Ariel Helwani's new media property is MMA media's last, best hope

Unfortunately, MMA journalism is not likely to play a big part in their stories

Last week, MMA’s top access-journalist announced that he would be leaving Vox Media. This week, he announced what’s the next step in his career.

In Ariel’s own words, here’s what he’s got planned. I have to admit, it’s king shit:

Thank you for the love. Thank you for the loyalty. I always say I don't take this for granted. I will never take this for granted. This is why I always feel like I work for the people.

I am so excited to announce that I have partnered with Yahoo! Sports.

I've talked to a lot of different outlets over the last few weeks and months. A lot of people presented very generous, very thoughtful offers (and) listened to what I wanted to do (and) who I wanted to bring with me.

It was a tough decision, but ultimately every time I went back to it Yahoo! was there. They met every single thing that I asked for, (everything) that I wanted and then some.

I love this new era of Yahoo! Sports. This isn't your granddaddy's Yahoo! Sports. This is a brand new era.

This is a new leadership team. Ryan Spoon is someone (whom) I loved working with at ESPN and have great admiration and respect for. He's the president, the relatively new president of Yahoo! Sports.

Sam Farber is there who's done incredible things as well and they've been just an absolute joy to work with in getting this deal done.

And what is it that they propose to do?

When I say I'm partnering with Yahoo! Sports, what does that mean?

What I wanted in this next chapter and this next step was to own my show, to be my own boss, to own my content.

I have admired the likes of Howard Stern, Pat McAfee, Dan LeBatard, Rich Eisen, Dan Patrick for many many years.

These are the people that I look up to and they've built what I dream of building. What they all have in common is that they own their show. They own their content and this is what I wanted.

I've built other people's channels up. I've asked you to move around with me from place to place. I don't want that anymore.

I want one home. I don't want to move. I don't want to leave. I want to own the content.

In this deal with Yahoo! I own the content. I'm the executive producer, but I'm also the owner of the show and everything that we are building, whether it's our YouTube channel or our podcast feeds, and that's gigantic for me.

And what will he be covering?

The anchor will be MMA, but we're also into boxing. We're into pro wrestling. We're into a little darts, a little football, a little basketball. Combat will 100% be the anchor, but we (can) talk about whatever we want.

At this point, I’m asking myself, what exactly will Yahoo! Sports be getting other than the chance to foot the bill while Ariel builds and owns his legacy?

Turns out it’s pretty fucking ambitious.

It’s the kind of move that only Yahoo! Sports even has a slim chance of pulling off.

That’s because the main Yahoo! site is one of the few entities that has an audience that’s sufficiently large to not be at the complete mercy of a rapidly enshittifying Google.

Let’s hear about it from Ariel:

One big thing for me in all of this was to create something like what Bill Simmons created with Grantland, what he created with The Ringer.

I wanted the audio & video but I also wanted the vertical, the website, the new home for combat sports.

Yahoo! was down and they wanted that as well. So under the Yahoo! Sports umbrella we are now creating a new combat sports vertical called Uncrowned.

The uncrowned kings of combat media. We'll have a site that's dedicated to all, but then an MMA-specific site, a boxing-specific site, a wrestling-specific site, all under Uncrowned dotcom.

I’ve got to applaud Ariel’s ambition and I’ll be rooting for him all the way. Uncrowned.com might well be the last, best hope for independent MMA media. Outside of what we do here at The MMA Draw, of course.

Unfortunately, I don’t have much hope Uncrowned will produce much (if any) journalism for several reasons.