Fox Fight Game: Bellator’s Bjorn Rebney, Miguel Torres, Dominick Cruz

On this week’s edition of Fox Fight Game, Mike Straka talks with Bellator CEO Jason Statham Bjorn Rebney, Miguel Torres and Dominick Cruz.

 

Bellator Announces Broadcast Alliance With FSN, NBC & Telemundo (Update)

bellator_logo3It had been so long since Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney teased their new television deal, I was beginning to wonder if it had fallen through. Well, it didn’t. Today, Bellator announced they have secured television deals with not one network, but three — Fox Sports Net, NBC and Telemundo — which probably explains why it took so long to announce.

Here’s a breakdown of their “landscape-altering” broadcast alliance for seasons two and three.

  • Fox Sports Net, 82 million homes, live primetime events on Thursday nights, beginning April 8, 2010, available in HD
  • NBC, 112 million homes, 30-minute highlight show, every Saturday night the week of an event, 24 weeks in 2010, available in HD
  • Telemundo, 62 million homes, one-hour highlight show in Spanish, every Saturday night the week of an event Midnight-1AM, available in HD

Season two will kick off on April 8, 2010 and season three on August 12, 2010. Both seasons will run for 12 consecutive weeks and will follow the tournament format they used in season one.

Rebney described this alliance as his “dream scenario.”

“It was my dream scenario. I had this triangle in mind of what I wanted accomplished. I wanted a live weekly broadcast for two hours in prime time so people could see what we’re all about. I wanted it easy to find, and FSN accomplishes that…I also wanted a network play. What we ended up with is a rock-em’, sock-em’ highlights show on NBC similar to ‘The NFL Today,’ for lack of a better comparison. The third part of the triangle then was a Spanish-language option. The Spanish-language audience responded just magically last season … and we wanted to bring that back to those fans…Without naming names, this sport is littered with the carcasses of organizations that cut (broadcast) deals that just didn’t work for the businesses. If you’re not cash-flow positive pretty quickly, you’re not going to last. With our deal, I wanted to assure not only that we would have seasons three and four of Bellator but also seasons five, six and so on. … My focus wasn’t the next year or two; it was the next five, 10, 15 and all the way down the line.”

Update: Bjorn Rebney spoke to Fanhouse about the tournament structures for seasons two and three, what their champions will do while the season two tournament plays out and what the pay structure looks like.

I’m keeping the guys busy. Joe just fought in Northern California and will fight again in January. Eddie fights Sunday in Dream. Hector and Lyman will fight again soon as well. Once our second season starts we’ll put them in superfights, and during Season 2 we’ll crown four tournament winners in featherweight, lightweight, welterweight and middleweight, and then we’ll have those tournament winners fight our champions in Season 3. In Season 3 we’ll also do tournaments at heavyweight, light heavyweight and probably bantamweight.

Our Season 3 championship tournaments will keep the same pay structure, where the winner gets $175,000. Our Season 2 challenger tournaments will still pay the winners more than $100,000 but it won’t be the $175,000 that guys win for winning a championship tournament. When you’re fighting for our title, you get more.

Full press release after the jump.

 

Bellator’s Rebney Talks Season Two & Their New TV Deal

Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney says they’ve signed a new TV deal that will put them in 150 million homes. Any guesses?

 

Bellator’s Rebney: TV Deal Is Done, Looking For Fights For Our Champs

Bjorn RebneyLast week news broke that Bellator had postponed their second season due to a TV deal they were still trying to finalize. According to Bellator’s CEO Bjorn Rebney, that TV deal is done and it sounds like a major improvement over their last one. Most notably, this season will be broadcast live and in English in addition to Spanish.