CBS this Saturday at 9 p.m EST
(Live from Newark, N.J., it will be tape-delayed for the West Coast.)
Bearded 34-year-old Kevin Ferguson, known as Kimbo Slice, is the main attraction on CBS' first card.
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0 … html?imw=Y
While the move is a risk for CBS, it's major milestone for MMA, whose growth has been one of the decade's most stunning sports business success stories. For the first time a live MMA fight will be broadcast on one of the big four networks, an extraordinary feat for a sport that, just 10 or so years ago, was roundly derided as "human cockfighting." At first, the caged bouts were fought in the shadows, since the sport was banned in almost every state (it is now sanctioned in 33). But MMA now draws strong ratings on the cable channel Spike TV, and is a money-maker on pay-per-view; in 2007, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, MMA's dominant promoter, secured over $200 million in pay-per-view revenues, up from some $40 million in 2005. Still, scoring a prime-time network audience will expose the sport to a whole new universe of potential fans, and scrutiny. "This is hugely important for the sport," says Doug DeLuca, chairman of ProElite Inc., the company that is staging the CBS bouts. "MMA has done a great job reaching a hard-core, niche audience. Now, it's time to take it to the next level. All eyes will be on us."
(Live from Newark, N.J., it will be tape-delayed for the West Coast.)
Bearded 34-year-old Kevin Ferguson, known as Kimbo Slice, is the main attraction on CBS' first card.
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0 … html?imw=Y
While the move is a risk for CBS, it's major milestone for MMA, whose growth has been one of the decade's most stunning sports business success stories. For the first time a live MMA fight will be broadcast on one of the big four networks, an extraordinary feat for a sport that, just 10 or so years ago, was roundly derided as "human cockfighting." At first, the caged bouts were fought in the shadows, since the sport was banned in almost every state (it is now sanctioned in 33). But MMA now draws strong ratings on the cable channel Spike TV, and is a money-maker on pay-per-view; in 2007, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, MMA's dominant promoter, secured over $200 million in pay-per-view revenues, up from some $40 million in 2005. Still, scoring a prime-time network audience will expose the sport to a whole new universe of potential fans, and scrutiny. "This is hugely important for the sport," says Doug DeLuca, chairman of ProElite Inc., the company that is staging the CBS bouts. "MMA has done a great job reaching a hard-core, niche audience. Now, it's time to take it to the next level. All eyes will be on us."
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