The state of EliteXC

After the next CBS show		11%	(4)
By year's end		24%	(9)
Sometime in the distant future		24%	(9)
They are here to stay!		3%	(1)
As soon as Kimbo loses		24%	(9)
Not sure		16%	(6)

I can remember a time when everyone thought that EliteXC would be the ones to be a true challenge to the UFC, but I also remember when the same things were said about Bodog...so, I guess it's best to wait and see how things pan out. It's been fairly evident as of late that EliteXC is having some serious issues, despite what Lil Shaw has to say.

1. It's widely known that EliteXC lost almost $30 million in their first year of operation.

2. EliteXC President of Live Events, Gary Shaw, resigns from his position.

3. Despite introducing new weight classes, two of their bigger stars have struggled to make weight.

4. Despite securing a promising deal with CBS, the first show is surrounded by poor production and possible scandal

5. EliteXC continues to struggle filling stadiums that aren't in Kimbo's backyard.

6. Despite having better fights and production value, the 2nd show on CBS is considered a flop by ratings' standards.

7. Two events, an EliteXC and a Cage Rage, have recently been canceled.

8. The EliteXC Lightweight champion, KJ Noon, is currently holding the belt hostage...with motives that are not yet completely clear.

9. The EliteXC Welterweight champion, Jake Shields, is obviously looking to be challenged to a greater extent than EliteXC can provide...which is evident by his comments about GSP and talks with Affliction.

10. The EliteXC Heavyweight champion, Antonio Silva, tests positive for a performance enhancing substance...and is suspended for a year as a result.

It definitely isn't looking good, but they still have a couple of things in their favor.

1. The EliteXC Middleweight champion, Robbie Lawler, is exciting, a top 10 middleweight, and is the only current champion the company has that is keeping his eyes on the prize. The downside is that his name wasn't able to carry a main event into numbers that were even remotely close to the first CBS show. Over time, he could be a household name, but I'm not sure it will be soon enough to help the struggling brand.

2. EliteXC still has two names, Kimbo and Gina, that can bring in the high numbers needed to make a success out of the next CBS event...unfortunately for EliteXC (and CBS) though, Kimbo can't fight in every event. Both fighters are still undefeated. The downside is that Kimbo will most likely not draw the same audience once he is defeated, especially if he is completely outclassed...and this means that neither Kimbo nor Gina will be matched up with who the fans want to see them fight...namely Rogers and Cyborg.


Most of the points here are obvious, but I've been thinking about how many things have been not going so well for EliteXC lately...and I can't help but think that we will most likely be seeing an end to their run before year's end. In fact, if the numbers aren't on par for the next CBS show, I think they might pull the plug.

Thoughts?

Here is an intersting article i read earlier.... Pro Elite's 10Q Filing

Pro Elite filed its quarterly report, and it is not pretty . There is a ton of information in the report, and I haven't read the entire thing, but here are the key issues.

They are actively seeking financing: The only word that can really describe their financial situation is "desparate." They need $3 million in financing, and that is just to get to the end of the year. Investors are starting to realize after the failure of the IFL that investing in MMA can be disastrous.

They have lost unbelievable amounts of money: Over a period of 6 months they lost nearly $25 million. In the quarter leading up to June 30, 2008, they lost $18 million. This was the quarter with their big show on CBS.

CBS is barely paying them anything : CBS and Showtime paid them $900,000 for their show in May, and they had to pay $500,000 in production costs to get it. This is cheap programming for CBS, they are not really all that invested in it.

It gets worse than this: This report only covers through June 30, 2008. They surely lost a hell of a lot more on their July show.

To be frank, I think the situation is borderline hopeless for EliteXC. They need serious funding to keep taking these losses, and the only way they can pull out of the hole they are in is to do amazing numbers in October...which would require spending a lot of money in advertising and bringing in big names. Even if shows do a decent number, I do not see light at the end of the tunnel. They will still be big money losers.

As far as Pay Per View goes, I don't see it being a success, even with Kimbo Slice and Gina Carano. By the time they do it in 2009, a lot of the curiosity will be gone, but the even bigger issue is their lack of regular television. They are only doing shows once every three months, it works on a free basis, but we're yet to see that model work on Pay Per View. Even if it does, and the show does 300,000 buys, which I find unrealistic, they still are losing so much money so fast that it wouldn't make up for the losses.

