Everyone by now has heard rumors that there are multiple suitors to “resurrect” Pro Elite. Mark Ecko’s name has been thrown around as a possibility, and Trebilcock has put together a few investors but not much cash in a bid to buy the company.
There are two major obstacles in any resurrection, those being debt and fighters. The KOTC people obviously want EliteXC, not Pro Elite, but the shareholders of Pro Elite are going to want a lot for it, considering the fact that they have nothing else of value, and have a mountain of debt to pay off.
So why hasn’t Zuffa jumped into the mix to buy the company? CBS has waived its contractual opportunity to buy it first, the company is in bad financial straits. Zuffa is not interested because the fighter contracts are non-transferrable. Much like Pride, where the UFC could only make fighters that didn’t sign with them sit out, that is the situation here as well. If Mark Ecko or anyone else buys EliteXC, they will not get the roster of fighters with it. They will have to sign all new contracts, and the most they can do to fighters that don’t sign is make them sit out for a little while. If King of The Cage buys it, they may have a loophole to bring fighters over because KOTC is under the Pro Elite umbrella. Of course, this is just a small hurdle.
The crazy thing here is that all of this is in California, a state with courts that are notoriously pro-worker mobility. It’s hard for me to imagine a judge in California holding that these fighters simply have to sit and wait forever for possible deals. The fighters need to come together and file a suit for declaratory relief on their contracts.
In the end, the situation is dire for anyone who takes EliteXC over with the hope of getting back on CBS. To get back on CBS they’ll probably need to re-sign Kimbo and Gina, who will come at much higher prices this time, the latter in particular. They’ll need to convince CBS executives that this go-around won’t be a disgrace like the last. Last but not least, they’ll have to run an expensive company in a tight credit market where CBS is offering next to nothing because the networks are going through a financial storm. Everyone’s seen the news about NBC cutting back programming. No MMA company is going to get some amazing amount of money to run shows.
Perhaps the better model is a monthly Showtime show with 2 or 3 PPV shows a year. They need to make money somehow, and the 4 shows a year model just doesn’t lend itself to PPV success, especially considering the ratings they have to pull just to stay on CBS.