Report: Zuffa(UFC) Buys IFL
That’s the word according to thefightnetwork:
The long speculated moratorium of the International Fight League now has a date. According to IFL senior vice president of communications Joe Favorito, the team-based MMA promotion will turn out the lights July 31 as its assets are sold to a yet-to-be-named buyer, confirmed today by several anonymous sources as the UFC ownership group Zuffa LLC.
“As of July 31 my role at the IFL will be no more as the company goes into its final stage of being sold and/or closed down,” Favorito stated via email
I first spoke about this possibility here. Now it looks like it’s pretty much a done deal. In the past couple of weeks we have seen former IFL fighters debut in the UFC…as well as IFL footage being show to promote those same fighters. The IFL has a few fighters that should add to the UFC’s already stacked roster…not only that…but this acquisition keeps these fighters from bolstering the roster’s of competition like Affliction and EliteXC.
I was never THAT big of a fan of the IFL..however, I respect what they tried to do. Actually, their product improved drastically over time…but at that point it was too late to stop the bleeding.
July 25, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Has the price been revealed yet?
I heard rumors it was around $1 million.
I would think it wouldn’t be that hard for the UFC to get value for that amount of money through the fighter contracts and the video library.
What kind of money was the IFL paying it’s fighters? Were they overpaying fighters or was it all just mismanagement?
July 25, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Yea, the price has rumored to be around 1 million…I’m thinking they are gonna be paying less than that for it. It’s a smart move for the UFC…if only to keep EliteXC and Affliction for bolstering up their roster’s with IFL fighters. I think the IFL paid their fighters ‘ok’ nothing outlandish…the reason they lost so much money is the TV deal they signed didn’t do much for them. They were do too many shows a year(which put them all in the red) and they couldn’t do PPV(which is the biggest source of revenue for the UFC)
July 25, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Those IFL fighters that still have contracts will they just transfer the contracts to the UFC or WEC under the same terms or will they have to renegotiate all those contracts?
That is why I asked how they paid. If those title holders in the IFL are underpaid in the IFL are they going to correct those contracts or will they make them finish them out?
July 25, 2008 at 7:23 pm
I think this situation is similiar to the PRIDE situation. I don’t think all the contracts are transferrable. Ryan Schultz is going to fight over in Japan…and he’s the IFL LW Champion…Jay Heiron’s situation is iffy…he say’s his contract with the IFL is up in December…so who knows.