SteemSports Presenter:
SteemSports Editor:
In viewing First Take this morning, I saw both Max Kellerman and Stephen A. Smith almost grasping at straws in finding the right words for gold medalist Henry Cejudo. The Olympian will be taking on TJ Dillashaw in the flyweight main event of ESPN's first UFC card.
It should be quite entertaining, but at the moment it seems that the ESPN analysts have literally zero knowledge of the sport. As an avid fan, it's a bit disappointing to see. This is especially saddening after FOX's departure since that organization was finally beginning to understand the sport.
ESPN is widely considered the king of sports broadcasting. I myself feel as though FOX is actually bigger in terms of NFL and the superbowl, but ESPN most likely gets more televised play as they are the more politically correct and widely broadcast station globally.
The integration of combat sports would have thought to be easier as ESPN was dealing with boxing for years. It was a more quiet venture, but now they have decided to in essence switch of properties with FOX (in that FOX and PBC in association with Al Haymon)...
......have the boxing broadcasting rights and vice versa. Both stations will have great variations of fights among boxing and mma, but ESPN will develop at a higher rate since Al Haymon's brand is a measley 3 years old to the perennial quarter century of UFC and Dana White experience.
Golden Boy Promotions in essence obliterated themselves from the mma market after a somewhat tumultuous first event. With De La Hoya underpaying his fighters yet claiming he overpaid them, it may cause some confusion and ill will against the company in general.
The closest competitor to the UFC is Viacom's Bellator. With a multi billion dollar organization like Viacom struggling to attain an mma audience unlike the UFC is currently doing, imagine what a much smaller studio will have to deal with in trying to make it in that market.
ESPN will work in unison heavily with the UFC to help both succeed because the ESPN+ platform will be the host to most of the fights now. Instead of the pay per view model, this seems to perpetuate the streaming model truly being the future. Only time will tell but it seems so.
I can only hope ESPN will do it's best in terms of User Interface, Library, and actually caring about the streaming service since UFC Fight Pass was a catastrophe. Again, only time will tell, but I'd rather trust ESPN with sports broadcasting than really any other network.
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