From the world of the bizarre, comes the news that Versus has cancelled "The Daily Line."
Why bizarre?
It was just a day ago that Versus upped the ante with mixed martial arts by agreeing to be a significant part of televising the new UFC.
Zuffa announced it was merging the WEC and UFC and debuting four new UFC cards on Versus in 2011, but today we got bad news that "The Daily Line" is done. Via Twitter, Sports Business Daily's John Ourand said the show was axed because of anemic ratings.
That's a lousy break for MMA and its fans. ESPN is getting more consistent with its MMA coverage on the television side but its not all the way there yet. The Worldwide Leader still doesn't send the "MMA Live" crew to every big U.S. event. That has to happen eventually.
Using "The Daily Line" for postfight coverage, Versus was doing a terrific job of covering the sport on fight nights. MMA deserves to be covered just like the other major sports with immediate reaction from experts. Live postfight interviews with the fighters are also a must.
So whether or not you liked everything about 'The Daily Line' is irrelevant. For MMA fans, less legitimate media coverage is a bad thing.
It's also a lousy break for aspiring MMA media folks. Ariel Helwani was developing into the first mainstream media voice on television. Hopefully people continue to see what he's doing as a writer/podcast host at Fanhouse and can add more television action to his plate.
I'm not a hockey fan, but this must be disappointing to the NHL. The show did a nice job of covering hockey as the sport tries to recover from a bevy of disastrous television moves the last few years.
Tip via Sports by Brooks
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