Scott Coker says StrikeForce still a year away from pay-per-view

Published on: 14th March, 2009

Scott Coker says StrikeForce still a year away from pay-per-view  | read this item

Shamrock vs Le 2 on PPV?

StrikeForce has made all the right moves up to now, they worked there way up the promotional ladder slowly and never bit off more than they could chew. Now their CEO Scott Coker says that their ambitions do not end at their acquisition of EliteXC from Pro Elite, but he says he will not rush the promotion on to pay-per-view.

MMAJunkie.com interviewed the promotions ambitious CEO about a possible show on CBS or pay-per-view.

“We’ve had meetings with everybody,” Coker said. “What I can say is that there’s a contract in place for CBS. Obviously it has a confidentiality agreement, so I really can’t talk about the deal. But we’re hopeful for maybe something in the fall.”

Coker also said that he is more interested in building his stars before running into the pay-per-view market. Something that seems very smart given the fact that so many promotions have tried and failed on pay-per-view only to be forced out of business.

“You do the fights on pay-per-view when the fights are relevant and the fans want to see the fight,” Coker said. “Now we have a platform to build stars, to make the fights that we want to build relevant, and then go into that business.

“I would say it would probably be something that would take us another 10 or 12 months to get to that point. There is a gameplan in place, already mapped out, but it might take up to a year to get into that business.”

As for the UFC counter programing their Shamrock vs Diaz card on Showtime by airing UFC 94 on Spike the same night, Coker said he did not take it personal because it is business.

“I look at it like this: That’s been [the UFC's] business model,” Coker said. “They’re consistent with that counter-programming for their business model. To me, that’s a business decision they had to make.

“I don’t take it personally at all. Those guys were the industry leaders that led the way. They should have that respect. We’re going to go do our thing, and I think we’ll do it well.”

I don’t know about you, but I am actually excited that StrikeForce is slowly moving towards putting on quality MMA every month on Showtime. I hope that they are successful. I would love to see more quality MMA on every month.

 Alberto Martinez "The Narcisist" is the founding owner of URDirt.com. If you would like to post on the front page or in our New "Fan Jab" section all you need to do is register. Read more from this author

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