together and] we’ve brought some new teammates who [had] worked with a great team [that] we already had, and we built a new website that we didn’t really have, we put a social media team in place, we’ve got a number of different streaming partners now, we stream our weigh ins and [our] undercards around the world, [and] we’re doing some stuff with FITE TV and with KISWE with multiple camera angles. I feel really good that the foundations, especially in the last three or four months, [that were] laid around December [2015] are starting to come to fruition. I feel like that’s also helped our events, and as a result our fans are more engaged, they’re interacting with our athletes on a daily basis on social media as opposed to just three or four days around [each] event. I’m a firm believer that you can’t just put on events, you’ve got to be promoting and building your league all day every day and I think we’ve really done that. Now that the foundation has been laid and we’ve built on it for a few months I think [WSOF] will just continue to get bigger.”

What kind of doors have you and the team opened during your time at WSOF, what are some of the major improvements and changes?

“I think the fit and finish of our events on NBC Sports really looks great, we’ve got a great partnership with Tupelo-Honey (owned by Raycom) who help us with production, but I feel like the events are even more exciting, they’re presented on television much cleaner and in a more exciting way. We’ve put together a new graphics package that has helped the look of the programme on NBC Sports. It’s the entire piece, it’s an ecosystem, it’s an engine, and each [aspect benefits from] each other. That in turn helps us bring in sponsors like Alienware who have been with us now for the entire year, they’re not just coming in for a couple of events to work with us, they want to be associated with World Series of Fighting and [to] stay with us for a year and that’s a big difference. We’re starting to see [those things], but the other piece [is] that [it has] fuelled our ability to plan ahead, we’re already looking at 2017 now. I think in the past we were maybe looking one month, two month, three months out, now we’re looking nine months, twelve months out. I think that makes a big difference from a production value, it makes a difference to the product for consumers, and it makes a difference for our sponsors.”

Are you also looking to expand globally as well as by thinking long term?

“We already are global in a couple of ways, we’re sending our signal around the world with our partner IMG that distribute our live television show in different countries already, we obviously put out the entire card in the rest of the world as well on streaming and available at WSOF.com and a bunch of our partners, and then we’ve also got a deal with World Series of Fighting Global Championship that we’re licensed partners [with] and they go and put on fights primarily in Asia and some other countries [outside Asia] under the World Series of Fighting Championship brand. We’re concentrating hard on the United States, you’ve got to really conquer the United States, [and] I think we’ve built our brand in the United States but there’s a long way to go to continue to grow and maintain our position as one of the top three national brands. Then international [success] slowly will come around.”

The “Who’s The Toughest” programme is an innovative idea that ties in with the ambition to conquer the United States – is that your brainchild?

“It actually came to us from a couple of fellows out in San Diego, Bill Rigden and Lt. Clnl. Jason Johnson, they had brought the idea to us, they had put together their thoughts in a pilot, and we took that pilot and worked with them to use our live fights platform to bring these veterans to the live stage. We’re pretty excited about it, we’ve just put it together, we’re going to kick it off on November 12, but the idea is we’re gonna give these veterans that have fought so hard for us the chance to have a national platform. In some ways we thought that some of those would just be veterans that had used it as a training tool to get back on track, but we’re also finding now we’ve got a number of veterans including Caros Fodor who’s fighting for us in a couple of weeks that are veterans, but they’re also now pro MMA fighters. You’re going to see a couple of those great fighters on our Veteran’s Day weekend show on November 12.”

It’s obviously very fitting to have the show on Veteran’s Day, I think it’s a great idea and people really buy into that and it’s going to be fun to watch. Is this idea from World Series of Fighting’s point of view, is it about bridge-building, is it about getting a fresh source of fighter recruitment, or is it just about the positive publicity and helping veterans in a worthy way?

“I couldn’t have said it better, I think it’s all of those. Certainly it feels good to do it, it feels good having a national platform on NBC Sports to be able to give these veterans that have worked so hard for us to have that national platform, that’s number one. Two, I think it feels good for World Series of Fighting to support them, and [three] I think there’s some real opportunity around these fighters to find some veterans that are now [ready to] cross over and go into another career which is pro-MMA, and we’ve found a number of them, and I think that’s going to be a good recruiting tool for us as well.”

How far down the road are Ray Sefo and the WSOF team in selecting the right guys to fight at this event?

“We’re just at the beginning of the road, we’ve got about fifty folks that are part of the package right now, so Ray’s now scouring through videos and making some phone calls, we’ve identified a few already that he thinks are going to be game and grab a couple of those slots that will be on NBC Sports, so I think what you’re going to start to see over the next few weeks is some digital vignettes and out-takes from training and things that we’re doing with those fighters and we’re going to start releasing those both on WSOF.com and some of our partner sites, and then also showing some of those during our events in July and September and October leading up to the November (12) show.”

You mentioned there are veterans out there with pro-MMA records that are stars in the sport, are the guys we’re going to see at Who’s The Toughest likely to have pro-MMA records already or are we looking at fresh faces that no one’s seen before?

“It’s a good question, originally we thought it might be a lot of fresh faces, but what’s happened as we’ve been doing the recruiting and we’ve gotten in emails and links we’re finding a number of fighters that have pro records that are veterans that want to show their skills and take it to the next level, so I’m not really sure yet, we’re putting that package together, and I think in the coming weeks we’ll be happy to keep you informed as the fighters get selected move forward. It could be a combination of both.”

What will you be looking for in those fighters that you’re recruiting?

“I think good stories, how MMA has been an important part of their life as they’ve left their first career as a veteran serving our country, and how MMA has become a part of their life since then. Then, like anything, we’ll take a look at them as fighters as well. We’ll put them in a mix and choose some great fights for our NBC broadcast.”

Is Who’s The Toughest something that will be a regular thing, will it be an annual thing, or more frequent than that?

“We’re currently looking to do it twice a year, we’re going to kick it off here on Veteran’s Weekend, but we’ll be doing it every Veteran’s Weekend and if it goes to plan we’ll probably end up doing it in the Spring as well, then we’ll do the Fall fight with the veterans as well.”

As WSOF continues to grow and look to really consolidate that spot just behind the UFC, what advantages do you think the company has compared to the direct competition, outfits like Bellator and ONE Championship?

“I think we’ve been very authentic for fighting, we’ve got a group of folks who’ve been in the fight business for a long time, guys like Ray Sefo who’s a Hall of Famer. I think when you combine that real quality of fight thinking with looking at these guys and girls as athletes from the sports background that I bring to it, that really gives us an advantage, we’re going to really look at this as we’ve got these great athletes to fight, we want to follow them, what’s their fitness, what’s their nutrition between their fights, and how are they getting ready, and then at the end of the day making sure we’re putting on these really great, authentic fights that represent the sport well. I think we’ve done that in the past and I think as long as we stick to that formula we’re going to continue to grow. That’s what we’re seeing on social media, the chatter that you see is that World Series of Fighting is all about high quality fighters that work hard, that are dedicated, and that bring it when they step in the cage. That’s the formula we’re going to stick to.”