When the UFC renewed its deal with Spike, they mentioned the possibility of live, weekly programming starting in 2010 or 2011. Nobody at the UFC really knows what will replace TUF, but a weekly show with live fights is the most likely answer. There are a lot of obstacles to it, but Robert Joyner says there have been discussions about it lately between the UFC and Spike TV.
The first obstacle is capability. The UFC staff is run ragged as it is, and I don’t see any way to run live events all over the country without more than doubling the staff. Unlike pro wrestling, the big names won’t ever be on free TV, so it’s also hard to sell out arenas and make the money back. To do this, they’d have to bring ticket costs down by a huge amount, and they’d probably have to run out of small Las Vegas venues most of the time.
The second issue is overexposure. Despite worries in some circles, overexposure has not hurt the UFC yet. They still have 12-13 PPV shows a year with big names, and even with added shows on Spike they aren’t giving away big fights for free, so they can still sell them. Would a weekly live fights show dissuade people from buying monthly PPV events? In the case of pro wrestling this is certainly the case because the stars perform on free TV too, the UFC could avoid this problem by keeping their stars on PPV. The potential problem is if ratings start to fall and they feel the need to put big fights on TV.
The third issue is where do the fights come from? Do you take amateurs and put them on TV? The best idea I’ve heard is to end the concept of “preliminary fights” at live shows, end Fight Nights, and with all those fights you could easily fill a weekly TV fight show throughout the year. Prelim fights are a nice bonus for live fans, but getting rid of them won’t hurt attendance at all and putting these fights on TV would actually make the fighters some money by way of sponsorships.
I think an effective show could be a 2 hour show from the Pearl in Las Vegas weekly. Do four or five fights depending on their length, and also do interviews and promotion for the fights coming up on Pay Per View. They could announce signings, do MMA news updates on the show, and even do public contract signings if they wanted to get really into the promotion business. They could even do a legendary fights segment or training segments. I’m just spitballing, but there’s plenty of content you could fill a weekly 2 hour UFC show with.
Eventually TUF will come to an end. The resistance point of the 1.0 rating has been stronger than I imagined, but it will eventually give way within a couple of years, and they need to have a new idea for when that day comes.