Bellator MMA's Bjorn Rebney: No current plans for a second season of 'Fight Master'
It looks as though Bellator’s foray into reality TV is a lone one, at least for the moment.
Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney told MMAjunkie Radio that there currently are no plans to mount a second season of “Fight Master,†which ran this past year from June to August on Spike TV.
“We’ve had serious of discussions, (Spike TV president) Kevin (Kay) and I about the show and the focus, and I think right now – and I’m never one to say we’re never going to do ‘X,’ or we’re always going to do ‘Y’ – but right now, the focus is really on the live events,†Rebney said.
Bellator this week announced the first six events of its 10th season, which kicks off next month with Bellator 110, and Rebney said more announcements are on the way.
“There’s no plan right now to do another reality show,†he said. “Not to say that somebody might come to us with an amazing idea, or a slight variation on the theme of the idea that we already did. But right now, the hyper-focus is in doing (Eduardo) Dantas vs. (Rafael) Silva (fight), the (Daniel) Straus vs. (Pat) Curran trilogy to get this thing unveiled, because that’s where the numbers are going to be generated. That’s where the consumer interest is going to be.
“All the rest of this stuff supports it. It’s the live events that fuel the machine.â€
While Bellator saw its best ratings to date with this past year’s Bellator 106, which featured a rematch between now-former champ Michael Chandler and current champ Eddie Alvarez. However, the reality show, which featured a quartet of MMA legends coaching a group of MMA hopefuls, struggled to draw viewers, never cracking the 1 million mark.
Midway through the season, as ratings hovered around 500,000 per episode, the show was moved from Wednesdays to a different time slot – a Thursday spot with “TNA Impact Wrestling†serving as a lead-in. The show’s final episode drew 668,000 viewers including DVR numbers.
During a teleconference announcing Bellator’s 10th season, Rebney said the promotion has a full schedule of shoulder programming lined up in support of the live events. So while those will go on, all the hidden cameras and on-set drama will go black.
