The Port Arthur News
May 10, 2008 09:15 pm
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There's a new buzz going on overseas from the new Japanese DREAM promotion that has an interesting American tie-in.
DREAM is the Mixed Martial Arts promotion that grew from the ashes of the now defunct PRIDE Fighting Championships that was purchased by the UFC's parent company, Zuffa. Several former PRIDE FC executives teamed with their former Japanese rival, FEG, to form the new promotion.
One's got to be certain that the UFC owners are hitting themselves in the forehead over this because they spent 70 million dollars to buy out their competition only to see this new one rise up. With DREAM they face an MMA origination with capable, experienced promoters with a stable of talented international fighters.
DREAM events are held solely in Japan at this point, so their fighters consist mainly of Japanese stars with a mix of Brazilian, European, and even American mixed martial artists.
Like the UFC, DREAM has aspirations to be a truly global organization. The UFC has the luxury of holding its events mainly in the USA and making their shows available for pay-per-view on Saturday nights. This is by far its largest source of revenue and makes the privately held company worth one billion dollars, according to Forbes and many Wall Street analysts.
DREAM cannot ignore the growing and lucrative American market. However, it is faced with the challenge of geography. With their events being held in Japan and thusly fourteen hours ahead of our U.S. Central time zone, it's
quite difficult to sell a live pay-per-view to American audiences.
It would be a tough sale to rouse people out of bed in the United States to pay for their fights live.
So then enters Mark Cuban with his HDNet high definition television network. The network's MMA division, HDNet Fights, struck an accord with DREAM to air its events live and then later in the day on tape delay.
DREAM 1 and DREAM 2 have aired on the network in two prior weeks. Today, DREAM 3 will air live on HDNet at 2 a.m. CST. The tape delay version will air at 3 p.m. CST, much like a Sunday matinee NFL football game.
DREAM 3 will feature the second leg of the promotion's lightweight grand prix, a 16 fighter single bout elimination tournament. DREAM took a page from PRIDE FC with these tournament style events and hopes for the same success.
Although it's nice to get an top-notch MMA event that's not on pay-per-view, one has to wonder if this is good for the advancement of the sport. High definition is not widely adopted yet, nor are subscriptions to Cuban's HDNet network.
Unlike the UFC, which can be seen on the Spike TV cable network and soon to be EliteXC on CBS, the viewing audience for HDNet is comparatively small. Perhaps airing of these MMA events will lead to a larger subscription base for the network, like how boxing helped HBO throughout the years.
There are a few drawbacks with overseas MMA events like DREAM airing on tape delay in this country. Fans, especially avid fans, are susceptible to spoilers from an event that already occurred. All it takes is for an MMA fan to accidentally read a headline on an MMA website, or have a friend mouth the outcome prematurely, to spoil the entire show.
Although there's splashes of English in these events, it's still mainly geared toward a Japanese audience. A majority of the fighters are Japanese. Pre-fight introductions are done in Japanese. The fighters usually address the crowd in post-fight interviews in their native language.
Most Americans are used to sports like basketball and baseball where foreign participants play within American sports venues and within an American-centric television production.
If one can overlook the tape delay and other little nuances, one can really enjoy foreign competitions like DREAM. After all, it's all about fighting and DREAM offers lots of talented, world-class fighters in a sport that transcends language and culture.
David Estrada Jr. is a Mixed Martial Arts columnist for the Port Arthur News. He can be e-mailed at DavidEstrada@DavidEstrada.com
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