Were you able to catch the segment?

Instead of airing the segment with Atencio, they decided to re-air an interview with Chad Johnson of the Bengals, which they had carried out earlier in the broadcast. That's as telling as anything.

It sure is. MMA is not mainstream and Affliction certainly won't draw Chad Johnson ratings right now. The sport can't rely on mainstream media to make it popular. It must do its own dirty work.

MSM goes with what drives traffic. They're not the leaders that people think they are -- in fact they are followers in a big way... Feed the people what they know they want...

I think the MMA media is basically the same way though. I'm reading Kelly Crigger's book, "Title Shot: Into the Shark Tank of Mixed Martial Arts" right now. It's in same genre of "A Fighter's Heart." Crigger provides good insights into the MMA media - how they feed the general public what will sell and how fighters/promoters/managers perpetuate this in order to make $$$. I'll put a review up by the end of the week.

Sounds good.

There are definitely market forces that push coverage one way or another.

What I don't like is the better-than-you attitude that permeates Mainstream Media. They're a business like everyone else. They're not driven by motives any higher than the blogosphere. In fact, sometimes their interests are more questionable. For example, many of them are owned by multi-nationals that own other companies and there are definite conflicts of interest involved...

I look forward to the review.

I just received my copy of Randy Couture's book. I'll be reading that soon I hope...

Yeah, definitely true. I've wondered how sponsorship/investors affects the content of bigger sites, or those that fall under broader sports sites (e.g., ESPN/SI). I remember you had that kind of dilemma back when you first brought up FT.