The Legal Submission Newsletter 11
Its another edition of The Legal Submission. We’ve been gone for a while but will be back more consistently this summer.
…
Last week the Sports Business Journal reported that UFC 263 scored 600K total PPV buys. Broken down, it drew approximately 500K buys on ESPN’s digital service and 100K overseas. The event was headlined by Israel Adesanya taking on Marvin Vettori. Also supporting the event was a rematch of one of the most exciting title fights of 2020 with Brandon Moreno winning the title from Deiveison Figuieredo. Also helping with the sale of the PPV was the return of Nate Diaz.
Also of interest is Ariel Helwani’s decision to leave ESPN and go independent rather than move to another outlet. There was speculation that he would go to the Action Network but decided to revive his MMA Hour through his YouTube channel and in conjunction with Vox Media’s owned MMA Fighting. He will also be working with BT Sport where he will report on MMA, Pro Wrestling and Boxing. In a lengthy video address to his followers he noted that he’d be doing more than just combat sports in his interviewing citing a wider bandwidth of sports and entertainment figures.
One might argue that ESPN forced him out of the company as the NY Post reported that his $500K salary was going to be reduced 10%. After negotiations, the company reduced his salary with 5%. Helwani had left his initial agents at CAA and went with other representation in negotiations. His contract ended in June and his content will return in August after likely sitting out a no-compete clause in his ESPN contract.
Helwani did well with ESPN at the time and built up his already robust fan base while with the network. He was respected by other ESPN reporters as exemplified through social media after Dana White called him a ‘douche’ after Helwani’s comments in response to Gina Carano’s comments.
Helwani’s decision provides some freedom to his reporting style and one might see this as penance for controversial journalistic reporting of the UFC while being paid by the UFC. This has gone by the wayside with time, but still a journalism faux pas that would have had any other journalist blackballed.
The move is a sign of the times. On higher profile levels, Dan Patrick and Dan LeBatard have left ESPN to start their own media ventures. There is also Bill Simmons who turned way too-long form writing into an art. Will Helwani build a media empire like Patrick has done or what LeBatard is doing? We will see.
A unique lawsuit was filed late last month, with a New York resident who is blind filing a class action complaint against Floyd Mayweather as it pertains to his web site. The lawsuit claimed that Mayweather’s web site was not ADA compliant.