Today was a fairly big day in the mixed martial arts community, possibly a day that could go down in history. Fedor Emelianenko signed a six-fight, two-year deal with M-1 Global. As I stated earlier today, Sibling Sports LLC also announced that they had purchase M-1 Mixfight and were now forming a new organization called M-1 Global. It was stated at the press conference that their aim was to truly make it an international promotion. M-1 also revealed that a television deal was in the works, and once it was finalized, an event would be announced. It is thought that the event will take place in February with Fedor Emelianenko headlining the card.
Monte Cox, newly appointed CEO of M-1 Global, commented that the promotion would be looking for the best fighters on the free agent market for Fedor to fight. He did make a sarcastic comment regarding a few unnamed fighters that became free recently. This was definitely signaling toward a possibility that M-1 Global would be looking toward Randy Couture. Emelianenko commented that he would love to fight Couture. Also part of the deal, Fedor will be allowed to fight outside the organization and he also requested and received a special clause in his contract that requires M-1 Global to offer the UFC heavyweight champion $1 million more than what the UFC offers for a fight with Emelianenko. All of this news is courtesy of MMAJunkie.
The deal looks to be great for the sport as far as a new competitor goes, but will it enable M-1 Global to rival that of the UFC? The most interesting part of the deal involves the special clause. How should that be interpreted? Will M-1 Global try to lure UFC fighters away by having Monte Cox as the CEO?
The Deal
What can we get from this deal as MMA fans? The #1 Heavyweight in the world is now with a brand new organization that has yet to sign a roster of fighters or at least disclose to us who those fighters may be yet. It was said at the press conference that fighters will be signed soon enough and disclosed. With that said, it's obvious that promotion will be aiming to field a good field of divisions and talent to rival Fedor in the ring. We should see a huge amount of signings in the coming weeks.
My first point regards Fedor's deal. A six-fight, two year deal which allows Fedor to not only fight for M-1 Global, but also fight outside the organization. This is the essence of the non-exclusive contract that Fedor so adamantly sought for his career. It was most likely one of the biggest factors in whether Fedor was going to sign with the UFC or try his hand with another organization. Fedor's non-exclusivity presents a plethora of options for his management to consider. It also allows him to fight any competition he wants with the right price and without having to sign with another organization and be locked down. This is the main sticking point.
The Television possibilities
Since the UFC was unable to close the deal with HBO, this presents an interesting prospect for M-1. Showtime already has a deal with ProElite, mainly the EliteXC and ShoXC series. Versus has a deal with Zuffa, although I would never consider them in the running with a promotion that is aiming for the big dollars. HBO seems like a possibility. It may be a stretch though considering some of the rumors regarding HBO dealt with the production side. Sibling, the parent company who bought M-1, also is in a partnership with SFX productions. It would be another case of HBO's production vs. Sibling's own production. I'm not completely sure they would work against each other though. SFX could work the cage and event production whereas HBO would work the television production.
Another major possibility is HDNet. It was rumored for a couple of weeks that Mark Cuban was meeting with M-1's owners to try to work out some kind of business deal. As I have said previously, I believed this business deal had to do with broadcasting M-1 events on HDNet. Cuban not only wants to use his own promotion, but also broadcast other promotions to up the rate of subscribers to HDNet. Overall, this is all purely speculation, but it'll be interesting to see what company will be able to obtain a deal with M-1.
The Buyer
As I previously went over in an article earlier today, Sibling Entertainment has bought M-1 and created a new organization called M-1 Global. It was undisclosed as to who would be possibly backing M-1 Global and Sibling Entertainment. According to various SEC Filings that you can read at Yahoo! Finance, the company only has around $1.5 million in assets. They made a few bad investments in the past, but it looks as if they have been looking for a good business opportunity to sink their teeth in. Sibling Sports LLC will be under the current umbrella of Sibling Entertainment Group Holdings, Inc. The various other divisions of the company deal with production, music, films, and theatrical shows on Broadway and off Broadway. None of these ventures have been significantly profitable. They also manage the Denver CIvic Center and have increased their sales heavily in their tenure. It's still chump change.
We can speculate all we want and move through the multiple deals that Sibling has done in the past, but what's the point? The real issue is their financial situation and where will they be getting an influx of money from in order to grab up these fighters. We don't know that completely yet. Sibling did create a partnership with SFX Media & Events to help produce events. They have done events like the Boston Marathon and the ATP Tennis tours, but nothing gigantic. Only time will tell. The press conference really didn't give us much to comment on.
My complete analysis
For Fedor, this is absolutely everything he wanted. He will be able to stay at home in Russia, compete in Russian Combat Sambo tournaments and the World Sambo Championship, fight in front of his homeland crowds in future M-1 Global events, and stay non-exclusive with the promise that he will be able to fight anyone, anywhere. All of this with the assumption that he is getting a very lucrative deal and he will be carrying M-1 Global's promotion on his shoulders. With his success comes the MMA promotion's success, he's the primary weapon that M-1 Global has to help bring fighters into the promotion. They also have a great CEO who knows the industry better than anyone in Monte Cox. Cox also manages a host of fighters currently in the UFC or in other prominent MMA promotions. Look for Rothwell to possible be one of the first signings in M-1 Global.
The return of the PRIDE FC rules looks to be imminent. The ring, the spectacle, the fantastic knockouts all in a U.S. market that craves knockouts. The Asian market has known PRIDE and loved PRIDE for a long time. We haven't seen something take its place yet. Could M-1 Global do the task? It will take quite awhile considering they must gain a legitimate roster to put on some super cards, but with all of the experience in Monte Cox and the UFC making some significant mistakes in losing the #1 and #2 heavyweights in the same week, losing the HBO deal, and having a CEO that still resorts to trash talk and bad language while in the mainstream, although he redeemed himself during his ESPN interview recently. M-1 Global could make a huge play in the market, but we don't have all the facts. The next few months will be interesting.
Links of Interest
Fedor's new website - http://www.fedormma.com
M-1 Global's new website - http://www.m-1global.com
Sibling Entertainment website - http://www.siblingentertainment.biz
Sibling's SEC Filings - http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=SIBE.OB
Sibling Press Release - Link