Mike Tyson’s manager also tried to acquire Strikeforce
There were two other bidders in the running to acquire Strikeforce MMAr. In the end, both suitors were unable to…
There were two other bidders in the running to acquire Strikeforce MMAr. In the end, both suitors were unable to match the bids put by Zuffa LLC, owners of the UFC.
According to Dave Meltzer of Yahoo:
Coker wouldn’t say who else was bidding to buy the company, but Pro Elite, Inc., which had the Showtime deal in 2007 and 2008 before going belly-up and having its assets purchased by Strikeforce in early 2009, had raised new capital and had reportedly made a $40 million offer.
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Other names, including Shelly Finkel, Mike Tyson’s manager, were reportedly interested. While Fertitta said he was not aware of other offers while negotiating this deal, insiders with knowledge of the negotiations said the UFC deal was more lucrative and they kept raising the ante until the deal was agreed upon.
As for the reason for the the sale, Scott Coker shared his side during Monday’s press conference:
Silicon Valley Sports and us were great partners, Coker said. They wanted to get back to their core business, the hockey business and expansion of their other sports businesses. We had a long conversation and started taking different offers and then we started talking to Lorenzo. They had a really good time in this business, but they wanted to get back to their core business. I wanted to stay in this business and this is how we hooked up.
Folks within knowledge of how Strikeforce worked said it was tough to do everything they wanted to do given the budget and constraints they were given. There seemed to have been some tug-of-war game between Scott and SVSE, who grew inpatient his year with Strikeforce’s returns. According to Loretta Hunt of the LA Times, Strikeforce had incurred debt, though they were slowly headed in the right direction. Insiders say that Strikeforce grew too big for SVSE to want to further commit any more resources since it would eventually lead into a war with UFC, which were brought up by three key events: the Showtime deal, the Fedor deal, and talk of heading into PPV.
Late in 2010 talks between SVSE, Scott Coker, and Zuffa (among other bidders) commenced as both SVSE and Scott Coker parted ways.
As for the bidders, Pro Elite was bought by the Stratus Media Group back in October of 2009, after the company who owned EliteXC filed for bankruptcy and who’s key assets were purchased by Strikeforce and SVSE. Stratus Media is an owner, producer, promoter and operator of live entertainment events. The ProElite group, who was said to be heading this venture in placing the Strikeforce bid, were original PE members Doug De Luca, William Kelly, Glenn Golenberg, along with newly appointed Chairman of the board Paul Feller from Stratus Media. It was said they raised enough capital to place a bid for $40 million dollars, though was eventually outbid by Zuffa.
The other bidder was from a group headed by International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee Shelly Finkel, who is Mike Tyson’s manager and has been one of the most powerful managers in boxing for the past 30-plus years. Finkel officially announced he was leaving the sport of boxing back in June of 2010, citing the politics of the sport to drive him back to where he got his start, music promotion under Empire Sports and Entertainment.