The Professional Fighters League is looking to super-serve fans of mixed martial arts as it gears up for a major October 19 pay-per-view event from Saudi Arabia. 

The event, featuring former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou against PFL heavyweight titleholder Renan Ferreira, is one of the biggest events for the six-year-old franchise, which pits MMA fighters in a league elimination format — including a regular-season and post-season — to determine its champion, according to PFL founder Donn Davis. 

With fighters from around the world participating in the league, and with distribution deals with ESPN domestically and DAZN globally, Davis said the PFL is growing and within punching range of its nearest and larger competitor, the UFC. 

Davis spoke to Multichannel News senior content producer, programming R. Thomas Umstead about the upcoming PPV event and the PFL’s television future. An edited version of the interview follows. 

MCN: Have fans fully adapted to a league-based MMA format compared to the traditional single-fight matchups? 

Donn Davis: Our metrics show that in our sixth year, we’re generating 40% of UFC viewership despite their brand being much bigger. It shows that PFL has grown very, very quickly among viewers. We also know that half of our fans are new to MMA — they watch soccer, basketball and American football — and they are used to the league format. Every fight matters in the PFL because every fight is an elimination fight, and our viewers are used to that kind of excitement in their sport. 

MCN: How has your distribution deal with ESPN broadened the franchise’s reach beyond traditional MMA fans? 

DD: We’re on ESPN Friday nights in the United States, so 90% percent of our fights are on linear and streaming free distribution, whereas half of the big fights from the UFC are on pay-per-view, so you have to pay more for them. For fans, we want to be easy to see. 

MCN: The PFL also counts pay-per-view as a distribution platform. Is PPV still a viable option for companies like PFL to try to reach viewers and generate revenue?

DD: PFL has two pay-per-view events a year — we call them super-fights. Fights like our October event featuring the return of Francis Ngannou against the PFL champion [Ferreira], the No. 5-ranked heavyweight in the ESPN rankings. That card also has the greatest woman of all time in MMA, Cris Cyborg. These events are a testament to the fighters who want to be here and the innovation and the different approach to the market that we’re taking for our fans. 

MCN: From your perspective, how do you see the television sports marketplace shaping over the next year, and how does the PFL fit into it? 

DD: Most media companies, whether it’s linear, streaming or emerging technologies like mobile, want two things: global reach and growth. MMA is the fastest-growing sport, and, along with soccer, the most global. That’s what distributors are looking for, so I believe the UFC will do extremely well in their media rights negotiations in 2025, and I think  the PFL will do extremely well in our media rights renewal in 2026. We have the best distribution that we can have today, but would we like to get paid more money for that? We’re currently over-delivering to those partners, and we want to stick with our partners after 2026 and get paid a little bit more. 

Warner Bros. Discovery has acquired television rights to the Bellator Championship Series mixed martial arts franchise, adding to its lineup of live sports content.

Max will stream Bellator’s first event under the new deal on March 22 from Belfast, one of eight Bellator Championship Series events taking place during the year, according to WBD. Each event will take place from various locations around the world and highlight the best fighters from each region.

In addition, other Bellator content – which formerly aired on Paramount-owned Showtime prior to the company’s sale last November of the franchise to the Professional Fighters League – will air on TruTv throughout the year. Max will also stream two new all-access docuseries, Fight Camp Confidential and Fight Week, that will debut March 21 in advance of the first live event, said WBD. 

The Bellator content adds to WBD-owned TNT Sports lineup of live sports programming, which includes Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, the National Basketball Association, NCAA men's college basketball, and NASCAR events.

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“We are thrilled to partner with Professional Fighters League to introduce a new live sport to the U.S. Warner Bros. Discovery content portfolio,” Warner Bros. Discovery Streaming chief financial & strategy officer Josh Walker said in a statement. “The addition of Bellator Champions Series offers our viewers an opportunity to experience highly anticipated mixed martial arts, nicely complementing our robust slate of can’t miss programming.” 

