The International Fight League has made some nice strides since its inception last year. They started off with a deal to air programming on Fox Sports Net, and since then they’ve gone from the original four teams to the current twelve, and gotten another TV deal—this one with the upstart MyNetworkTV. This deal has yielded the show “IFL Battleground”, which airs twice each week and clocks in at two hours. This is all great news for the IFL. More exposure equals more viewers, right? That’s true in principle, but I’ve noticed a few things that could be improved under the current format.
Let’s start off with what I knew about the IFL before their foray into basic cable. I knew that the organization used a different format than your usual mixed martial arts promotion. Namely, they have a team format, with coaches and cities that each group of participants fights out of (i.e. the New York Pitbulls, coached by Renzo Gracie). There are meets during the season, and then there are the playoffs, after which one team is crowned champion. I knew this only because I follow MMA pretty closely, and despite not receiving FSN at home, I could keep up with at least that much on the Internet.
My problem is this: I’ve seen every episode of “Battleground” up to this point, and I know exactly what I knew before it started, and no more. As I said, I don’t receive Fox Sports Net, so my only real exposure to the product has come through the new show on MNT.
The program in question here has followed the same basic format every week. Teams are introduced (coaches and fighters), then they show some of the fights from when the teams squared off, and that’s pretty much it in a nutshell. For example, one week we were introduced to Ken Shamrock’s Reno Lions and Frank Shamrock’s San Jose Razorclaws. We heard about the Shamrock brothers’ rivalry, and then we saw some fights from when the two teams faced each other. Before each fight, the fighters would each get a short vignette that would introduce them and tell a little about themselves, their motivations, etc. That’s all solid within the show itself. But each show doesn’t comprise of a full season. What happens after these teams square off? What are the standings? When did this all happen? What does any of it mean? How do the playoffs work? The show doesn’t answer any of these questions. So “Battleground” is an effective way to introduce the principals and show some fights, but outside of those basic things, it hasn’t gotten anything across. There is certainly a better way to get the IFL’s mission across through this show.
To be completely effective, “Battleground” needs to tell the viewers what the IFL is all about. It’s fine to hang your hat on the team concept, but you can tell that story in one episode. It takes only a few minutes to say, “Hey! We use teams instead of just individual fighters! Isn’t that quirky and different?!” But if that’s all you say, it ends up not meaning anything in the long run. All you’re doing is showing fights that have no lasting impact to the viewer. People will watch fights that have no ramifications for a little while, but sooner or later something has to have some meaning. There has to be something bringing viewers back week after week to see what happens.
There are no individual titles in the IFL. There is only the team championship, which is awarded at the end of each season. (How long are these seasons? When do they run? I have no idea.) If that’s the case, then everything should be about the chase for the team championship. It’s not important that the episodes of “Battleground” run concurrently with each IFL season, but the episodes should certainly show the events in chronological order. Without this, there’s no sense of continuity, and everything just kind of blends together. In addition, at the beginning and end of every episode, they need to show the complete standings, so that the ramifications of what happened on the show can be seen immediately. A little analysis by host Bas Rutten also wouldn’t hurt. As it stands, Bas’ role as host doesn’t consist of a whole lot. He’s the “face of the IFL”, which certainly isn’t a bad thing, and it lends credibility to have a guy like Rutten associated with your product, but in the end, what does that even mean? Bas should be telling us what everything means at the end of the show, and what each team needs to do in order to improve its position relative to the playoffs, the title chase, etc. We should also hear a little about the motivation of the teams at the bottom of the standings. Obviously, fighters want to win fights. But outside of a tally mark in the “win” column, is there any meaning to a match between the eleventh and twelfth ranked teams in the standings? These are questions that need to be answered.
A typical episode of “Battleground” should run as follows: The first episode of the season would show the first event of the league’s season, and the following episodes would continue in like fashion. At the beginning of the show, we get a summary of what’s happened so far this season, and what the standings are following what happened in last week’s event. Then the teams participating in the current episode are introduced. We’re made aware of any changes or happenings within the teams and/or between the combatants since the last time we saw them. The fights would be introduced in essentially the same manner as they’re using now. Each fighter is introduced, and we see the fight. After the fights are all completed, we get a complete rundown of what happened in the episode, and what it all means. Bas Rutten goes over the standings and the ramifications of each match, and then the show ends with a preview of next week’s episode, which would tell us why that episode is important. If this model were to be followed, it would attach meaning to each and every show, and the viewer would feel more like they’re going to miss something significant if they miss a single episode. And that’s what keeps people coming back.
Outside of the programming, I have to wonder what the IFL’s goals are as a promotion. If their goal is to be a niche promotion that can draw a crowd based on the coaches’ name recognition and regional followings, I think they’re on their way to doing just that. But fight sports are very star-centric, and the task of building individual stars in a team setting with no individual titles could be daunting. Sure, there are a couple of fighters who are causing some buzz in the promotion. Lightweight Chris Horodecki and heavyweight Ben Rothwell are two that have had their names become more recognizable through their associations with the IFL. But does that matter to the IFL in this setting? I don’t think it does—at least in the long run. The paydays for MMA fighters are eventually going to get a lot bigger than they are now. If there’s money in seeing one of the league’s top fighters take on someone from another promotion, the fight will probably happen, and that fighter will likely leave the IFL. If these fighters leave, what happens? Do they hope to have a model similar to the NFL, where the teams are the selling point, rather than the individual players? One would have to think that this is the gameplan. If that’s the case, I’ve got to think it would work, but a model like that will never outdraw an event where there’s a heavily anticipated title fight between two star fighters. The nature of the team model tells you that once a region’s team is eliminated, that region is naturally going to have less interest in the outcome of the team championship meet. This is really where the promotion has to look in the mirror as a whole and decide what they want. If they want to be a feeder league for the bigger promotions, I think they can have great success in doing that. If they want to keep their stars and build the promotion around star power, then the current format will never work.
To email me, Shawn Ennis, shoot me a message at ennistorch@sbcglobal.net or visit my zone at the forums.
