With the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix (SFHWGP) just around the corner, there as been a drumbeat of questions from the British contingent of mixed martial arts fans. With a field that includes nearly half of the Top 15 heavyweights in the world, British MMA fans have been anxious to find out what viewing options may be available for them to view the SFHWGP. MMAFA.tv was able to get in contact with Strikeforce Director of Communications Mike Afromowitz, who confirmed that the San Jose based promotion would be going the Pay Per View route for broadcasts of Strikeforce content in the UK.
The move to PPV was somewhat necessitated by the recent shuttering of the Bravo UK television channel. Bravo had played host to stateside MMA broadcasts such as the UFC as well as domestic shows like Cage Rage. Additionally, it served as the most recent home for Strikeforce broadcasts in Great Britain. The Bravo channels closed on January 1, 2011, and many of the programs offered by Bravo were transferred over to Sky/BSKYB, which had previously bought and subsequently shuttered Bravo. Sky Sports has been home to the UFC’s The Ultimate Fighter reality show the past few seasons, which would preclude Strikeforce from airing there. The only other Sky channels that have shown MMA are “The Active Channel” free to air on Sky and Extreme TV on Channel 419, but both channels are considered of low quality and not really viable options by most UK MMA observers. Other networks that have been friendly to MMA in the past have bitten the dust recently, with NUTS-TV (formerly the home of the Cage Rage promotion) going under in the past few years. The British promotion BAMMA has very recently signed a deal to air their cards the UK SyFy channel, so this may be a possibility for Strikeforce in the future, but nothing is in the offing at this time.
The most likely home for the Strikeforce PPV’s would be Primetime Tv on Sky channel 480. Sky is the dominant satellite provider in the UK and Primetime 480 has been host to recent American MMA PPV offerings such as Moosin as well as a few other small US MMA shows. Pricing for the Strikeforce PPV’s has not yet been announced, but looking at some comparables in the combat sports field will give us some points of comparison. Recent It’s Showtime kickboxing events have been available for £5.95 (about $9.50), while boxing PPV’s such as the Super Six tournament fights have sold in the range of £12.95 to £14.95 ($20.50 to $23.75). Somewhere in the mid- to upper-range between those two figures would give us an idea of what kind of price point at which the PPV’s may be offered.
One possible problem faced by Strikeforce in going the PPV route in the UK is a television culture in Britain that generally doesn’t fully embrace the PPV concept. While there are some outliers, like the like the 1.2 million PPV buys that Hatton vs. Mayweather is reported to have done, on the whole the PPV format hasn’t proven quite as successful on a regular basis as has been the case in the US. This scenario very much resembles their setup in Japan, a country also notoriously reticent in availing themselves of the PPV market. Other impediments that Strikeforce may run into are 3AM start times for live viewing in the UK as well as the generally unpredictable run times of Strikeforce events. Strikeforce can mitigate the start time problem by having their shows repeated throughout the week on Sky Box Office, a tactic that has been used effectively by the WWE. Such a repeat policy may be putting the cart before the horse so to speak, as another problem could be Strikeforce’s lack of advertising budget leading simply to people not knowing the PPV is on. Run times like the abbreviated hour and a half run time for this past weekend’s Diaz vs Cyborg card could also be a problem. If Strikeforce holds to their policy of non-inclusion of undercard fights on the main card, a lower price point may be the best option to take. While the PPV option may not be the optimal route, the simple concept of access for its’ British fans may be the driving force in moving to the PPV option for Strikeforce.