Pay-per-views (PPVs) are relatively new to Bellator, but Scott Coker is planning to use them to help build the promotion.
Coker, who is the Bellator CEO, has helped put together the New York City PPV event set for June 24 inside Madison Square Garden. The main event of the card will be a grudge match between Chael Sonnen and Wanderlei Silva. In the co-main event, Fedor Emelianenko battles Matt Mitrione.
The card will also have two title matches. Welterweight title holder Douglas Lima puts his gold on the line against Lorenz Larkin. Also defending his title is lightweight champion Michael Chandler. He’ll defend his belt against Brent Primus.
At today’s (March 28) press conference hyping up Bellator NYC, Coker explained the importance of PPVs going forward (via MMAFighting.com):
“We’re not going to do monthly pay-per-view just to do pay-per-views. We’re going to build up to big fights more like the boxing model, and when the time is right, we’ll do the big, big fights. So when we put the big events together, like we have on June 24, then we’ll do it on a PPV event.”
Spike TV president for sports and specials Jon Slusser also commented on the matter:
“This is a new line of business for us, this is the first of many that we will be doing. Scott did not put together a single card in hopes that it works or see if it works. This is a new revenue stream for us and it will allow us in time to continue to build up Bellator.”
