HDNet production a 'nightmare' for US fans

American fans were thrilled when Mark Cuban’s HDNet TV signed a deal with the Japanese MMA promotion DREAM. In addition to exposing American audiences to the best non-UFC fighters in the world, for the first time US fans could watch DREAM’s Japanese based events live and in their entirety instead of edited and tape delayed. That excitement quickly dissipated during the early stages of the HD Net broadcast of DREAM.3 on May 11^th. An utter lack of production quality and commentator professionalism greatly undermined one of the best MMA cards of the year. The complete ineptitude of the US broadcast from top to bottom raises serious questions about Mark Cuban’s ability to compete with the UFC. 

I’ll admit that I’m not above “nitpickingâ€� about production elements on fight broadcasts. I’ve called Mauro Ranallo out for a smart ass remark about Gina Carano that he no doubt wanted to take back right after he said it and for treating commentary partner Bill Goldberg’s WCW “winning streakâ€� as a legitimate athletic accomplishment rather than part of a pro wrestling storyline. I’ve made fun of the UFC’s Mike Goldberg for getting tongue tied during an introduction and hyping a “long awaited fight that we’ve waited a long time forâ€�. Never again. After sitting through the HD Net broadcast of DREAM.3 I now realize just how good a job the UFC and even EliteXC does overall in maintaining a high level of quality in the production of their shows. Conversely, my experience as a DREAM.3 viewer bordered on painful. Were it not my job to do a play by play narrative on the event I would have literally turned it off midway through. For the production and broadcast elements to be so qualitatively poor as to ruin an excellent night of fights is downright inexcusable. The HD Net US coverage of DREAM.3 was easily the worst overall production of a major promotion fight sport show that I’ve ever seen. In a lifetime of watching boxing, pro wrestling and MMA I’ve honestly never seen anything like it. 

Dana White dismissed Mark Cuban’s entry into the MMA promotion business awhile back by saying that he “doesn’t know anything about MMAâ€�. While I don’t believe that to be the case, based on the DREAM.3 broadcast alone he may not know anything about *broadcasting* MMA. Such a poor showing would have been unacceptable for an upstart promotion with limited capital, let alone a billionaire broadcasting an event featuring the best fighters in the world in exciting, competitive bouts. The coverage of the event was so bungled I’m left to wonder how it even got past the notoriously “hands onâ€� Cuban.

The way that US broadcasts of Japanese events have historically worked is that the camerawork is handled by the Japanese broadcast affiliate, which in the instance of DREAM.3 would have been the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS). The US broadcasts air the actual fights just as the directors in Japan call it for their native audiences. Between fights, however, the US broadcast team creates “wraparoundsâ€� tailored to their specific needs. In theory, this allows for a better broadcast since the announcers can preview upcoming fights and review results in English. This format is fairly well established for foreign events broadcast to a US audience and should have been familiar to the HDNet production team. 

Instead, the resulting broadcast gave the impression that not only had the HDNet team never actually seen a Japanese MMA broadcast, but that they were also completely inept. The first bad decision was having the US announcers Kenny Rice and Bas Rutten in a studio here in the states rather than live at the venue. This had the effect of “dampeningâ€� the crowd noise which off the bat served to diminish the fan enthusiasm and general pageantry that characterizes Japanese MMA. The second bad move was to not air DREAM’s prefight video packages, presumably because they’re in Japanese. This further undermined the atmosphere of the event and was just plain boneheaded as DREAM’s video packages, created under the guidance of production director Daisuke Sato, are downright amazing. To eliminate this integral component of the overall “feelâ€� of the event is an inexcusable decision that anyone with knowledge of Japanese MMA would have considered unfathomable. 

During the five minutes or so that the live crowd and the Japanese TV audience was watching the amazing work of production director Sato and his team, US fans were treated to…absolutely nothing. While the videos ran the US directors inexplicably chose a fixed “birds eyeâ€� shot of the crowd. It appeared as if they wanted the camera angle as far away as possible from the arena video screens—which, since they were showing the aforementioned promo videos, created an effect that almost looked like it was being shot from a cellphone video camera. The only preview that US fans would get is an English language “tale of the tapeâ€� graphic with about 30 seconds of analysis, which left several minutes where the announce team would just yammer back and forth (more about that in a moment). Even more stupefying was the decision to show the legendary show opening pageantry that dates back to PRIDE from this “bird’s eyeâ€� angle. So instead of seeing more of Daisuke Sato’s virtuosity and the opening introduction of all of the fighters on the card in Japanese and in English (by the legendary Lenne Hardt)—which I consider one of the coolest elements of the Japanese product—we get more banal commentary rendered barely audible by the activity in the arena. The only saving grace of the HD Net production was that they had no hand in the camera work during the fights themselves.

