Discover Top Posts Tagged with #wme-img

If you were WME-IMG...

How much would a Netflix or a Amazon or Twitter have to offer you for you to move PPV off of PPV and onto those platforms?

#MMA #UFC #WME-IMG #PPV #Netflix

WME-IMG Enters Content Partnership With UNICEF

WME-IMG is entering a new content partnership with UNICEF.

Under the collaboration, the company will lead the co-creation and distribution of content to elevate UNICEF’s causes. Through its network across entertainment, sports, and fashion, the company will look to partner UNICEF with key influencers, award-winning directors and producers, and global brands to create consumer-facing marketing campaigns and initiatives.

“WME-IMG’s employees work with some of the world’s greatest influencers, brands, and storytellers; all of whom care deeply about the welfare of our next generation,” said WME-IMG Co-CEOs Ariel Emanuel and Patrick Whitesell. “Through this partnership, we will mobilize our global network to ignite action around UNICEF’s most pressing issues, encouraging people to get — and stay — involved.”

UNICEF was briefly mentioned in Tom Hiddleston’s speech following his Golden Globe win for best actor in limited series. Hiddleston, who is repped by WME, is a major supporter of the organization, and was featured in a video message at WME-IMG’s recent retreat, expressing his happiness that the company is partnering with the cause.

In addition to this partnership, the WME-IMG Foundation will continue its support of partner schools in Compton, Brooklyn, London, and Nashville through mentorship programs, arts and education grants, client collaborations, and teacher assistance; as well as its work supporting WME-IMG clients in building and/or expanding their own philanthropic platforms and partnerships. In 2016 alone, the Foundation supported 200 charities in 140 communities globally.

“With 16,000 children dying each day of preventable causes and tens of millions more displaced by violence and extreme poverty, UNICEF’s work on behalf of children is as important now as ever,” said Caryl M. Stern, president and CEO of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. “Through this partnership with WME-IMG, we can change the narrative and the way the entertainment industry thinks about global social impact. It is an extraordinary opportunity and I am very excited about what we can achieve together. With their support, we look forward to engaging with influential figures around the world to keep the world’s children in the spotlight, allowing them to survive and thrive despite the obstacles.”

#tom hiddleston #wme-img #unicef #unicef uk #humanitarian tom

The Story Of GSP And The Golden Carrot

Joey

Feb 26th, 2017

As much as we want to avoid the acknowledgment, MMA is very much a sport. A flimsy one but one none the less.

As a sport, its fans are prone to extreme mood swings. An MMA fan can go from angry to desolate to joyous to overenthusiastic in a matter of minutes. Anecdotally, I follow a normally sane rational person on twitter who went from tweeting about the death of the UFC to mapping out how the company could have a 3 million buy PPV with GSP signing that day. Sports fans of all kinds are emotional to the point of irrationality BUT we all have something in common.

The golden carrot.

If you follow a bad sports team, the golden carrot is always the draft. "Hey if we keep sucking, we can get a nice draft spot and get some damn good players!" In 2010 as a miserable Knicks fan, the golden carrot was LeBron James. "Clear up enough capspace and we can get LeBron James and another max player! Let's just suck enough to find our way into the right spot!" LeBron didn't come----but we did get Amare Stoudamire and then it became a new golden carrot; the two max superstar player. Yankees fans like myself are prepared to sit through a potential max 80 win season in order to see our young phenoms progress in the minors and the majors. The golden carrot? The idea of finding a homegrown superstar to pair with an actual free agent superstar in 2018. Browns fans spend every November to April chasing the golden carrot of finally finding the right mix of players, coaches and front office people to be a competent credible long term force in the league.

Golden carrots.

For MMA fans, the golden carrot is a bit harder to define. In 2011 when UFC business started to turn on its ass a little, the golden carrot was a game changing Fox deal. When fans were growing impatient in 2012, the golden carrot was the return of GSP and a bevy of Strikeforce additions. Throw in a genuine HW rivalry (look at the numbers Cain and JDS shows did either as headliners or in a main/co-main capacity) and you could see the carrots being dangled. In 2013, business was good but they still did enough wacky stuff ("Watch Chael really try to win the title this time!", "Anderson vs Jones or GSP if he wins one more fight!") to entice fans to be patient. 2014, UFC business was not as hot as 2013 and so the carrot was the promise that one day, the injury bug would be gone and big fights would return to the mix. 2015 proved to be the answer as those pushed back "big" fights did happen with some random assortment of "huh?" type fights to keep us preoccupied. 2016 was all about getting fans to the next Conor McGregor event with enough big flirting with names ("Hey Fedor might want back in!", "We're still talking to Brock!", "At any given moment, we'll have GSP back!") to keep the carrot going. We're always searching for the next new star or the same old faces in new places or something exotic and wacky to keep us excited. Golden carrots are essentially the lifeblood of MMA.

