When it comes to analyzing the business of mixed martial arts, Dana White is no slouch. His recent comments on TSN’s Off the Record were similar to the countless hours of interviews he’s done over the years when speaking about the UFC’s marketing, financials, and acumen for business matters. In every case, he talks about how the UFC “makes it look easy” and that the competition around the market can’t compete with his own promotion. To an extent, it’s true and BodogFIGHT’s demise is a supporting point to that statement.

BodogFIGHT hasn’t been in the market for quite some time. After holding events in Russia, Costa Rica, Canada, Las Vegas, and New Jersey for roughly a year, the promotion began to see signs of demise. It was obvious that there wasn’t any money being made, and Calvin Ayre, Bodog’s founder, was trying to keep a sinking ship afloat. Instead of holding their own events, BodogFIGHT tagged their name onto other promotions’ events and loaned their stable of fighters to those events. Slowly but surely, BodogFIGHT died.

It looks like this could be a trend that will rear its ugly head again unfortunately. Both the IFL and ProElite posted huge losses this year that surpassed $20 million. In fact, ProElite managed to lose $27 million in the last year while grabbing up more exposure and holding some quality events.

One of their biggest problems is their production values in working with all of the promotions under their umbrella. Cage Rage, King of the Cage, Icon Sport, and their own EliteXC with ShoXC must create huge deficits in their budget for production work. They also happen to have some sinking ratings on Showtime, and they are likely spending a lot of money to try to attract top talent that currently isn’t in the UFC.

The IFL is in a different boat. While they have only one promotion’s production to deal with, their events have suffered from lackluster performances, limited live events, and under talented fighters. They have recently began to regain some ground with their last event having some fantastic fights, but it may be too little too late for the IFL. While the HDNet deal is great for the promotion, the numbers that the event produces just won’t cut it.

ProElite seems to have an edge over some of the other promotions that may not make the cut by the end of the year. The potential of the CBS deal is huge, and it put the promotion in the black eventually with the right marketing. The IFL, on the other hand, isn’t going to do much in the numbers game unless they can scout talent well, market themselves better, and make their events more available. HDNet still isn’t big enough to get the IFL off the ground itself, and I believe that’s the major flaw for the IFL. It’s a shame because their last event was actually exciting and entertaining. They really have some talent in that promotion that can potentially lift the promotion up with some quality events to a bigger demographic.