The sum total of these bad production decisions was the eradication of almost every bit of the pageantry and cultural idiosyncrasies that make Japanese fight sports so fascinating for the US fan. Since it doesn’t take a genius to realize that anyone up watching the event, which had a 3 AM Eastern start time, is likely a serious MMA fan the decision to “culturally sanitizeâ€� the broadcast is even more bizarre. Even if HD Net found a MMA equivalent of HBO’s boxing announcer “A-Teamâ€� Jim Lampley and Larry Merchant, it would have been unlikely that even a first rate job on commentary could have made up for the production ineptitude. Making things even worse, however, was arguably one of the worst commentary performances in the history of fight sports.

First, a disclaimer—I consider myself a Bas Rutten fan. He was a great fighter, a former UFC heavyweight champion and three-time King of Pancrase. That puts him on a short list with Josh Barnett and Frank Shamrock as the only men to hold both a UFC championship and a King of Pancrase title. He’s done an impressive job training Kimbo Slice, with progress in his transition from a street brawler to a professional MMA fighter evident every time he fights. He did a good job on the US PRIDE commentary with Mauro Ranallo, and is entertaining in his current announcing roles—most notably on “Inside MMAâ€�, but also with the IFL. Rutten is by all accounts a great guy, and there are few people in MMA who are likely more fun to hang out and drink beer with.

Having said that, Rutten’s performance on the DREAM.3 commentary was amateurish and sloppy at best, embarrassing and insulting at worst. Since he works with play-by-play announcer Rice on both the IFL and Inside MMA perhaps part of the problem was that Rutten was *too* comfortable, and the insularity of the US studios making it seem even more like they were just hanging out shooting BS over some beers. That may explain the resulting debacle, but it sure doesn’t excuse it. Over the course of the evening Rutten’s commentary grew worse and worse and included at various points ethnically stereotypical remarks, singing and humming, weak imitations of Bruce Lee and Elvis—and very little of the insight that someone with his MMA credentials is capable of providing. By the end of the evening his commentary sounded like an open mic night at a comedy club and nothing like a color commentary at a high level professional prizefighting event. His broadcast partner Rice was competent, but did little to rein in his partner and by the end of the evening almost sounded resigned to the fact that the US broadcast of DREAM.3 had become “The Bas Rutten Comedy Hourâ€�.  The overall tone of his commentary along with comments that were meant to be funny (like referring to Joachim Hansen as a “Little Vikingâ€�) had no place at this event and was an insult to the fighters and to the sport.

Mark Cuban didn’t become a billionaire by accident. He’s a very intelligent man with a gift for seeing marketplace opportunity years before not only the general public but the financial community. He turned around the bumbling Dallas Mavericks of the NBA both on and off the court by emphasizing at every level of the operation that they were selling a “productâ€�—the NBA hoops experience—to their “customersâ€� in the fanbase and broader community. The Mavs success in marketing to this “customerâ€� base was in large part due to the accessibility and accountability of management (Cuban is legendary for answering his own email without having it screened by supplicants), but more importantly a commitment to doing everything possible to create a “fan-friendlyâ€� atmosphere at the games and excitement around the team. Having success on the court didn’t hurt, of course, but the Mavericks turnaround as a franchise was as much due to successful marketing as having a winning team.

With his turnaround of the Mavericks in mind, its inexplicable how such a shabby broadcast product made it on the air. Furthermore, if that’s the height of their commitment to creating a positive experience for their MMA “customersâ€�the notion that they can compete with the UFC is absurd. Keep in mind that the UFC turns out a seamlessly produced product. Along with HBO boxing, their promotion of upcoming fights is the state of the art. Their weekly programming is all very professionally done and their live events typically come off without a glitch. Mike Goldberg, for all of his faults, is a highly competent professional announcer and color man Joe Rogan may be the sport’s broadcasting MVP. He’s in a realm with Lampley and Merchant in his ability to enhance the viewer's enjoyment of an event with his enthusiastic and knowledgable commentary. Most importantly, the UFC’s production emphasizes the qualities that draw the 18-35 year old male fan base to the sport—excitement, intensity and competition. 

If HD Net is going to become a player in the sport, let alone threaten Zuffa’s dominance, they need to remember the concepts that Cuban established with his basketball team. They're*selling* MMA to *customers*. DREAM, one of the best promotions in the world in terms of fighter quality, should be considered their marquee product. As such, their production should emphasize and not eliminate the uniquely Japanese characteristics and pomp that hooked hardcore fans in the first place. Furthermore,  DREAM is a primary product that they need to “sellâ€� to new “customersâ€�—casual fans and those just getting into MMA. The way to do this is to educate them on the fighters—in DREAM’s case legitimately among the best in the world—and the cultural characteristics unique to the Japanese product. The overall impression given by the HD Net broadcast production was that DREAM.3 was a 2^nd rate event that wasn’t even worth flying the announcers to cover it live. The commentary suggested that these were mediocre fighters giving a half assed effort in meaningless fights. Nothing could be further from the truth and HD Net’s production owes it to the fighters and the fans to do a *lot* better.