A quick catchup on the IFL, the MMA league co-owned by Wizard’s Gareb Shamus. Although it has been showing regularly on TV, it has had some business setbacks. Yesterday, their stock went down faster than a heavily hyped favorite in a UFC event, due in part to the announcement of a new TV deal! Wrestling expert Dave Meltzer had this to say:
IFL stock collapsed today. At the moment of this writing, it was down from its $3.30 per share close yesterday to $1.28. There was a major sell-off of 1.6 million shares of stock as some institutional investors were not allowed to sell until today, and sensing a collapse, they wanted to at least recover some money before the stock goes down farther. Another reason is the company is likely to issue new shares in an attempt of a second round of financing, which would also dilute the value of the stock. This actually should have been a good time as MyNetwork TV announced yesterday the IFL keeping its Monday and Saturday night at 8 p.m. time slot for the fall season. This was expected as in their upfront presentation weeks ago they had already told advertisers IFL was staying.
In addition, CMO Joel Ehrlich has stepped down, although he’ll remain as a consultant.
Oh man, I hope this doesn’t mean the IFL is done for! I don’t have cable and it’s the only MMA on network TV that I know of!
Heidi, have you actually watched any IFL? I just can’t find the time or energy to do it, but some people seem to enjoy it as much as or more than Pride or UFC.
Well, the stock is taking a beating — with IFLI down over 7% on the day to close at $.51 a share. Oof.
The share price, I’m a big fan of the IFL and am one of those people that prefer it in a lot of ways over the UFC. I’m looking forward to the Team Finals and the Grand Prix. Should be some great fights!
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