FanHouse Bjorn Rebney

Bellator FC recently announced a new television deal with Fox Sports Net, NBC and Telemundo, which will begin airing in April 2010, but the organization has yet to finalize its broadcasting team.

Jon Anik, the host of ESPN.com's MMA Live and the English play-by-play man for the first season of Bellator FC action, told FanHouse on Tuesday that despite the fact that the events will be airing live Thursdays on FSN, which is the same day MMA Live currently tapes its weekly show, he was "confident" he will return to call the action once again.

Bellator Fighting Championships became the latest mixed martial arts promotion to announce a TV deal on Tuesday, with word that the promotion will have live fights on Fox Sports Net in 2010, as well as highlight shows on NBC and Spanish-language broadcasts on Telemundo.

In an interview with FanHouse, Bellator founder Bjorn Rebney said the new TV deals are a major boost for Bellator, but he added that not much else will change for the promotion. He said Bellator will continue to arrange its seasons around tournament formats, and will continue to put its best fights on YouTube. Rebney's comments are below.

Bellator featherweight champ Joe Soto will have a temporary home in the new Tachi Palace Fights promotion.

Soto (7-0) is the first of the four Bellator champs (Eddie Alvarez, Hector Lombard and Lyman Good) to sign a fight during this hiatus until Bellator returns early 2010. Soto will face The Ultimate Fighter 9's Santino Defranco, according to Five Knuckles.

Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney told Fanhouse earlier this month that Bellator champs will be allowed to fight elsewhere and will be back in Bellator in time for the premiere of Bellator season two.

Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney has no qualms with admitting that his organization is currently not competitive with the UFC, but he's holding high hopes that Bellator's tournament format and over 150 million-home distribution platform will eventually make them a major player in the fight promoting business.

"If your intent is not to at some point compete with the UFC, then you shouldn't be in the business," Rebney tells FanHouse in this exclusive interview.

In the final video of our five-part interview, I asked Rebney how he compares his promotion at this stage to other organizations like Strikeforce and the UFC.

The Bellator Fighting Championships has not yet determined what day its weekly live events will be held on for its second season beginning early 2010.

Season one events were held live every Friday accompanied by a tape-delayed broadcast Saturday on ESPN Deportes. However, for next season's live televised events, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays are all possibilities.

In this FanHouse exclusive, Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney shares his insight on programming MMA events for television.

In the midst of the at least six-month downtime in between the first season and the early 2010 premiere of Bellator season two, the promotion's champions will be allowed to stay active and challenge themselves in other promotions.

In part two of five of our exclusive interview with Bjorn Rebney, the Bellator CEO and co-founder talks to FanHouse about allowing contracted fighters to fight elsewhere, exchanging talent with other promotions and explains why he is not concerned if one or more of his champions were to suffer a loss outside of Bellator.

Bellator has signed a new deal that will give the promotion a distribution platform to reach both an English and Spanish-language audience of over 150 million households across the country.

While Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney remains hush-hush on naming the broadcast partner, he sheds some details in this exclusive interview with FanHouse on the new deal which addresses criticism from its inaugural season on ESPN Deportes regarding the lack of live coverage and Spanish-speaking only TV deal.

CHICAGO -- I took in the Bellator Fighting Championships for the first time on Friday night, and I came away from it thinking that it's a small mixed martial arts promotion that has a lot of potential to grow into a big one.

If I didn't know any better, I would think that the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux, which governs alcohol, racing, gambling and combat sports in the province of Quebec, is doing its very best to ensure that no major mixed martial arts promotion ever holds an event in that province again.

After threatening to cancel UFC 97 due to some last minute rules discrepancies, and now forcing Bellator Fighting Championships to move its May 29 show to Monroe, La., Quebec officials are on the verge of killing off one of the best MMA markets in the world.

What a horrible shame.

The upstart Bellator Fighting Championships mixed martial arts promotion held its inaugural show on April 3. However, when historians look back on their growth as an MMA organization, they will probably point to Friday, May 1, 2009, as their official launch into the MMA space.

On that night, in the Hara Arena in Dayton, Ohio, Toby Imada pulled off one of the most shocking submissions in MMA history when when he choked out Jorge Masvidal with an inverted triangle.

Bjorn Rebney, Bellator FC's founder and CEO, believes the buzz created by that submission is proof that his organization has arrived.