How can Bellator increase viewers?

[Cbear]

The big show with Eddie Alverez/Aoki II only had 109,000 viewers which was done 30% from the week before. Their biggest match with their biggest star and it lost viewers--thats disappointing. And its not just casual fans that ignore Bellator but most of the hard core internet fans too. The fights are not the problem as each weeks show is almost always a good night of fights. The most common excuse given by hard core netters on why they didn't watch was "its Friday and time to party." That doesnt seem to hold water though because they show comes on early enough to still go party afterwards. And the UFC runs Saturday nights and nobody complains about that being party night. People want to watch the UFC so badly they will pirate it but they won't watch Bellator for free. So what can Bellator do to increase viewers?

[Cbear]

A move from MTV2 to Spike would help raise their profile. That should be coupled with a heavy dose of advertising on Spike also. They need to court the mma websites being as friendly as possible to get more coverage. Offer up fighters for interviews. Have Bjorn "work the room" with the bigger mma websites to keep coverage coming. Hire a p.r. team to work the websites, Spike and other advertising avenues to keep the bellator name out there. Thats just a few things for starters.

[Cbear]

The biggest problem is that there is a culture change needed. There really arent mma fans at this point, there are UFC fans. When I point this out, some of you invariably point out that you watch every second of mma including shows in Slovenia documented on 8mm film delivered by passenger pigeon. And when I ask if you watched Bellator on free tv.....uh...well....no man...it was Friday...uh.... Then the next day they are avidly on the boards doing play by play on a UFC show.

Is mma really growing or is it only UFC-centric?

[split decision]

Damn, Bjorn Rebney needs to hire you, Cbear. You're his biggest promoter. Remind him that you have more than 51,000 posts You're a shoe-in for the job!

P.S. Dana steals his biggest stars. Bye-bye Lombard. Bye-bye Alvarez (real soon). So it's an uphill battle.

[wK78]

First off, move off of Friday night. A) its too close to UFC that it gets lost in the shuffle. B) its Friday night, move off of it. Stale, stupid format change, tired of the show- I guarantee one of the reasons TUF is getting worse ratings is Friday night.

Second thing as you mentioned when they get off of MTV2 (huh what that?) and move to Spike it will be a big help.

They do seem to get pretty good coverage, i'd say though. The events and their fighters are covered on the big three MMA new programs (Inside MMA, MMA Uncensored, MMA Live). Always preview the fights on the shows, and have Bellator guests.

Rebney was just spotlighted on Forbes SportsMoney on Yes the other day. Recorded it, haven't watched yet.

But the two things they can do are Spike (its coming) off of Friday (its gotta be coming)

[wK78]

Damn, Bjorn Rebney needs to hire you, Cbear. You're his biggest promoter. Remind him that you have more than 51,000 posts You're a shoe-in for the job!

P.S. Dana steals his biggest stars. Bye-bye Lombard. Bye-bye Alvarez (real soon). So it's an uphill battle.

Well Dana actually can't/won't steal Bellator's biggest star which is the tournament format itselft!!!

[clamcakes]

I only watch it when there's ladies on the card.

[Cbear]

Damn, Bjorn Rebney needs to hire you, Cbear. You're his biggest promoter. Remind him that you have more than 51,000 posts You're a shoe-in for the job!

P.S. Dana steals his biggest stars. Bye-bye Lombard. Bye-bye Alvarez (real soon). So it's an uphill battle.

Eddie has one more fight plus there is a time limit on the contract so I dont see him leaving for a year. And of course Bjorn could match the inevitibable UFC offer--which they might do since they want to keep Eddie. I'm not sure they cared that much about Lombard as he isnt a ratings mover. But, then again after the ratings for last week it seems fans didnt care about Eddie or Aoki either.

I do like Bellator, they put on good shows. I watch pretty much all UFC and most Bellators but I just dont see most hard core netters watching anything but UFC despite their vociferous shouting that MMA IS EXPLODING!!!!!!! and they watch EVERYTHING!!!!! And yet....they just watch UFC. I dont blame fans for not catching an internet only show from Isreal that happens at 4 a.m. but Bellator is prime time with good fights and just doesnt get much love from mma fans. I dont get it.

[Cbear]

First off, move off of Friday night. A) its too close to UFC that it gets lost in the shuffle. B) its Friday night, move off of it. Stale, stupid format change, tired of the show- I guarantee one of the reasons TUF is getting worse ratings is Friday night.

Second thing as you mentioned when they get off of MTV2 (huh what that?) and move to Spike it will be a big help.

They do seem to get pretty good coverage, i'd say though. The events and their fighters are covered on the big three MMA new programs (Inside MMA, MMA Uncensored, MMA Live). Always preview the fights on the shows, and have Bellator guests.

Rebney was just spotlighted on Forbes SportsMoney on Yes the other day. Recorded it, haven't watched yet.

But the two things they can do are Spike (its coming) off of Friday (its gotta be coming)

Why is Friday such a problem, but Saturday is not? You don't want to be on Monday because thats WWE and NFL night. If I was going to move it to the work week I'd probably pick Thursday. I still don't see Friday as a killer if they just promoted it right. "Friday Night Fights--start your weekend with a BANG!" (cue montage of spectacular knockouts).

[jmose86]

I don't have an answer, and agree with what Cbear is saying, but I am curious about one thing. I wonder how they count their viewing figures. This wouldn't explain the drastic drop over the last week, but could add to them depending where the number 109K comes from.

Where did you get this number from Cbear? I would be curious to see if it accounts for the following:

-Does 109K include all of the DVR viewers? Many people may not watch it live Friday night, but likely could record it for later.
-How do they calculate total number of viewers considering they are on both MTV2 and Epix 2 at the same time for HD?
-Do they include online streaming figures? This also may not add substantially to the total number, but they always stream the events free on both Bellator.com and Spike.com simultaneously. I always watch online, and notice that based on the side-by-side twitter feed they have with #Bellator it seems a lot of people do the same.

Again, not really an explanation for the lack of viewers or sudden drop, but could skew the total ratings.