Confirming rumors that have been circulating throughout the week, CBS announced that it will bring mixed martial arts to primetime network television. CBS Television Network and its partner, Pro Elite and their live fight division Elite Xtreme Combat (Elite XC), have been working together since the beginning of 2007 through their subsidiary premium cable station, Showtime. This move has been a long time in the making considering network TV’s strong desire to market to the lucrative 18-24 year old male demographic.
Showtime will continue to broadcast Elite XC events in addition to the four primetime MMA events that will air on CBS in the Saturday night primetime slot. This announcement is extremely important for the quickly expanding sport of mixed martial arts. Never before has MMA been broadcast live on network television, let alone in primetime.
“Mixed martial arts is one of the fastest growing sports in the country and a wildly popular entertainment vehicle for upscale, young adult audiences,” said Kelly Kahl, Senior Executive Vice President, CBS Primetime. “It’s original programming for Saturday night; it’s live, creating an event-atmosphere; and it’s something that hasn’t been seen on network television, until now.”
“This is a pivotal moment for the sport of mixed martial arts now that a major television network plans to broadcast live MMA events during primetime hours,” said Douglas DeLuca, Chief Executive Officer of ProElite. “We are delighted to enhance our partnership with CBS to bring American audiences the very best in MMA competition through our EliteXC brand.
“The network television agreement with CBS is an important milestone for ProElite as we continue to implement our growth strategy and develop existing relationships with our international partners.”
Founded in 2006, Elite XC has quickly established itself as a premier MMA promotion, which could soon rival the UFC. It has acquired well-known promotions such as King of the Cage (converted into ShoXC) and Cage Rage (Britain’s premier MMA event). Elite XC also has partnerships with other notable MMA franchises such as Strikeforce and Japan’s K-1.
This move will have wide ranging implications for the MMA industry. Industry leader, the UFC, will now have to consider its options with regards to television. Its current partner, Spike TV, does not have nearly the reach of a network station and a national television audience could be a major competitive advantage for Elite XC. Almost as if to validate the importance of the CBS-Elite XC deal, the UFC announced today that it has signed a three year sponsorship deal with Bud Light, making it the officially beer of the UFC and the WEC.
#1 by Blake Murphy on February 28th, 2008
This is huge news, nice quick work Kyle. Any idea who the front runner would be if UFC tried to score a network? The NBC family of channels, perhaps?
I’m really surprised this didn’t happen sooner with the writer strike and all, weird that it went down right after. Male 18-24 is the largest grossing demographic though, for sure, so I guess a move like this can’t hurt for CBS.
#2 by stu on February 28th, 2008
Please tell me I will be able to see Kimbo fight on CBS in the near future.
#3 by Blake Murphy on February 28th, 2008
His last fight was for Elite XC against Tank, I’m pretty sure, so there’s a good chance. They also have one of my personal favorites in nut-case Nick Diaz, plus Frank Shamrock, David Loiseau, Ninja Rua, Robbie Lawler, and Renzo Gracie. Not a bad roster, and hey, they already have better TV coverage than the NHL!
#4 by AJ on February 29th, 2008
Here’s a quick little point: A couple years ago Spike and CBS were both owned by Viacom, but then Viacom renamed itself(2005 I think) CBS and spun off a new entity that they called Viacom. So Spike is now under the MTV Networks umbrella which is under the new Viacom.
Interestingly, both the new Viacom and the new CBS are still owned by the same parent company – National Amusements. Sounds like someone over there really wants to have the MMA market cornered…
#5 by The Anti-Virus on March 1st, 2008
I’m not so sure that this is a planned move by National Amusements. There is still a ton of MMA coverage on HDNet, Fox Sports and a number of other stations. I would be more inclined to think that the CBS move is just a smart business decision by a network looking for something to become a Saturday night ratings winner.