The Cage

The Cage

The cage is of course one of the most important parts of your MMA event. You can either rent a cage or simply buy one. A cage rental will run around $800 to $1,500 for the event, take about 3 hours to setup and setup fees are included in the rental price. To purchase a cage will run you around $8,000 or more depending on where you get it and how its built. If you are planning on doing a monthly or quarterly event its worth it to buy the cage and pay a couple guys to setup and tear it down.

Buying the cage is great too because you can have your own logos and such on the posts. Even if you rent a cage, most cage renters will allow you to place your own custom fight mat with sponsor logos and such. A custom fight mat will run you around $500 to $1,000…they look great, but aren’t worth doing unless you have sponsors to pay for it and are filming for a DVD or TV show.

www.SinisterAngelCages.com for rentals.

General Staffing

Staff

Your staff will be very important to your event. You want people you trust to handle their roles such as friends and family who can handle simple tasks. Some staff will be professionals regardless such as EMT’s, Police, Security, Doctor etc etc.

Little things such as the person who open and closes the cage before and after fights. Someone to check the fighters for mouthguards and groin protectors. Ushers to place people in seats depending on how seating is arranged. If its general admission stadium seating then you wont need ushers too much.

Some venues will tie Police, EMT’s and Ushers etc into the rental price which is great. Police add up in cost especially if you need 3 or more over several hours. You are looking at around $25-$35 an hour per officer.

Judges, Doctors, Referee

Judges

Finding judges for an amateur event is pretty easy. Its common to have special guest judges, MMA trainers, coaches, pro fighters etc judge an event. It all varies by state. Some states have no commission so you are free to do as you please be it a pro or amateur show. Other states require you to hire their judges for pro and or amateur shows. It just depends. You will typically pay a judge $50 to $100 for their time unless it’s a special guest judge in which case it varies.

Doctors

Don’t get a lazy doctor! Make sure you get a boxing doctor and make sure they are qualified and eager. You don’t want a doctor to just come in, scan everyone over and send them on their way if there is indeed a problem. You can call your local hospital or look them up online. You want a general practitioner.

Referee

Referees can be tricky. You want to have someone who knows the sport extremely well and the rules for the state you are holding your event. In Ohio, amateur fighters aren’t allowed to knee or kick to the head and other limitations, however in Kentucky, you can follow the official UFC rules where limitations are pretty much, well, limited.

It is very common to have a well known UFC fighter ref an event. I’ve had UFC Ultimate Fighter Series 2 fighter Jorge Gurgel ref one of my events and it went very well. Typical cost for a special guest referee is around $1,500 to $2,000 depending on who it is. A really huge UFC name wont even do it on most occasions, which leads me into special guests.

Special guests are pricey for a current big name. Someone like The Iceman Chuck Lidell can cost around $15,000 whereas someone like Dan “The Beast” Severn will run you a couple grand. I had Dan Severn as the commentator for an event and it went extremely well and it killed two birds with one stone. I was able to promote Dan as being part of the show and I was able to feature him on my DVD’s. It worked out great.

The Fighters

You are most likely setting up an amateur event. It’s cheaper, its much easier to setup and there is a great deal less red tape and regulations.

MMA Big Show has over 300 registered fighters from all over the US including Canada and that list grows daily. In amateur MMA we match fighters by record and experience evenly. If you have a fresh fighter wanting to make his debut, he fights another fighter making his debut. If a fighter had 5 fights in the cage, he should fight someone else with 5 fights and similar record and so on. You want to keep everything as even as possible as it keeps things fair and results in better fights. Visit www.fighteraccess.com for lots and lots of fighters, sponsors and the like.

You are best off selecting fighters from your hometown over an outside fighter. This will help increase ticket sales a bit with friends and family, and even enemies if the fighter has some, hoping to see their mortal nemesis get knocked out.

You want fighters with good personalities who are eager to please you and put on a good show. Most are.

Fighters who have any kind of pro record at all can not compete in an amateur event unless it is a pro am card registered by the state boxing commission at which point 5% of your ticket sales go to the commission and your referee, judges and officials all have to be commission approved. This does depend on state so you will need to check your states commission policies. You won’t worry about pro fight cards for a while. You will however have to send your amateur fight card to the commission prior to the fight night to ensure no body has a pro fight on their record, bannings, suspensions etc.

One thing you will want to avoid with a few exceptions is first time fighters. They are known for backing out at the last minute which causes you a great deal of frustration. Guys who have already been in the cage and come back for more are guys you want. It’s all more marketable to put guys on the card that have great records. Having two undefeated fighters going toe to toe is a huge deal and one worthy of main event promotional placement.

Things you will want to consider when drafting your bout contract are:

#1. Deposit: It helps to require a $100 deposit from a fighter which is refunded to him plus an extra $10 or something after his/her fight. This is to ensure they show up. Most wannabe fighters who show interest in fighting but are really just dreamers who never show will be weeded out this way.

#2. 25% pay penalty for showing up to weigh ins late. I’ve had shows where guys would show up at 2am the night of weigh ins wanting to weigh in. This blows your photo ops, causes chaos and only generates frustration. Include a late penalty and it will solve many problems.

#3. Fight waiver! Make sure you have every fighter sign a waiver so you don’t get sued if he doesn’t duck under a punch breaking his nose.

