Two of our long-term associates, Jonathan Willis and Martin Owen, recently made a documentary, ‘From Stage To The Cage’ which charts the progress of actor, Elliot Langridge, as he endeavours to get involved in the growing sport of Mixed Martial Arts.
Here are a few stills from the documentary:
In making the documentary, they were inspired to create their own MMA contest, or series of contests. They will be organised by a professional, Stephen McConnell, who helped with making the documentary. The response has been terrific, and the whole event will be filmed with a view to also selling it to Sky.
Here’s the poster for the first event:
Mixed Martial Arts is the fastest growing sport in the world. The UFC, the top organisation, commands multi-million dollar pay-per-view buys and the company was recently sold for a staggering 4 billion dollars.
During the process of making the documentary, Jonathan and Martin were baffled to see that there was not an established promotion in the area. And so with the help of Stephen McConnell they set up a new MMA organisation and UNITY was born.
Unity’s plan is simple, yet the aim is ambitious: to become the UK’s premier MMA organisation inside 3 years. How, you may ask? Here’s what Jonathan told us…
“We intend to use our background and contact base in entertainment to create an event with higher production standards than any other, with slicker marketing than is usual and produce an experience that will have people clambering for the next UNITY show tickets. Together with Stephen’s knowledge of MMA and fight promotions, we know we have a winning team. Our fights will be exciting, competitive and safe.
Our short-term aim is to land a TV deal, with Sky, achieving this by recording and editing our first show with highest-level production values.”
Interested in getting involved? Well there’s a way…
Investment Opportunity
MMA is crazy-popular, and, the enormous scalable potential lends itself perfectly to an SEIS (Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme) which carry with them, significant tax benefits.
At the top of the fighting tree the sums are astronomical. The Conor McGregors’ of this world are paid gzillions. And yet, everyone underneath – all those who see themselves as the next McGregors – receive a pittance for each contest. The event taking place in Darlington on April 7th is costing about £20k, but will pull in £100k (ticket sales, sponsorship, merchandising, refreshments) and anything from Sky TV is on top, as a bonus. The events are easy to stage and publicise – Unity have already bought a ring – and intend to roll them out around the country. They believe that some seed capital will enable them to expand more quickly.
If this opportunity interests you, drop me an email with the subject line Unity and I’ll get some details out to you. It’s important I make clear that this is a venture in the very early stages of development, and although I think it’s got tremendous potential, there are inevitable risks as with any fledgling business. Some of the risks are offset by the generous tax advantages afforded by an SEIS, but it’s important you understand there can be no firm guarantees, and like all seed investment opportunities, it’s speculative in nature.
With that in mind, email me at john@streetwisepublications.co.uk if you’re interested and I’ll get some details sent to you.
