DENVER – What's become patently clear in the question of whether Strikeforce will continue to exist is whether Showtime is willing to rebuild the brand.
UFC executives have distanced themselves from that decision.
As UFC president Dana White today told MMAJunkie.com an option comes due in one month on whether to renew or cancel a five-year broadcast agreement struck in February 2009, long before Strikeforce was purchased by UFC parent company Zuffa, LLC.
"It depends on whether they want to seriously stay in the business, in the mixed martial arts business," White said.
The question Showtime now faces is what remains of the business in which they invested two years go. The assets that have come to define Strikeforce during its broadcast partnership with the premium cable channel are gone. Three of the promotion's titles now lie vacant following the exodus of three of its champions to the UFC.
One of those champions, heavyweight kingpin Alistair Overeem, dealt perhaps a mortal blow to the Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix when he withdrew from the tournament and later signed with the industry-leader.
There is a new Strikeforce middleweight champion, Luke Rockhold, who had been off-the-radar for 16 months prior to taking the belt earlier this month. Lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez is set to defend his belt a third time against Jorge Masvideal. Beyond that, he's made no secret of a desire to fight in the UFC.
Ratings for Strikeforce's last major event, "Strikeforce Grand Prix: Barnett vs. Kharitonov," drew paltry numbers compared to earlier offerings, and there were but a few thousand that watched the show live. White was not one of them.
If Showtime renewed the contract, it would obligate Zuffa to provide talent for Strikeforce events until the next renewal came due. But what kind of talent? Virtually all of Strikeforce's out-of-the-box stars have been moved to the UFC. Fedor Emelianenko has fallen.
Of course, many believe Zuffa's intention is to mold Strikeforce into a feeder show for the UFC. The notion of seeing established world-class talent in the smaller organization seems less likely by the day.
White said it's not a matter of what talent makes its way to Strikeforce but whether Showtime is willing to stay the course.
"I don't think you need to scale it down or run a Challengers show," White said. "I think you can put on great fights on Showtime, if Showtime really wants to be in the business. If you really want to be in the business, then commit and get in the business. If you don't, then don't."
The last promotion to hold a broadcast deal with Showtime, ProElite, went belly up in less than two years due to fiscal mismanagement, and Strikeforce swooped in to acquire select fighter assets and forge a new deal with the channel.
But White hinted that decision may have hastened the troubles that eventually led the California-based promotion to sell to Zuffa this past March.
"Let me tell you what, you guys have seen for the last 10 years all these up-and-coming companies that came and do these television deals, and you guys were saying to me, 'How come you don't do a network deal?'" he said. "What did I say? I said for the last 10 years, 'When the right deal comes.'
"Everybody that comes into this business thinks pay-per-view or free TV is the answer, is the Holy Grail, it's the answer to everybody's problems. [Expletive]. Either one of those two things will put you out of business. They get into these bad deals with companies, and next thing you know, you're $30 million in the whole.
"I would classify everybody who's done a television deal out there besides us has done a bad deal. Everyone."
When it comes to White's relationship with Showtime, there's not much to salvage. Prior to the buyout, he often derided the company's leadership and its decision to get into MMA after reportedly giving him the cold shoulder in the days before the UFC hit it big.
Now Showtime is essentially faced with the decision to promote a product that's been repeatedly downgraded. They could continue to broadcast MMA events, and perhaps they could build new stars. If they could live with the likelihood that those stars would likely be poached for the UFC, they could stay in the business.
It's Showtime's choice.
