The IFL held a press conference Tuesday afternoon to announce their decision to cancel their next planned card scheduled for August 15 at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J.

IFL CEO and President Jay Larkin addressed reporters on the call, stating that in addition to canceling the event, the promotion will continue to downsize its workforce and is reviewing their contractual obligations with several of their coaches. There are no current plans to cut fighters from its roster.

While the IFL is not declaring bankruptcy and is technically not suspending operations, today’s news casts an even bleaker outlook for the company going forward. The primary reason behind the cancellation of the August event was because the show could put the company in financial jeopardy, according to Larkin.

Larkin stated that in recent months the company has sought out additional funding so that the company could continue operations. The former SHOWTIME executive indicated that when seeking new partners and additional financing, no stone has been left unturned. According to Larkin, discussions with major financial companies, competing fight companies, television networks, media companies, film studios, and celebrities have all taken place. While many of the prospective investors greeted the opportunity of working with the IFL with initial excitement, they’ve been unable to consummate a deal.

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The IFL announced Tuesday afternoon that their planned show for August 15 at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J. has been canceled.

It’s important to note that the verbiage used was “canceled” and not postponed.

This is an intriguing development for the New York-based fight promotion, which has lost millions of dollars since its inception and reportedly lacks the funding needed to operate through the year.

The promotion had been planning to unveil a new six-sided ring called “The Hex.” While no official matches had been announced, there had been some rumors making the rounds. One rumored bout was Ryan Schultz defending his lightweight title against Jim Miller.

Many people are going to speculate that the cancellation signals the formal demise of the IFL. However, there is no need to jump to conclusions just yet. I will be jumping on a conference call with IFL President & CEO Jay Larkin in the next several minutes to get the full story.

Check back here for an update.

IFL CEO Jay Larkin released a statement earlier today about EliteXC: “Primetime” on CBS:

Saturday’s ratings success of ProElite’s show on CBS again shows that the market for the sport in the mainstream is growing, and we at the the International Fight League are very excited to be one of the industry leaders that can help grow the sport of Mixed Martial Arts collectively. We look forward to continuing our work both independently with our great roster of young, marketable athletes, and with other promotions, to help make exciting fights and encourage further growth of the sport to a larger audience.

Paired with the recent reports about a possible Roy Nelson and Kimbo Slice fight taking place in the future, maybe co-promotion is just the route the IFL needs to take to change reportedly tanking finances.

According to a press-release from the International Fight League, Throwdown has become “the official energy drink, fight gloves, and ring of the IFL.” This looks to be solid move for Throwdown Industries as it continues to grow within the MMA community. Both parties have much to say on this newly-found partnership:

“We are very pleased to be able to add one of the growing brands in the industry in Throwdown to the IFL family,” said IFL CEO Jay Larkin. “The extensive marketing that an industry giant like the Cott Corporation, one of the legends in the consumer packaging industry, will put behind this gives us a very strong position to grow our brand and our athletes into the future.”

“Throwdown and Cott [one of the world’s largest nonalcoholic beverage companies and the world’s largest retailer brand soft drink provider] add credibility and excitement to the sport of MMA through its products, services and partnership with the IFL and other fight leagues, firmly entrenching Throwdown’s global leadership position in supporting MMA” added Throwdown President Mike McIntyre.

Throwdown and Cott Corporation are set to launch a activation platform for retail at IFL events, using IFL athletes, coaches and brands in consumer promotions and a multimedia campaign. The campaign will launch around the time of the IFL’s next event on Friday, April 4, at the IZOD Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

There might not be anyone in the MMA industry right now that has a stronger background in television that IFL President and CEO Jay Larkin. Based on his vast experience as a television executive, I requested an interview with Larkin to get his response to the recent announced that CBS had agreed to begin televising EliteXC.

Larkin was gracious enough to grant FiveOuncesOfPain.com (www.FiveOuncesOfPain.com) an interview just a little over 24 hours prior to the IFL’s first show of the year on Friday night (11 p.m. ET on HDNet) at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.

Sam Caplan: I wanted to get your reactions to today’s announcement that CBS and EliteXC have agreed to partner on a broadcast agreement.

