Bjorn Rebney: What Bellator Can Offer Fighters Like Lombard, Alvarez Could Change Soon

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Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney, on “The Savage Dog Show,” discussing Bellator’s ability to retain its fighters and compete for new talent as well:

“Look, if a tremendous fighter becomes available in another organization and has the opportunity to solicit offers from Bellator, Viacom, Spike, we may look at that fighter and make a tremendous offer, and the UFC would have the opportunity to match that offer. It just boils down to numbers and it boils down to business models in terms of where business models are. If we were a couple of years into the future in Bellator vis-à-vis the Spike alliance was doing large-scale pay-per-views, the ability to monetize a Hector Lombard deal or what we could offer in that deal might be quite different and it might have a much different result, but right now we’re not doing pay-per-view.

“Everything we’re doing is live and free. As we launch on Spike, whether it’s the reality show or the shoulder programming or the live events we’re doing, it’s going to be live on Spike and it’s going to be free. All you’ve got to do is turn on your TV set and watch it. With that kind of ability to monetize content, it’s going to have an effect on what we offer and what we match in terms of other deals. That may change in the very near future, and/or we may look at a deal with [Eddie Alvarez] or with any other fighter that we’ve got under contract and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to pay X for this guy now. We want to keep him for this reason or that reason.’ It’s really on a fighter-by-fighter basis.

“The other thing we have going for us, which is spectacular right now, is that the Pat Currans, the Eduardo Dantas’s, the Michael Chandlers and many of the other guys that are champions in our organization have got long-term deals with us and are going to be able to benefit from Spike and from the reality show and from that epic machine that is Spike network in terms of reaching and connecting with MMA fans. The future looks bright.”