The Heat and the Shine

The finish of Serena Williams's loss to Roberta Vinci was peak drama.  There was a protagonist -- be it Serena for the lovers or Vinci for the haters.  There was high antagonism: Serena about to lose her chance at history; an unheralded Vinci facing a moment no person could ever prepare for.  There was everything else: suspense, a climax, reactions that spanned the emotional spectrum.  It was, in a word, money. One subplot was the loss of money.  And that was true.  Ticket brokers saw re-sale prices for the Women's Final plummet in the moments after the match.  Advertising buyers who snapped up spots early saw their investments deflate and ESPN folks lost a chance to sell at a higher rate next time Serena plays.  Those are just the big ones.  Journalists, concession vendors and even -- maybe especially -- the sellers outside the grounds who planned to offer commemorative t-shirts Saturday night took a hit, too. It is a reminder of who pays the bills in the world of enterta

American college basketball drew some impressive viewership this year, and nowhere was the viewership more impressive than in Kentucky.  Not only did the state’s two marquee teams (University of Kentucky Wildcats and University of Louisville Cardinals) draw superb viewership throughout the entire season, but a full one-third of the population of Louisville — Kentucky’s largest city — tuned into a national championship game that did not even feature a local team.  (University of Wisconsin Badgers vs. Duke University Blue Devils was the matchup, in case you missed it.) Conventional wisdom’s explanation for the rapt attention Kentuckians give to college basketball is that the area is mad for the sport.  For decades, the theory goes, Kentucky college basketball teams have been successful and have made the sport bigger in the Bluegrass State than other American pastimes like the NFL and Major League Baseball. As anyone who grew up watching college basketball in the 1980’s can attest to

The Wrestling Observer website has a very good article up today tracking the drawing power of UFC pay-per-views (PPVs) in the Ultimate Fighter (TUF) era (2005 to Present).  The article is recommended reading, but just in case here's a summary: UFC will always have two or three top stars.  Those top stars' pay-per-view buyrates will always draw far larger numbers than pay-per-view events headlined by fighters with lesser star power. The ostensible lesson told in the article is that non-star PPVs stay pretty much constant, while PPVs that feature stars and/or grudge matches tend to fluctuate dramatically based on the quality of star.  Towards the end of the article, there is a graph (created by Paul Fontaine , author of the article) that purportedly shows a relatively constant level of non-star PPV buyrates (the lower line on the graph) and a fluctuating line of star/grudge match PPV buyrates (the graph's upper line). Neat stuff all around; good job, Paul.  But I thi

FACT OR FICTION: ROH, TNA and Destination America By Ben Miller Oh, what a great time of year.  Baseball is in full swing, motion-enabled comics are packing the theaters and middling pro wrestling companies are eating up the news cycles.  What does that mean for you, loyal readers? Why, it means that it is time for another edition of Fact or Fiction (a.k.a Coors Light Cold Hard Facts [because Bud Light doesn't pay me]).   Past discussions of Facts (not actual facts) and Fictions (more predictions and speculation, really), concerned  UFC's business decline in mid-2014  (boy, was I wrong on that one),  cable & satellite providers' distaste for WWE Network  (three out of four correct; much better) and  UFC drug testing  (the verdict is still out on that one).   The gimmick of "Fact or Fiction" is that I present four  straw men  statements, and then determine/predict whether the statement is factual or not.  The previous Fact or Fiction covere

On March 28, 2013, UFC and Fox Sports were married.  That wasn't the day that UFC announced that it was leaving Spike TV.  It wasn't the day that Can Velasquez fought Junior Dos Santos in the first UFC fight on national, broadcast television in the United States.  It was the day that Fox Sports 1 was announced.  For better or for worse -- mostly for worse -- the two have been married ever since. Fox needed big sports properties to create Fox Sports 1.  UFC was not Fox's largest cable sports property -- that would be college football -- but UFC was essential.  UFC was young, cool -- not it's peak of cool, but close enough -- and singular.  UFC fans would follow UFC wherever it went, or so it was assumed.  (The amazing audience for Chael Sonnen's fight on Fox Sports 1's first night was evidence of that.)  UFC provided volume content -- Ultimate Fighter, live events, hype specials, fighter profiles -- which is extraordinarily valuable when launching a new televi

It was all going well for about thirty seconds.  The heavily favored champion circled the challenger.  No serious strikes were thrown, but the expectation was clear: the champion would find a way -- via submission or standing -- to outclass a man who had been beaten several times before. Then the shot hit.  One shot to the head; cleaner than it was supposed to be.  The heavily favored champion would get hit, and he would not recover.  Not on that night; not in his career. The champion was Antonio Rodrigo "Minotauro" Nogueira.  He came into his fight on December 27, 2008 as the most resilient of champions.  He left as a shot fighter who would be finished four more times in his next seven fights. The story of Minotauro has become a sad one.  Twelve years ago today (but not tomorrow, as he lost decisively to a young Fedor Emelianenko on March 16, 2003) he was one of the two most admired fighters in MMA history (with Kazushi Sakuraba being the other).  Now he is essentiall

It is time for another edition of Coors Light Cold Hard Facts (because Bud Light doesn't pay me).  Past discussions of Facts (not actual facts) and Fictions (more predictions and speculation, really), concerned UFC's business decline in mid-2014  (boy, was I wrong on that one) and   cable & satellite providers' distaste for WWE Network  (three out of four correct; much better).  The discussion centers on UFC again, but this time to discuss a topic that bridges business and competition: UFC fighters failing drug tests. Fact or Fiction: UFC business is being hurt by recent drug test failures Fiction.  (At least for now.) There are two angles for looking at the effect of drug test failures on UFC business: losing fights and alienating fans.  They obviously haven't lost any fights yet.  (Though World Series of Fighting -- and has there ever been a successful sports venture besides baseball [and poker is not a sport] to use "World Series" in its name? --

A void exists.  And voids don't last.  Either the void will be filled or the void will go away.  But voids don't last. The void is in the wrestling business.  The demand of fans and ex-fans for a more intelligent, grounded product has no supply to feed from.  WWE can't or won't give up scripted promos and "invisible camera" segments.  Lucha Underground is a fine product, but it's more television than wrestling.  Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG) thrills local fans in Los Angeles, but their goal has never been to go mainstream.  Surely there are other contenders, but none that have caught on.  And so the void continues. Voids cannot last because eventually the demand dries up.  People move on.  Fans become fans of something else.  How many have moved on to MMA or fantasy football or something else altogether?  But wrestling's void persists.  A hardcore fanbase and an intransigent monarch have sustained it. Nigel McGuinness wants to fill the pro wrest