In 1985 20th Century Fox waded their way into the television broadcasting business. After a few years of floundering about and getting their programming ducks in a row, they debuted Married: With Children. The show was huge and there was no looking back for the ‘4th network’. After the continued success of ‘Married’ and The Simpsons, amongst others, everything changed: In 1993 Fox bought the rights to broadcast NFL games. With legendary voices such as Madden, Pat Summerall and HOF’er Terry Bradshaw behind the mics, Fox was not only a player in the Sports industry, they were one of the stars (and lets not forget they subsequently kicked CBS out of pro football for the first time in 50 years). Within the next two years Fox nabbed the rights to the MLB, Nascar, the Bowl Series and When Animals Attack. Huge stuff.
Now here we are. Almost 20 years later with the star of Married: With Children a Gracie BJJ black belt. The Simpsons have been airing MMA parodies for years, and it’s often overlooked that the first live MMA programming ever was on The Best Damn Sports Show (UFC 37.5) shown on a Fox channel. Fox has aired the Super Bowl, has some of the most unbiased news you can find anywhere, and will be broadcasting the World Series just a few weeks before the UFC’s debut. That pretty much means we are going to see UFC promos during the World Series this year. That makes me happy.
To get more insight into yesterday’s historic deal, Ariel Helwani was on the scene to get the details from Zuffa head honcho Lorenzo Fertitta.
I want to know what Chuck Liddell was talking about in the background.
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