Issue 117

July 2014

CAGE WARRIORS LANDS TV DEAL WITH CHANNEL 4

he London-based Cage Warriors organization has signed a TV deal with Channel 4, becoming the first mixed martial arts promotion ever to be shown regularly by one of Britain’s four longest-standing broadcasters on its primary channel. For the rest of the year Channel 4, which first started televising in 1982, will air one-hour highlights shows midweek following a Cage Warriors card. Satellite station Premier Sports will continue to broadcast Cage Warriors cards live and in full. “We’re delighted to have joined forces with a broadcaster of Channel 4’s stature and flair,” said Cage Warriors CEO Graham Boylan. “They like to have fun and so do we. This is a really positive development for Cage Warriors, and for the growth of MMA in general in this part of the world, and I’m sure it will mark the beginning of a good relationship between CWFC and Channel 4.”

FO SCORE: This should be a boon for furthering the growth of mixed martial arts in the UK, exposing the sport to a brand-new audience. Could Viacom, Bellator’s parent company, recently buying Channel 5 mean the tournament-based organization will join Cage Warriors on terrestrial TV?

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MMA ON BRITISH TV

The Cage Warriors deal is the most recent highlight in MMA’s long courtship of British television audiences. These days, alongside the UFC’s high-profile agreement with BT Sport and Bellator’s weekly slot among the music channels on Viva, some of Britain’s local-level MMA shows are broadcast on fringe satellite and cable channels several times a week. Which contrasts with 2002 when the UFC inked its first UK TV contract, showing two-hour highlights shows on Sky Sports for the 13 weeks before broadcasting its first London card, UFC 38, on Sky Box Office. The behemoth of British sports TV later showed the one-off World Cage Fighting Championship event in 2007, as well as Cage Rage (which later ended up on The Wrestling Channel and Nuts TV, too) and its descendent UCMMA, then Cage Warriors. The UFC moved onto male-oriented satellite channel Bravo in 2005, then sport-centric Setanta in ’08 and ESPN before its current multi-year deal with BT Sport – while treating Channel 5 to highlight packages, and 5 USA and FX UK got series of The Ultimate Fighter. Channel 5, along with its subsidiary 5*, got back into MMA with BAMMA (which had previously been shown on Bravo, SyFy and the Extreme Sports Channel) starting in 2012, before showing its first nearly live UFC event in March this year with London’s Gustafsson vs. Manuwa card. Although, Britain’s first big broadcaster to dabble in MMA was ITV, when the International Fight League, in ’07, and Liverpool’s Cage Gladiators, in ’08, had highlights shows on ITV 4. Other promotions have had homes too, such as King of the Cage, Gladiator Challenge, EFC Africa and WEC (posthumously) on Extreme, Affliction on Bravo and Strikeforce on Primetime pay-per-view.

11%

Nearly 11% of the US population are ‘interested’ in the UFC, according to this year’s Scarborough annual survey.

29

Players are able to perform 29 submissions in the new EA Sports UFC game.

WHAT'S HOT

TEAM ALPHA MALE 

TJ Dillashaw took home the gym’s first-ever UFC title in May and Chad Mendes will look to add a second at UFC 176

WILL BROOKS

The new Bellator interim lightweight champ had a breakthrough performance against Michael Chandler during the promotion’s first pay-per-view

UFC WELTERWEIGHT DIVISION

If this isn’t the most exciting division in MMA then we don’t know what is

WHAT'S NOT

MMA NOT LEGAL IN NEW YORK

How long is this situation going to be drawn out for?

EA SPORTS UFC 

New UFC 135lb champ TJ Dillashaw isn’t on the release-day roster for the new UFC video game. Awkward...

DIAZ BROTHERS 

Where you at, Nick and Nate? We miss your Fighting skills and that Stockton eloquence