M-1 having trouble securing TV deal for Fedor vs. Monson
No plans ave been announced fo a North American broadcast of M-1 Global’s Fedor Emelianenko vs. Jeff Monson event in…
No plans ave been announced fo a North American broadcast of M-1 Global’s Fedor Emelianenko vs. Jeff Monson event in Moscow on November 20th.Previously, there had been speculation that Showtime and M-1 Global might partner up for the November card, as they are currently scheduled to on October 14th in Phoenix, Arizona.
We’re still in talks with Showtime as well as several other possibilities to show this fight in North America, M-1 Global’s Director of Operations Evgeni Kogan told FCF today. I guess there’s not a huge amount of time left to do a deal, so maybe within two or three week’s we will have something sorted, but it everything is continuing. I think it’s very likely that the bout will be live in North America, albeit, very early on the Sunday morning in the U.S., especially on the West Coast.
For our purposes in Russia, it means that the fight will probably take place around 10 in the morning on the U.S. East Coast and 7 in the morning on the West Coast; that’s really early. We appreciate that for American television, for Showtime and other people that we’re talking to for potential pay-per-view, that’s not the easiest thing for negotiations and try to move this along…Hopefully we’ll come to an arrangement that will satisfy everyone.
For us, this event had to happen in Russia. We have some pretty powerful and large sponsors, and with this event, we’re working directly with Russia 2 which is doing lots of pre-fight programming and also broadcasting the fight live. There will be a lot of press in Moscow, so the Russian fans, Russian media; that was our first priority.
Through the web, people will for sure be able to see that fight, Kogan added. For television, I can’t guarantee it at the moment, but through the internet there will be some sort of pay-per-view option for people to watch.