Honestly, FEG and TBS have to be scratching their heads after their latest effort at MMA this weekend, as DREAM returned to primetime action for the first time in around a year. The last time DREAM saw primetime as a standalone show was in October of 2009. In 2009 DREAM only saw two primetime TBS slots, for those of you wondering why DREAM is not as lucrative for FEG, the answer really is lack of sponsors due to late night television spots throughout most of 2009 and 2010. Dynamite!!, was, of course a primetime affair.
Dynamite!! saw a two-hour peak of 16.7%, which was the most that FEG had seen for MMA since 2006. The early DREAM shows were given the primetime treatment on TBS, as this was the true successor to PRIDE, and failed to impress. DREAM.9, featuring a Bob Sapp fight saw a DREAM high of 16.2%, making many believe that Japanese MMA was starting to make a comeback. TBS was still hesitant to give DREAM a primetime slot unless they had something huge planned. So the next appearance of Bob Sapp at DREAM.11 was able to convince TBS to give DREAM a primetime slot, which drew a disappointing 12.7, showing some decline.
So cue up this weekend, where TBS believed they had a perfect storm situation for DREAM; a strong lead-in for DREAM.16 with Daiki Kameda fighting beforehand, which always draws huge ratings in Japan. There are very few draws as powerful as the Kameda brothers in Japan at the moment, so when you tack on Kazushi Sakuraba, Ikuhisa Minowa and a possible Norifumi Yamamoto fight (KID coming off of a win in May), they believed they had a formula for success. Sadly, Yamamoto's camp was unable to negotiate a deal they felt was fair with FEG, so KID's fight never surfaced. This made FEG pull out the big guns. Really big guns.
The ratings for Dynamite!! were huge for two reasons; Satoshi Ishii's MMA debut and Masato's retirement. To capitalize on this, FEG was able to come to terms with WVR and acquire Satoshi Ishii for a fight at DREAM.16. The problem? The fight was announced within days of the event, allowing FEG and TBS to do minimal promotion for the event. This all led to what turned out to be less-than-stellar ratings for DREAM 16, with Ikuhisa Minowa vs. Satoshi Ishii as a strong draw in the press, but only Ishii's second bout on Japanese soil and Ishii doing very little press since the loss in December.
The final ratings for the event were 11.9%, almost a full point decline from their last primetime event, DREAM.11. With FEG in dire straights, one has to wonder how this looks to investment bank PUJI as well as what this means for the TBS/FEG relationship.
Source: http://www.headkicklegend.com/2010/9/27 ... &width=850♦