The Venue

The venue you select for your Mixed Martial Arts events is key both on location and size. How large is your city? Do you have enough MMA fans to fill a 10,000 seat arena or are you in a small community capable only of filling 500 seats?

If this is your first event, you are best to find a 3,000 seat venue or smaller to get started with. Of course, the larger the venue, the more money you will need to spend on marketing to fill those seats. The number of seats you fill will depend on how much you spend on marketing and where you spend it, what you have to actually market, be it named fighters people know or a popular special guest. Ultimately you will grow into larger rooms or even stadiums as your events build in popularity and you are drawing crowds from surrounding cities instead of just locally.

Chance are you have a local convention center that will seat around 3,000 people which is ideal for your first event, however, most convention centers aren’t setup for such promotions and are pricey. On top of that, most convention centers will have a slew of “Exclusive” vendors from whom they sell you services such as lighting, sound, video and food/beverage services. The rub is the fact that the convention centers are often getting a 50% kick back from their exclusive vendors not only costing you more money but you are getting less than if you worked a deal with an outside audio and lighting company which we’ll go into later. If you are pretty firm on your stance of providing your own A/V (Audio/Video) production, some will let you slide if they think you have a solid plan and have faith in your ability to put on a great show. Convention Centers and their level of how strict they are really varies by market and how it’s ran, so call around to get an idea. You are looking at around $30,000 in bills for the venue and their exclusive partners. This typically wont include any staff at all such as security, ushers, etc. Most Convention Centers however wont’ have an exclusive deal with someone like TicketMaster which is INSANELY expensive with their fees which could drive away ticket sales.

If you have a Gardens arena in your city, most will hold around 6,000 to 13,000 people, these arenas typically have your smaller hockey games and monster truck shows etc. They are typically also a great deal cheaper than your local convention center and hold more people. Gardens arenas will also give you much more freedom in selecting your own lighting and sound company which will also save you money. A Gardens venue will typically run you around $15,000 and include a number of staff such as your security, clean up crew and ushers. Gardens arena will almost always have an exclusive deal with TicketMaster as many TicketMaster contracts are for something like 10 years at a time. There are some additional marketing benefits when using TicketMaster, mostly because many people are used to paying the huge fees on top of ticket prices but more competition for TicketMaster is popping up with lower fees and more flexibility such as www.TicketWeb.com (who is now owned by TicketMaster but we will go into that later.

The ONLY problem with setting up your first show in an arena is that they are so big. Have you ever went to a great show or event in a huge arena only to find the seats practically empty? There could be a couple thousand people in the arena but it still looks empty leaving you with a sunken feeling like you were all alone.

The same is true here. The crowd is a part of the show. You want the crowd thick and excited to be a part of your event as having a thick crowd will increase the overall energy of your event and be worthy of mention later.

The best you can do is contact the various arenas and convention centers in your city and try to pit them against eachother for the best deal. You would be much better off getting into an arena and simply skipping the convention center altogether, just don’t be shocked when you don’t sell out and it looks half empty. Its normal. Try to get a convention center that will give you the freedom to chose your own production services at a fair price. Also, try to get the venue for two days leaving one for setup, and try to get the second day at half rate or free.

Another venue type is just about anywhere you can hold 500 or more people. Some nightclubs will host MMA events and not even charge you rent just because you are sure to pack the place out before their regular busy times. Many will have their own lights already setup and all you’ll need to do is rent the cage ($800-$1,200 www.SinisterAngelCages.com ) This is a great way to start off small with limited production, easy setup and all you really have to worry about is fighters and marketing.

Introduction to this blog.

So, you want to be a fight promoter but don’t know where to begin? You have come to the right place, at least to learn the ins and outs of promotion. This guide has been written due to the number of calls and emails I receive from would be promoters eager to jump in an make millions.

Let me tell you, you won’t make millions in MMA promotion. At least, not in the current state of MMA and certainly not until you have built up some of your own stars on the national level.

Too many promoters look at MMA as throwing a cage in a building, getting a bunch of fighters to squab it out and charge the public for admission. MMA is not about the backyard Bob promotional efforts of trying to make a quick buck. It’s about passion for the sport, it’s about building up new fighters into celebrities and making people want to watch a particular fighter perform.

When you think of an MMA fight you liked on TV, what do you remember about the fighters? ….their names! You almost always make the extra effort to find out who that amazing fighter was that knocked a guy out due to a flying knee to the face. Then you do a little digging online and find out the guy help poor children in the slums of NY? Wow! This guy is mighty in body and heart! I love this guy! I’m his biggest fan! So what do you do the next time you see a promotion with this favorite fighter fighting another tough opponent? You go see the fight, or you buy the Pay Per View, right?

The fight game is about the fighters. Not the promoter. As the promoter it’s your job to tell the story of your fighters and get people excited about seeing them perform in the cage.

Now, another thing I want you to be thinking about when reading through this guide is this: Do you want to turn a quick and easy buck with a thrown together show nobody will care much about or respect, or do you want to build a brand name that fighters, managers, sponsors and even other promoters look up to?

You need to keep this in mind.

You may be able to take a smaller budget and turn a quick buck if you make all the right moves, but chances are, your show won’t grow as easily due to public perception and it will grow more difficult to find fighters because they all want the glory of winning in a major event. The choice is yours. It’s your job to pick and choose which parts of this guide you utilize. Best of luck to you.