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Bellator Begins a New Era on DAZN

September 24, 2018 | Posted by Dan Plunkett
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The Scott Coker era at Bellator MMA began with a plan to feature established stars in big name main events, and to build new stars underneath them. The first Bellator event with Coker’s fingerprints smeared over it featured Tito Ortiz vs. Stephan Bonnar in the top spot—a fight built on a laughable in-cage confrontation complete with an unmasking. But it did its job nonetheless, drawing the best viewership in Bellator history with 1.24 million viewers.

Bellator followed with bigger numbers, largely thanks to luring Kimbo Slice back to the cage. They brought over name free agents from the UFC, including Phil Davis, Ryan Bader, Rory MacDonald, and Gegard Mousasi. But the superstars that drew huge numbers in 2014, 2015, and 2016 disappeared. Kimbo Slice passed away in 2016, Tito Ortiz retired in early 2017, Ken Shamrock and Royce Gracie were more novelties at this stage than reliable, consistent draws (and past 50, neither could fight regularly). They were replaced by a new slew of established stars that Bellator had drawn in: Fedor Emelianenko, Chael Sonnen, and Wanderlei Silva, but they haven’t drawn the ratings that the previous lineup did.

The idea that Bellator could build new big names in feature bouts beneath those established stars had merit, but the execution wasn’t there. Big Bellator events are almost exclusively headlined by free agent acquisitions, and ratings have been down for the past two years. Run of the mill events are headlined by home-grown stars more often and not, and those ratings have been down as well.

Thankfully for Bellator, there’s still a lucrative market for live sports content. In June, Bellator and DAZN, a sports over-the-top streaming service expanding into the United States, announced a five-year, “nine-figure” agreement encompassing seven exclusive events per year, and fifteen additional events simulcast on DAZN and Paramount Network. No specific financial terms have been reported beyond the purposely vague “nine-figures,” but it represents a major deal for Bellator. The agreement has alternately been reported as being for three years and five years.

It changes the course of a company that has largely been treading water for the past two years.

The deal takes at least some of Bellator’s biggest events and moves them behind a $9.99 per month paywall. It’s an injection of cash that will sacrifice visibility compared to the Paramount Network platform, but it should enable the promotion to do more.

“The investment will enable us to continue expanding our roster with free agents that make sense, so we can put on PPV-worthy fight cards that fans want to see,” Bellator President Scott Coker stated in the press release announcing the agreement.

Bellator offered what it could on pay-per-view last year. The show didn’t do well, which is why the promotion hasn’t tried again yet. There is no Bellator fight ready to make right now that could carry a pay-per-view, but it appears based on Coker’s statement, the idea is to sign more free agents that could hopefully bring the promotion back to pay-per-view. However, the current state of pay-per-view doesn’t mesh with this strategy. With few exceptions, the biggest pay-per-view events are as big or bigger than they’ve ever been, and everything else is just there. For the UFC, “just there” is profitable, but “just there” won’t cut it for Bellator. They would need either the right fight to develop, or a major pay-per-view star to come over, and there are exceedingly few major pay-per-view stars.

Until that happens, Bellator appears to have a healthy thing with DAZN. Not only will they have the capital to attract more name free agents, they can expand internal operations. Although invisible to the average viewer, that makes a difference.

The first exclusive Bellator event on DAZN is this Saturday, highlighted by a middleweight title bout between Gegard Mousasi and welterweight champion Rory MacDonald, and the fourth Quinton Jackson vs. Wanderlei Silva meeting. To this point, the card has been swallowed by the focus on UFC’s Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Conor McGregor, but it should receive the bulk of this week’s attention.

Mousasi vs. MacDonald is an excellent fight, although it is far from the biggest marquee fight Bellator has assembled. On paper, Jackson vs. Silva IV is actively disinteresting, but their role is to be big names, not to live up to the two classic fights that opened their rivalry.

Underneath, the Douglas Lima vs. Andrey Koreshkov rubber match kicks off Bellator’s welterweight grand prix. This is a good fight, but I feel the welterweight tournament would be more effective and easier to follow if at least two of the quarterfinal fights were on the same show. The other big fight is super prospect Aaron Pico in his biggest test to date against Leandro Higo.

With the exception of the heavyweight grand prix, 2018 has been a fairly quiet year for Bellator. Going forward, the DAZN deal should provide them with the financial flexibility to do more and bigger things.

Dan Plunkett has covered MMA for 411Mania since 2008. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @Dan_Plunkett.

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