Bellator’s new CEO Scott Coker has already abolished the promotion’s tournament format and he’s now revealed that weekly events will also become a thing of the past in 2015.
In recent times Bellator’s seasons have been made up of 12 weekly shows, putting on two seasons a year along with three ‘summer series’ shows for a total of 26 events.
However, starting in January of next year the plan is to move to putting on an event each month in addition to four other events tht’ll feature the promotions biggest names for a total of 16 events. According to Coker all 16 will air on Spike TV.
“The fights will be much larger, and the venues will have time to promote and really make it an event and not just a weekly TV show,” Coker said of the switch in an interview with MMAjunkie.com.
Bellator had also put on their first ever pay-per-view event earlier this year, but from the sounds of things Coker is in no hurry to follow that up.
“To me, I think that we should be on Spike TV and building the next wave of stars in front of 100 million households,” Coker said. “There will be a time probably in the future where we can definitely go back to the PPV business, but for the foreseeable future, I see us as a Spike property.”
In essence it sounds as if Coker is moulding Bellator in the image of the company he used to run, Strikeforce, while also going in the opposite direction of the UFC who’s current strategy appears to be putting on as many events as they possibly can.
On paper it sounds like a sensible plan and it’ll be interesting to see if it translates to bigger ratings for Bellator on Spike TV next year.
In the mean time their existing format will get one last airing when their 11th season rolls out starting on September 5th.