If they do go down,I don't think anyone should dance on their grave. They took a good shot at it, but competing with the UFC may be impossible unless you get a dedicated billionaire willing to give up a significant portion of his fortune to fight them. .

defenately seems that they will go under

i think once the last 2 shows they have scheduled for cbs are done so are they, at least as a major/semi-major player. the afl or affliction hopefully will be able to step in and fill the void on network tv since the ufc doesnt seem to want to give the control to the networks that the smaller orgs will.

Things are not going well at all for them. They lost all that money last year, but didn't they buy a few other organizations? Wouldn't that explain some of the loss? With the Noons situation, and Silva compounded with the canceled shows, I don't see them surviving much longer than a year. I wonder if a certain bald MMA president would be interested in acquiring the promotion, and get some of their fighters?

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Posted by Mchubb316

Things are not going well at all for them. They lost all that money last year, but didn't they buy a few other organizations? Wouldn't that explain some of the loss? With the Noons situation, and Silva compounded with the canceled shows, I don't see them surviving much longer than a year. I wonder if a certain bald MMA president would be interested in acquiring the promotion, and get some of their fighters?

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Yeah, I'm sure the purchases did contribute, which brings up another point...if EliteXC goes under, we don't lose just 1 org, but every one that they bought.

What if EliteXC combined all their promotions, unified the belts, and just focused on one company. They would have a big stable of fighters, and people would find it easier to familiarize themselves with these guys a lot easier. They spread themselves pretty thin, lending fighters to other orgs. and trying to do too many different things. I think the cards would be deeper, and the fighters would fight tougher opponents more often. What would EliteXC look like if they did this? The LW division would be stacked, Noons, Diaz, Melendez, Thompson, Alvarez....
I would love to see Cung Le and Lawler fight for a unified title. I don't know if doing this is possible, but it would make sense to me. Thoughts?

IMO EliteXC won't make it to 2009. I think they might do one more last hoorah show with Kimbo in the main event, and then Dana will make the move to buy them off, (which i think would be inevitable anyway), and then Dana backs all his talk about Kimbo, gets Joes Silve to match him up against somebody who isn't washed up or sucks ass, and all the hype around Kimbo will come crashing down like an avalanche and he will be back to fighting on youtube. I think Gina has a future in the sport..... if she can actually make weight for once

Good point Mchubb316, they should consolidate their venues into one large one. You know what they say, if you eat a lot of fast food you have got to trim the fat or go belly up.

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Posted by ToeZup

Good point Mchubb316, they should consolidate their venues into one large one. You know what they say, if you eat a lot of fast food you have got to trim the fat or go belly up.

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Yeah, I think they kept separate orgs because each org that they bought already had a foothold in their respective region...this way, they could use the brand recognition locally and put them all under the same Showtime canopy. It seemed like they were slowly consolidating the belts and would eventually be one entity, but perhaps they needed to do that from the get go. I suppose hindsight is 20/20.

By year's end. The money's the main point as well as t\he champions. Didn't hear the KJ Noons thing though. Can someone explain it?

i would say by years end, or soon there after.

Whats happened to Gary Shaw?

I think they have a few shows left in them. If their next card has Kimbo and Carano on it they might get another small breath of life back in them, until the next card... They do have a few top level guys floating around, but they lack the talent pool to continually put on compelling bouts. Jake Shields may be a top 10 welterweight, but are the fans going to line up at the doors to see him throttle some guy they get for a 1 fight contract then never see again?

I'd say that they go the way of the dodo (or at the very least are confined to Showtime only) by the second quarter of next year. I just don't think that they have longterm "Staying Power" (the name of the new season in the Secondary League hehe).

It is possibke they will stay afloat for another year but unless the quit the BS and put on better shows with less filler, they wont entice the casual fan. Which will ultimately be their demise.

I think they will fail in early 2009. I don't see them lasting past that point at the rate the are going. To much money being burned away and its hard to explain to investors that they may not see a return for years down the road. That is the problem with most investors now days. If they don't make a profit almost off the bat no one wants any part of it. I don't think there is much they can do to save their company. They cant do PPV because the don't have enough people willing to buy it. I think the CBS deal is what really killed them. I think they invested to much money in to their first CBS show. On top of that their deal with CBS is for to little money which means every time they put on a show they loss money. So I think they jumped at the CBS deal without really thinking it over.

elite xc doing a ppv is a joke
the few top guys they have would be much better served fighting real competition in other orgs instead of cans
their matchmaking is as ridiculous as their production style
i want them to go belly up so i can hopefully see the little bit of talent they have under contract reach their potential