2017 started slowly for MMA and the UFC. The biggest event to this point is Chael Sonnen vs Tito Ortiz which did like 6,000 fans live and a $500K gate to go along with a pretty nice (but nowhere near 2016's highs) rating number. The UFC is sluggish out the gate with all sorts of issues. Orgs are suing orgs, union attempts are suing fighter associations, fighters are free agents but not free agents and WME-IMG finds itself getting lambasted from all sides. From big fights struggling to get made to fighters trying to flex their financial muscle (some deserved, some not so) to a new philosophy about letting fighters explore free agency, we're entering a very rough start to 2017. WME-IMG bought the UFC but perhaps underestimated how absolutely ravenous UFC fans can be, especially when things don't go their way. They bought a company without realizing that their fanbase can be a prickly group of folks. It hasn't been pretty for WME-IMG and it's probably going to continue to get worse before it gets better, especially as the UFC begins negotiating more and more television deals.

But lo and behold, they've found the power of the golden carrot.

In a span of a few days, WME-IMG and the UFC had a bevvy of news drop that seemed to momentarily erase all of those whiny pesky fan complaints. GSP was signed to a new deal guaranteeing the UFC a return of one of its top stars from yesteryear (and if we've learned anything it's that MMA fans love old people getting brain damage). Despite everybody fretting when GSP spoke openly about concerns over head injuries, we're happy he's back because star power is the only power we care about as fans. Word dropped that Cyborg was given a retroactive TUE, whatever the hell that entails, which means for people who enjoy her, we're going to get to see her fight for a title. Whether that title should exist in the first place is neither here nor there but hey! She's back. Then news dropped that Ronda Rousey retirement talk might be just a smidge premature as well. Jose Aldo vs Max Holloway was given the all important time and place, meaning in June we'll get to see what on paper may be a top 10 fight at featherweight. Conor McGregor, still on the outskirts with the company for whatever reason, may be buddying up with them again to put on a fight or two. This Floyd Mayweather vs Conor McGregor fight which in a perfect world wouldn't even be sanctioned gains some traction. Nick Diaz starts suggesting he's ready to come back and fight as well.

50% of the stuff WME-IMG is going to try and put on probably won't happen. It doesn't matter though. MMA fans like to get built up, disappointed and then built up again. We're in this not just for what happens inside of the cage but also for the drama outside of it. Remember a large percentage of us are transported pro wrestling fans searching for the next KEWL thing to follow. We've stuck around---but you can't shake the pro wrestling gene out. The "casual" fan has their minds made up on what MMA is and it's UFC with Conor McGregor hijinks, not the Khabib vs Tony Ferguson five round masterpiece we'll get. This isn't out of bitterness either! It's business! The business of MMA is about golden carrots and whether we ever get the carrot is irrelevant. We'll just get new carrots to chase!

And if WME-IMG is figuring that out, maybe the sport will be a-okay after all.

#MMA #UFC #WME-IMG #Sports #GSP #Conor McGregor

Just months after being acquired by Hollywood talent agency WME-ING, the UFC is going A-list, with 23 celebrities, including Ben Affleck, Adam Levine and Serena and Venus Williams, investing in the rapidly growing sport.

Hmmmmmm?

#MMA #UFC #WME-IMG

the-dragon-of-the-midwest said: Oooooohhhhh. Is that not done already? They announced the sale but didn’t already get the money for it?

You’d ASSUME this is a formality.

#MMA #UFC #Sale #WME-IMG

Unlocking the value of WME-IMG’s $4 billion acquisition of the UFC will hinge largely on the next round of media rights negotiations, where the UFC projects revenue to grow by nearly four times. Based on numbers the UFC supplied to potential buyers during its sale process, it says that media r

Good article

#UFC #WME-IMG