Korva is a scroll of the internet’s best ideas.
Studied by everyone
It works like being a world champion. Once you win the title, opponents start studying how you fight, how you play, and how you do things, searching for a way to beat you.
Guarding focus
Dana White loves it. The trap is distraction: a big brand attracts side offers, such as a movie or a project about his life, and he turns them down. He keeps his focus on three things every day and guards what they are, since they are part of the formula. He has seen companies that were huge and a hundred years old make a couple of mistakes and suddenly have rivals trying to eat their lunch.
The Paramount deal
A big television deal with Paramount is not the finish line. Paramount paid because it believes the UFC can lift its business, so the next five years are about delivering that value, with a $10 billion deal as the goal after this one. He measures the UFC against the NFL, Major League Baseball, the NHL, and the NBA.
Why do dominant companies lose their lead?
Harvard professor Clayton Christensen studied this question in his 1997 book The Innovator's Dilemma. He found that successful companies often listen closely to their best current customers and invest in improving existing products. Meanwhile, simpler and cheaper alternatives grow at the edges of the market until they are good enough for mainstream buyers. Christensen argued that established firms can fail precisely because they keep doing what has worked.
Why do networks pay so much for sports?
Sports leagues sell broadcast rights to networks, which pay because live events draw large audiences who watch in real time rather than skipping ads. Nielsen's annual lists of the most-watched television broadcasts in the United States have been dominated by live sports in recent years. That reliable audience also gives networks leverage when they negotiate with cable and streaming distributors. Rights deals typically run for several years and are renegotiated as audiences and platforms change.