Upon Closer Examination: The James Haskell Signing
Welcome to the team, @jameshaskell
— Bellator Europe (@Bellator_Europe) August 22, 2019
The international rugby star is set to compete in the Bellator heavyweight division! pic.twitter.com/TWgkCgOoHH
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Bellator MMA on Aug. 20 sent out a press release to several media outlets claiming it had added to its “international roster of talent” with “a major new signing.” The release was accompanied by a picture of hairy arms and a silhouette of a large man, and fans began to speculate that the promotion had somehow signed Ultimate Fighting Championship veteran Gabriel Gonzaga or KSW strongman Mariusz Pudzianowski.
Two days later, Bellator revealed the mystery man as none other
than English rugby star James
Haskell, much to the disappointment of stateside fans and media
who considered the announcement underwhelming at best. However,
this signing was not for fans in America.
Over the past several years, Bellator has made an aggressive push to expand into the European market, and signing Haskell is a key part of that strategy. Since 2016, the promotion has held events across Italy, Ireland, Hungary and England, and earlier this year, the organization rolled out plans to build its audience in the United Kingdom. It revealed it had struck an exclusive television deal with the UK’s Channel 5, which would broadcast the company’s European fight series on free-to-air TV for all of 2019. While Haskell may be relatively unknown in the United States, he has name value across the pond and could certainly bring in a sizeable number of casual fans to watch his fights under the Bellator banner.
Haskell is not the only European acquisition that Bellator has signed lately. In July 2018, the promotion went on a hiring spree and added 22 European-based fighters to its roster, including UFC veterans Norman Parke and Jim Wallhead. While a couple of those additions came from outside the UK, all of the recently signed athletes will be fighting out of Ireland or England, with 16 fighters representing the Emerald Isle and six representing Old Blighty. Bellator 227 on Sept. 27 in Dublin will see many of them on the card.
Although most hardcore fans are not overly excited by Bellator’s latest moves, the strategy behind them makes sense. Rather than try and compete in expanding markets such as Asia, where rival promotions like One Championship and the UFC are already heavily invested, Bellator has opted instead to focus on markets that it believes have been underserved by their competitors. In an interview with Business Insider, current head of Bellator Europe and former CEO of the popular and now-defunct British Association of Mixed Martial Arts David Green explained the reasoning behind the decision.
“As a territory, Europe is actually underserved by a quality MMA production, but the talent in Europe is fantastic,” Green said. “We’ve got great fighters, great gyms and fans who are very knowledgeable and have a great appetite for the sport.”
So far, the decision to focus on the UK market has proved fruitful in more ways than one. The promotion arguably has the best distribution deal in the United Kingdom after signing the agreement with Channel 5, and with the slew of recent signings, it can start to build shows around the region’s homegrown talent. Bellator has also strengthened its partnership with local gyms like John Kavanagh’s SBG Ireland: Five of the recently signed fighters are currently under his tutelage, and the famed coach said the company’s presence in the area has been “life-changing” for his team.
Bellator’s deal with Dazn is strengthened by the promotion’s decision to focus on the territory, as well. Europe is a core market for the London-based streaming service, accounting for 44 percent of overall platform sales from 2017 to 2018. Even though Dazn is attempting to disrupt the current status quo in the United States and using combat sports as a way to help further that initiative, Bellator’s European Fight Series gives a key subscriber base for the streaming service more content that will appeal to them, and it gives Dazn more bandwidth to focus on its expansion outside of Asia and Europe. Bellator’s internal revenue projections for the year are around $80 million, and since roughly half of that is contingent upon the deal with Dazn, giving an extra value add to their streaming partner certainly is not a bad thing.
Bellator’s foray into the United Kingdom is just one piece of the company’s strategic plan, but it is an important one. According to Bellator President Scott Coker, the company hopes that by putting down roots in the region it will be able to build local talent from the ground up and develop the next batch of Conor McGregor-like superstars. Although it is unlikely Coker will be able to capture the same lightning in a bottle the UFC managed to get with McGregor, Bellator has already started to see some return on its investment, with fighters like James Gallagher, Fabian Edwards and Michael Venom Page emerging from the region. Either way, the Viacom-backed promotion seems to be setting itself up for success and dominance in the European and UK markets -- for now.