Jay Larkin: I think it is wonderful news. I don’t know the deal terms, obviously I’m not a part of that so I don’t know the details. But just based on that one announcement of a major broadcast network carrying live MMA, I’m overjoyed. I think it’s a wonderful advancement. The fact that I’ve been told it will be on a regular schedule is wonderful. I think congratulations are due to EliteXC and Gary Shaw and I applaud CBS for taking that leap.

Sam Caplan: When I interviewed you a few weeks back for CBSSports.com you mentioned that you felt once the dam breaks that it was going to open up for everyone. What do you think is going to happen next as far as the television outlook is concerned in regard to MMA?

Jay Larkin: The next step of course is what kind of sponsorship and what kind of ratings these shows do on CBS. If the ratings are not good (then) it will be hard to maintain the show. If the sponsorship is not there, same thing. That’s the next thing to wait and see for. But I believe that now the perceived stigma of live MMA will be overcome and with CBS in charge, I believe the other major broadcast and basic cable networks will be more willing to jump in the pool.

Sam Caplan: Are you surprised it was EliteXC that was the first MMA promotion to sign an agreement with a major broadcast network as opposed to the UFC?

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First, allow me to apologize for a lack of posting. I am currently in Miami on assignment. I return home tomorrow but regular posting my not resume until Tuesday due to a deadline on Monday for a separate project. MMA can be a lot of work but it beats a real job any day of the week. I’d rather work 70 hours a week doing something that I enjoy as opposed to 40 hours doing something that I detest.

If you’ve tried e-mailing me and haven’t gotten a response, I apologize. For whatever reason, the connection at the hotel allows me to receive e-mails but won’t allow me to send them out. A lot of my responses are saved and will be sent out Sunday when I get home.

I will be doing a post this morning with my picks for tonight’s EliteXC: Street Certified card but before that I wanted to alert your attention to my weekly CBSSports.com column.

I conducted a very candid interview with International Fight League President and CEO Jay Larkin and the transcription of that conversation is now available by clicking here. I respect a lot of people in this industry and Larkin is at the top of the list. A lot of people believe that television is the key to the growth of this sport and few involved in MMA have more experience in television than Larkin.

I really feel this is a strong interview with Larkin saying some very intriguing things. I found Larkin’s comments about his feeling that consolidation is the future of the industry to be very interesting:

Q: You’ve just expressed concerns about how other companies are conducting their business. Have you had a chance to go to the other fight promotions and express your concerns directly?

JL: Yeah. Listen, I think rollup or consolidation is the future of this industry. I think you’ve got a whole bunch of smaller companies out there that are struggling. I certainly think the way to do it is to have an association; a consolidation; if not an outright partnership with a combination of companies. Certainly by combining all of the smaller groups that are out there, you’ve got this huge economy of scale as suddenly coming to the table and we could actually build a very compelling business model …

If you look at assets, we are very well positioned. We are the only ones now that have had live MMA competition on broadcast television. The only ones. That was with MyNetworkTV… We’re finding that the consumer is aware of UFC and to a much lesser degree aware of IFL, and to no degree aware of all of the others; the Elite(XC)s, the M-1s, (and) Strikeforce. They’re doing fine (and) they’re doing their own business and in some cases have a higher profile than others but as far as the consumer goes, they equate MMA with UFC. 

I don’t know if that can change and I’ll tell you, I have no intention of going head-to-head with UFC and at best hope to be UFC-lite. That has no appeal to me (and) I think it is a mistake to go up against a company that’s private and can operate under conditions that a public corporation cannot (and) that has demonstrated they have vast resources and has demonstrated they are willing to lose money if need be to establish the brand. That’s a recipe for losing a battle. I am much more interested in being in the war, and that means having our own identity and our own brand … One of the major things along those lines is that when you watch one of our shows, just by not seeing a cage you know you’re not watching the UFC and that you’re watching the IFL.

As far as the fights go, our fights continue to be every bit as competitive as anyone’s, if not more so. You can take any one of our fights and lift it out of an IFL environment and drop it into the lights, the music, and the turmoil of a UFC event and nobody would ever think twice. It would probably even be an improvement over the fighting.

