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This is what i wrote on another site about this:
"At first i thought it’d be the CBS-U deal being finalized. But if i come to think of it, the thing that makes most sense would be that Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp has become a (minority?) owner.
If you think about it, it’d be the perfect choice:
- Dana stated, that Germany’s next on their agenda to build a base and do shows. And Murdoch/News Corp is a minority owner (25,1%) to germany’s only PPV-provider, Premiere (he’s aiming to take complete control in the forseeable future), which in turn is in talks of buying the german equivalent to ESPN, DSF. So being in bed with Murdoch would instantly give them access to german TV, and make it much easier for them to operate there.
- Newscorp owns the UK’s biggest private broadcasting company, British Sky Broadcasting - which, up until now, broadcasts the Cage Rage events. You can bet your ass, that if Murdoch were to buy into the UFC, Cage Rage would be gone in a minute. Why have your own competition on one of your networks?
- On top of that Newscorps owns or has stakes in networks in Italy, New Zealand, Uruguay, Poland, Australia, India and Indonesia. Even with the company not being the main shareholder, it shouldn’t be that much of a problem for Murdoch to push “his” UFC programming into the schedule, just furthering the UFC’s worldwide expansion.
- And of course there’d be the prospect of UFC programming on FOX, FX and My Network TV in the states, which, at least at the moment, would be their primary revenue sources when it comes to cable and broadcast tv.
And Dana wouldn’t even be lieing, when he says that it’s NOT a tv-deal, because Newscorp itself isn’t a tv-network, it just owns a few dozen… ;)"
Not a tv-deal (per se) and would really change the MMA-world, since it would give the UFC the upper hand in many, many markets...
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