One month after announcing the shutdown of Showtime Sports at year-end, Paramount Global on Monday (November 20) sold its Bellator mixed martial arts franchise to the Saudi Arabia-backed Professionals Fighters League.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Paramount, which has owned Bellator since 2011, will retain a minority stake in the franchise. Paramount-owned Showtime has offered Bellator events on its air and via pay-per-view since 2021.

The five-year-old PFL will add Bellator to its four existing MMA franchises, including the PFL League Season, PFL PPV Super Fights, PFL Challenger Series and the PFL International Leagues. The company plans to offer eight Bellator fight events yearly under the Bellator International Champions Series.

PFL also looks to create a major event in 2024, pitting the PFL Champions versus the Bellator Champions. PFL founder and chairman Donn Davis said the deal positions PFL well against the category leader, the Endeavor Group Holdings-owned UFC. 

“PFL is now a global powerhouse in MMA,” PFL founder and chairman Donn Davis said in a statement. “Our Bellator acquisition turbocharges PFL’s mission to innovate the sport and become the industry co-leader.”

The deal comes as Paramount plans to shut down Showtime Sports and its live MMA and boxing events at the end of 2023. Showtime will distribute its last scheduled pay-per-view boxing event on Saturday (November 25) featuring the David Benavidez-Demetrius Andrade middleweight championship fight. 

Two new combat sports franchises will step into the sports television ring in June in an effort to reach young fight fans.

The Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship (BKFC) will distribute its inaugural event via pay-per-view on June 2, while the Professional Fighters League — a mixed martial arts league in which fighters must compete in scheduled regular-season and postseason bouts to advance to the championship — will debut on NBCSN June 7.

BKFC will look to draw young fight fans — as well as older boxing fans — when it launches its first fight card Saturday on PPV. The fights, which harken back to the late 1800s, when grapplers such as John L. Sullivan and Gentleman Jim Corbett fought sanctioned fights with no gloves, will take place in Wyoming, the only state thus far to sanction the sport.

“It’s very safe, it took us years and years to develop it and we’re going to present it in a way that’s at a high-class level,” said Brian Ricco, executive producer for MultiVision Media, the PPV distributor of the event. “This is not an underground event; this is going to be in big arenas featuring full-blown productions.”

Much like UFC in its early days, BKFC will use PPV as its distribution pipeline to fans. The fight card, featuring 12 bouts, will retail for $29.99, and all major cable distributors including In Demand, DirecTV and Dish Network will offer the event, according to Ricco.

Over-the-top combat sports service FITE TV will air the event via the web. Ricco added that the fight would be distributed in 4K, a rarity among combat sports PPV events. The fights will take place in a squared ring with four ropes. Most bouts will consist of three two-minute rounds with a referee both inside and outside the ring. The combatants will be bare-knuckled, although they can apply tape on the hands below the knuckles, according to Ricco.

Ricco added that he’s not concerned about potential negative feedback from critics who may lament the violent nature of the event. “There’s a lot of history here with bare-knuckle boxing, dating back to John L. Sullivan and Jim Corbett, and we’ll tap into that,” he said. “I believe people will be intrigued by this.”

BKFC founder and CEO David Feldman would not predict how many buys the event would generate, but said the event has already generated high social media interest.

“It’s like the forbidden fruit — it’s something that you couldn’t see before because it’s always been underground,” he said. “What they will end up seeing is a very professional event.”

BKFC will look to distribute quarterly PPV events, with the next two shows tentatively scheduled for September and December, according to Ricco. He added the PPV model best suits the organization as it looks to build and grow its audience base.

“The first punch ever in bare-knuckle boxing will be on PPV, and as this grows we’ll see what distribution platforms makes sense,” he said.

The Professional Fighters League will feature a roster of 72 fighters from 13 countries competing in a seven-week regular-season league format that will air on NBCSN beginning June 7.

The season launches with 12 athletes in each of six different weight classes who will compete for a spot in the playoffs. During the playoff round, fighters will have to win two fights in one evening to advance to the championship event.The six eventual champions will receive a $1 million prize, according to officials.

NBCSN will air weekly, live PFL matchups as part of its new MMA Night in America show through the end of August. Events televised by NBCSN will also stream on NBCSports.com and on the NBC Sports app.