You should really check out the entire interview, which you can do by clicking here.

Saturday’s live broadcast of the first round of the IFL World Grand Prix could be the most crucial event in the league’s brief history.

While new IFL president and COO Jay Larkin has understandably tried to downplay talk that this could be a make or break show for the company regarding whether the ratings performance will determine the IFL’s viability as a live product, I firmly believe that whether the Dec. 29 show gets picked up will have a lot to do with how many people watch on Saturday.

The bottom line is that IFL co-founded and commissioner Kurt Otto has said that the league needs to secure live television in ‘08 if it wants to remain competitive and tonight’s numbers will go a long way in determining whether we’ll see more live IFL telecasts.

MyNetworkTV is not a highly rated network so I don’t even want to begin to guess what numbers would be considered good and what wouldn’t. On average, I would say the league draws between a 0.4 and a 0.7. I’m not a television expert, but I think anything below 0.9 would be considered a disappointment.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REMAINDER OF THIS ARTICLE ON SAM CAPLAN’S PROELITE.COM BLOG.

IFL President and COO Jay Larkin made himself available to the media during a conference call to promote Saturday’s World Grand Prix event in Chicago at the Sears Center. The event will mark the promotion’s first-ever live telecast with matches between Chris Horodecki vs. Bart Palaszewski and Vladimir Matyushenko vs. Alex Schoenauer scheduled to air on MyNetworkTV at 9 p.m. ET.

Larkin made some notable revelations during the conference call, with the most newsworthy being that there will be changes to the league’s format in 2008.

The former Showtime executive stated that the product fans will see in March of 2008 will be different then what they will see in November of 2007. When asked if that meant that the league will be abandoning its team format, Larkin said they are committed to the team-based concept but hinted that teams will no longer be affiliated with geographical locations.

CLICK HERE to read the remainder of this article on Sam Caplan’s ProElite.com blog.

In spite of recent reports making claims to the contrary, new IFL President and Chief Operating Officer Jay Larkin claims in a new interview I conducted with him for CBSSports.com that the promotion has a TV deal in place for next year:

Q: As a point of clarification, is the IFL without a contract to do live TV on MyNetworkTV next year or without a TV deal with MyNetworkTV entirely at the moment?

JL: We have a TV deal in place with MyNetwork and Fox Sports Network. We’re examining that deal now. We have every indication from our partners at Fox that they’re very enthusiastic about the IFL on their channel and want us to come back next year, and we’re in those talks as we speak.

Q: But as of now is there a deal for 2008 in place?

JL: Yes, there’s a deal for 2008 in place. It’s in various stages of going through the lawyers and it’s being reviewed here. Being a TV guy, I want to take a hard look at the existing television deals. But there’s definitely a television deal for 2008 that’s in place.

For over 20 years Larkin was a top executive for the Showtime Network. Larkin was responsible for brining boxing to the premium cable network and one of his top promoters was none other than EliteXC live events president Gary Shaw. I asked Larkin if there was any chance of the IFL and EliteXC working together in the future:

Q: I know you still have strong relationships with the people at Showtime and Gareb Shamus and Kurt Otto are open to working with other promotions for the betterment of MMA. EliteXC president of live events Gary Shaw also claims to have an open door policy. Is working with EliteXC and Showtime something you’d be open to in the future?

JL: It’s something we would be very much open to. You’ve got the one big obstacle of the cage vs. the ring. The IFL, as you know, is a ring sport, and Elite’s fighters are fighting in a cage, so that would be an obstacle. Gary Shaw is a very old and close friend of mine, so that is certainly not an obstacle.

There are some issues that need to be explored about organizations working together but I don’t think there’s any obstacle there. If you look at boxing as an example, most major boxing fights are co-promotions. You’ll have Don King working with Bob Arum or you’ll have Golden Boy working with Lou DiBella, or whoever it may be. I see no reason in the world why the IFL and Elite couldn’t do a promotion other than the logistics of the cage.

I also asked Larkin about future financing for the IFL, his vision for the promotion, whether he’d be open to a merger or acquisition and much more. You can read the entire interview by clicking here.