Bloggers May Lose Relevance with EFC
With the big partnership between EFC and SABC announced, MMA bloggers and small media outlets may have to up their game in order not to become irrelevant to the promotion moving forward. This came to the attention of MMA writers when the recently held media day was not open to the public but only to SABC Sport and Kwesesport ahead of EFC 57 taking place this coming weekend.
The involvement of SABC Sport in EFC was received as a big change by many. The deal includes regular broadcasting of EFC every Saturday on SABC 3 at 21:00. These broadcasts include fight build ups and a revisit of some old EFC bouts. They are repeated on Mondays at 14:00 as well. The depth of athlete exposure due to this deal was witnessed last week when Elvis oyo and Igeu Kabesa were featured live on Sports at 10 on SABC 1, a sister channel to SABC 3 where live broadcasts take place on fight night.
With such huge exposure for athletes, there may be less or no room for small media outlets in the EFC media list in future. While many thought that the EFC media day did not take place, recent images showed that it did take place but was kept private, with SABC 3 and Kwesesport getting exclusive rights to the content. This sparked worry within small media outlets in terms of whether it meant they have lost their relevance to the organisation.
EFC president, Cairo Howarth, said that big media outlets play a big role in bringing attracting new fans. "Generally speaking, the South African bloggers do not: all they do is they rely on the social media following of current EFC athletes to promote their posts," explained Howarth. "I can't imagine that there are many readers of MMA blogs in SA that don't follow EFC athletes and/or EFC."
Howarth added that while there are some small media outlets that do not add value, the organisation will always support those that do. "Also, some are inaccurate and generally sloppy when it comes to doing their "work", and as the demand for our media and athletes continues to grow, these are always the first to be left behind," said Howarth.
Send us your views on [email protected]
