I finally got around to listening to the great interview that Fight Opinion Radio did with Ed Fishman. Along with some ballsy questioning regarding the lawsuit he had with PRIDE, there was one comment that interested me. During the interview, Fishman mentioned that Cuban was interested in keeping things small at first as far as HDNet Fights goes. He also mentioned that a deal with another organization may entail television rights that would allow HDNet to broadcast other organization's events. Why would that interest anyone since HDNet has already broadcast IFO's events in the past along with some other events? It refutes a few rumors and really gives us a sense as to what HDNet is probably aiming to do.

HDNet's potential focus

As I thought about those comments, I realized that it's very possible the MMA community may have been getting excited over nothing. It also became apparent that Mark Cuban isn't going to be the savior that many people have discussed recently. Or could I be wrong? I think the answer may be two-fold.

Although Fishman may not know what Cuban's focus is now that Couture has left the UFC, Fedor has signed with M-1, and the business of MMA may be changing because of recent events, he did have insight due to the fact that he was in talks with Cuban at one point in time. For the time being, Fishman had some great insight into the inner workings of Cuban's head. According to a few bits and pieces of the interview, Fishman said that he thought Cuban was more interested in gaining more popularity and subscribers for HDNet. Apparently it was discussed that HDNet was looking for other promotions to broadcast on their network, but I never thought that the possible business deal that Mark Cuban was negotiating could very well be a television deal that would bring M-1 events to HDNet's network.

With that said, Cuban's stance is obviously to make a good buck on MMA, who isn't in it for that? From all the rumors flying around, this makes me really think that the television deal is much more believable and logical for Cuban and HDNet. He gains an organization that has just been bought by an unknown American entertainment company and needs some way of broadcasting events. M-1 is probably looking to go international with the signing of Fedor and the rumors of the organization looking for some big name fighters. In order to go international, it'd be a great plan for them to gain a deal with Cuban to broadcast events on HDNet.

More subscribers, more money, more events, better fights?

Let's look at this hypothetically for a second. M-1 and HDNet sign a deal for two years stating that HDNet will broadcast M-1 events. If we were really being wishful, HDNet somehow gets a production team together and actually broadcasts the events LIVE after a few test runs as they are doing with HDNet Fights. M-1 gains exposure in the U.S. MMA Market. M-1 sees the potential gains they can make by grabbing up free agent fighters and producing some better cards. Better cards begin to translate into more subscribers. Both parties gain from the deal. That's usually how a television deal goes except HDNet sells their package to cable networks and in turn, cable networks have it available. I can press a few buttons on my cable box and have the HDNet package available.

With that situation played out, will HDNet possibly try to make such a deal happen? With all the rumors and Cuban confirming that he has talked to M-1, it's looking very possible. Instead of thinking he would try to co-promote some type of event with M-1 to bring "The Natural" and "The Last Emperor" together in a super fight, helping M-1 gain popularity in the States and adding subscribers to his network seems like a much more plausible effect of Cuban's talks with M-1.