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FIGHT CHANNEL REVENUE MODELS MLB'S New Model Major League Baseball explored whether to start its own television channel to give it bargaining power in future negotiations with Fox, ESPN and other networks. In November, 2002, in Dallas, the six-member board of Major League Baseball Properties Inc. discussed starting a channel that might begin broadcasting as early as the 2004 World Series. "It's obligatory that we examine this option," Tim Brosnan, an MLB executive vice president, said in an interview. "Like every good business, we're trying to plan for the future." See MLB's current subscription model. MLB Follows NBA and NFL Models Baseball's strategy follows that of other sports leagues. The National Basketball Association already has a channel. The National Football League said its channel would begin airing on Hughes Electronics Corp.'s DirecTV next year. The channels give the leagues an outlet to show games if they can't reach a rights-fee agreement with networks. "This is just another way for baseball to slice the pie and get more revenue," said John Mansell, a sports media analyst with Paul Kagan & Associates. "In the long-term, it probably would give them more leverage with network and cable broadcasters." During the playoffs, a baseball channel would probably air pre-game and post-game shows because News Corp.'s Fox and Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN have rights to show playoff and World Series games through 2006. If it shows its games on a league-owned channel, baseball would forgo rights fees and instead would probably receive fees from cable operators, based on how many homes receive the channel, and sell its own advertising. SportsBusinessNews, December 28, 2002 NASCAR Model Subscribers to GetAFight.com and MadeFights.com will negotiate collectively revenue sharing, eliminating the sanctioning organizations and the stranglehold of a few. Representing the fighters and promoters, FightersOnline.com will do as NASCAR did for the drivers and race promoters, negotiate with television. NASCAR represented the race track promoters and drivers and consummated their current $2.4 billion TV-rights deal. Fox and its cable siblings get half the 34-race season. NBC and Turner Broadcasting are teamed for the other half. NASCAR will collect dramatically more than the $100 million generated yearly by an old package fragmented across ABC, NBC, ESPN, TBS and TNN when the race promoters had individually licensed TV rights to their races. NASCAR pooled their TV rights and sold them to fewer networks. NASCAR is now the second highest-rated sports programming on TV. NBC is in the second year of their six-year NASCAR deal. Under the old deals, NASCAR was broadcast by nearly everybody: CBS, ABC, NBC, Turner, ESPN, and what used to be the Nashville Network, all had deals for NASCAR races. Now, NASCAR programming has been consolidated under two deals. One is a joint venture between NBC and Turner -- the other is Fox. NASCAR is the only major sport whose ratings have been growing. FightersOnline.com will do the same for the fighters whose TV rights to fights are sold to promoters and then are fragmented across ESPN, ESPN2, Fox, HBO, Showtime, Univision, Telemundo, etc. FoxSports and SpeedVision.com Another model for FightersOnline's plan for a boxing channel is Fox who, in May, 2000, was considering a partnership with NASCAR to create Speedvision (article), a cable network dedicated solely to auto racing. As of the summer of 2001, Fox owns Speed Channel, an auto and motorcycle racing network that, according to reports, ended the year 2000 with around 32 million subscribers and may be worth an estimated $600 million to $700 million based on the per-subscriber selling price of comparably sized networks. NEW COMPETITION MODELS The major sports obviously recognize the implications of technology on the globalization of sports -- competition between countries -- look at soccer. FightersOnline.com will create similar possibilities for increasing fighters' annual income dramatically. Fighters from each country will have the option of entering new forms of national competition leading to international competitions and new sources of television exposure and pay-per-view revenue. The Tournament Model Cedric Kushner Promotions' Heavyweight Explosion series and his Fistful of Dollars heavyweight one-night tournament are examples of new forms of competition. Don King anticipates organizing national boxing leagues, revisiting the U.S. Boxing Championships, and monopolizing the internationalization of pro boxing. Don King's vision includes spending $20 million on an international boxing arena to showcase, in his words, a "boxing team that will travel the world." These boxers will, of course, be contractually tied to him and will collectively provide him with the negotiating leverage, via-a-vis HBO and Showtime, of his own personal "King World Boxing League." A fair and impartial system of competition -- regional eliminations, national championships, selection of referees and judges, and international eliminations between countries, leading to world championships will all have huge national and international television appeal and very high pay-per-view buy rates. FIGHT CHANNEL FUNDS BENEFITS Utilizing new revenue sources, FightersOnline.com will provide insurance and pension benefits -- another strong incentive for fighters from every country to subscribe. Retirement and other benefits nomally provided other professional athletes will be funded from the enormous revenue stream from an online fight channel. As another benefit to subscribers, GreatFightsOnline.com will fund the services of a public relations firm to improve the image of the sport of boxing and boxers. FightersOnline Home GreatFightsOnline Home |