After taking the reins of MMA franchise World Series of Fighting earlier this year, company CEO Carlos Silva has worked quickly to entrench the promotion’s roots across the media spectrum. After adding the likes of Mark Ford, Mark Stevens and John Weiser to its Board of Directors, extending ties with IMG, and giving the company a digital overhaul, WSOF now hits the weekend with a card on Friday at 9p on NBCSN that will feature the company’s first-ever one-night, eight-man elimination tournament, designed to name a top contender for its lightweight division.
Cynopsis Sports spoke with Silva about his plans to grow the league, how it will be extending its fan base and where in the world the promotion will target next.
Silva on taking the job: The immediate goal when I took this job was to shore up some of our relationships. The team is terrific. Ray and Ali and Keith on the operations side put on plenty of fights before I joined and I would consistently hear from people that WSOF put on great fights. I think that my immediate goal was to come in and move the company from just focusing on events into a media platform. Obviously, NBC is the center of that wheel, but as we look at what people are doing in the OTT market and what they are doing with streaming, and what we are doing with the rest of the world there are a lot more opportunities out there. When you combine that with what we are starting to do by aggregating our digital audience we’ve been laying that foundation.
On digital changes: I’m a big believer that we are thrown in to this multiple league fighting world. Obviously there is the UFC, Bellator, and a dozen others and I think that there is a real audience around the content for the sport itself and the buzz from their events and what the fighters do in their personal lives. The team we are putting together knows how to put an audience together that is interested in that. If I can aggregate eyeballs and audience, that helps me tell more people about World Series of Fighting. That’s the approach we are going to take when we do the relaunch.
On adding tournaments: We are looking for some new, exciting ways to package and promote. We’ve got a great division and eight great fighters and thought it would be a great promotion to give all of those guys a shot. Whoever does win that tournament, they are going to be a worthy competitor when they fight for the championship, probably in March or April. It gives a little bit of buzz and excitement. Brackets have been a part of my life from my days playing sports and just like in March Madness, when you see an underdog upset a powerhouse, you start rooting for that team whether you went to college there or not. I think the same kind of thing is going to happen here.
On international strategy: IMG has been a good partner. I’ve known Hillary quite a long time from my Universal Sports days. I think they are as good a partner as you can have. The international piece is difficult and some of that is having all of these countries known your brand. Getting out there and talking to all of these revenue drivers around the world is a big, important factor for us. I’m happy with the new deal, and I think we will just continue to grind it out. We need to see more growth in South America and I think now that Germany has changed some rules for MMA, they are an interesting opportunity as is Russia. While we are doing pretty well in Asia, there should be some more growth there as well.
