Thursday, December 17 2:01 pm PT: I once saw a child’s bed frame in the sawed-off shape of an Octagon fence and thought that was the point of no return for mixed martial arts merchandising. Now comes news that a San Clemente resident named Brett Siciliano has designed a board game based on the sport.
Siciliano, this industry’s first and possibly only version of a Parker Brother, has an interesting background according to the OC Register: roommates with Kimo, an idea funded via a sold-off Rolex and sibling jewelry, and facing uncertainty if the gamble doesn’t pay off.
The game itself? Sounds pretty nondescript: absent any licensing power, monotone fighters with names like “Mike” populate the game board.
But who knows: I was about to scold Siciliano for having an analog idea in a digital world, until several articles informed me of a steady climb in board game sales over the past few years. (Up 6% in 2008, according to one source.) If 2010’s edition has a little Nate Quarry scrambling around the board, you’ll know Siciliano is doing just fine.
Along with representatives from Major League Baseball and ESPN, Zuffa’s Lorenzo Fertitta sat in front of the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday in order to lob complaints against the increasingly pervasive problem of broadband content theft.
As anyone with even a base understanding of Internet mechanics will tell you, there are any number of ways to view premium programming using live streams, torrent downloads, or video clearinghouses. Fertitta estimated that his staff found nearly 300 feeds of UFC 106 that were available to anyone versed in Google and low on respect for capitalism. It’s all part of the same machine that’s taken significant bites out of the home video and music industries.
Are live events really being impacted by this culture? Mayweather vs. De La Hoya set a record in 2007 for the pay per view business; UFC 100 in July demolished company expectations. Unlike the ailing music and Hollywood systems -- which can rightly point to downloads as a poison -- combat sports translate poorly to a viral medium. Pirates can burn DVD films and digital audio to disc; it’s nearly impossible to get an HD-quality live event on demand. And the idea of taking a group of friends and forcing them to either rally around a laptop or watch a shady, stuttering picture fed to a television is not exactly what endears you as an entertainer.
Thursday, December 17 8:57 am PT: Spike -- formerly Spike TV, formerly the ominously-titled Nashville Network -- announced on Wednesday their intention to bring a total of 10 UFC event preliminary specials to air in 2010.
The deal cements what most suspected: that running barker shows prior to pay-per-view events is a win/win for both the network and the promotion. Spike gets a chunk of live programming; the UFC can make a direct appeal to their core audience to fork over dough for more dislocated ankles.
I’m never too quick to draw parallels between pro wrestling and an actual sport, but it’s interesting to witness how both boxing -- via HBO’s “24/7” series -- and the UFC have found viable business plans in the template laid out by Vince McMahon. Through the funnel of free television, McMahon would develop stories and build matches, delivering two acts of a three-act play on the house and then charging out the nose for the resolution.
This kind of collusion with a basic cable network is the single biggest reason for the UFC’s rash of success in the latter half of the decade. Without that build, you’re dead on arrival.
MiddleEasy.com got their hands on a rough translation of a Polish newspaper report: while some key details could be getting mangled in the imported text, there appears to be some notion that James Bond-esque super-group M-1 Global has made advances toward no-necked strongman Mariusz Pudzianowski.
“The Russians would like to download to yourself ‘Pudziana’ in April,” reads one interpretation. Who could resist such an offer?
Billed as the World’s Strongest Man, “Pudziana” throttled an outmatched Marcin Najman last Friday in Poland, landing a series of ugly, awkward punches and kicks until the referee peeled him off. It was more wild-animal attack than fight, but it apparently impressed M-1 enough to float Aleksander Emelianenko as a possible opponent.
I expect Pudzianowski has handlers to rebuff these kinds of advances, but if not, he’s about to become the latest in a long line of ill-qualified attractions that prefer money to common sense. There have been massively powerful individuals -- Mark Kerr, Tom Erikson -- who were able to marry actual skills with their horsepower -- and still got beat. If you’re constructing a fighter, are you really going to sacrifice years of grappling ability to add a few hundred pounds to his deadlift?
Pudzianowski is a novelty act. If he’s treated like one, more power to him. If he’s treated like a fight athlete, his protein shakes are going to have to go through a wired jaw.
