On Jan. 2, 1965, the course of professional football history changed forever. Alabama quarterback Joe Namath, who had been a first-round pick of the then-St. Louis Cardinals in the NFL Draft, spurned the NFL and signed a deal with the AFL's New York Jets. Only 18 months later, the NFL announced it would merge with the AFL, which was finalized in 1970.
At the time of Namath's signing, the NFL was the 800-pound gorilla of professional football. Four years later, on Jan. 12, 1969, in Miami, Florida, Namath quarterbacked the AFL's Jets to the championship in Super Bowl III, defeating the Baltimore Colts despite being 19.5-point underdogs. The NFL had dominated the competition prior, but the Jets' rout of the Colts was a sign of a new era emerging.
And that's the kind of impact that the Professional Fighters League hopes its moves made in 2023 will have on the global mixed martial arts landscape in 2024 and beyond. The UFC was the global leader at the start of 2023 and ends it the same way, after what UFC CEO Dana White told keviniole.com is the best year in the company's history.
But spurred by five major moves and a series of less high-profile but still significant developments, PFL management is optimistic it will be able to compete on even terms with the UFC.
"2023 was a transformational year for us," PFL MMA Chief Executive Officer Peter Murray told keviniole.com on Thursday. "The year started with the announcement of us signing Jake Paul, followed by [former UFC heavyweight champion] Francis Ngannou. They're two big anchors for our pay-per-view division. That's No. 1. To that, next is our ESPN deal. The deal is expanded and extended and we added pay-per-view to the overall scope of rights.
"So when you think about it, we are in position to truly launch a powerhouse pay-per-view division in 2024. The work we've done in 2023 has really set us up."
The other major moves that Murray pointed toward helping make 2023 a transformational year for the company is the acquisition of Bellator, which helped deepen its pool of available talent; and a $100 million investment from Saudi Arabia's SRJ Investments. That is just the beginning of what is expected to be a more significant financial investment in PFL from SRJ.
Murray's optimism about the promotion's future in a 30-minute conversation with keviniole.com was boundless. And as Murray spoke about the PFL near the end of 2023, he sounded a lot like Lorenzo Fertitta, the UFC's former owner, when Fertitta was pitching the then-struggling UFC in 2001 after he and his brother, Frank, saved it from extinction by buying it for $2 million.
Fertitta spent years discussing the power of MMA's 18-to-34-year-old demographic, and Murray did much the same on Thursday. The point, Murray said, is that the world is still starved for high-level MMA. He pointed out that a PFL show in Paris in October on the French television network RMC was the most-viewed MMA event in French television history with 1.3 million viewers.
"MMA is a growth sport, right?" Murray said. "There are 460 million fans today -- Nielsen [Sports] data -- 80 percent of whom are outside the U.S. It's the youngest fan base of all traditional sports, again Nielsen data. The median age is 35 and half the fan base is not watching stick and ball [sports]. So they represent new fans, new consumers for media platforms around the world. The key point here is that MMA is a growth sport, it's global and it has a massively underserved fan base which is demanding more premium MMA.
"UFC cannot fulfill it all. We are the No. 2 and it's really all about the big two, the UFC and the PFL, right? We're poised to be the co-leader. We have that immense momentum, we have the capital and we have the capabilities to realize our vision."
The thing that has long made PFL unique and which founder Donn Davis has repeatedly championed has been the company's season format, which culminates with championship finales in each weight class where the winner earns $1 million. Each weight class has seedings and fighters win and advance, much like in the NCAA's Division I basketball tournament, which has come to be known as "March Madness."
While the season-long format remains a foundational piece of the PFL, the promotion will make its first big foray into pay-per-view in 2024. Murray said there will be two big tentpole PPV cards the promotion will announce early next year. The PFL will debut in early 2024 what Murray calls an annual "All-Star Game," in which the Bellator champions will fight the PFL champions. Bellator will be operated as a separate entity, but Murray said that PFL will make changes to the broadcast, including to production.
PFL has a highly respected executive producer, George Greenberg, a winner of 17 Sports Emmys.
In addition to its PPV league, its championship season and Bellator, PFL has a challengers series and regional global fight leagues around the world. PFL Europe has already been profitable, Murray said, and PFL MENA (Middle East-North Africa) will launch next year.
The PFL doesn't have to outdo the UFC, which is also heavily invested in pay-per-view, in order to be successful. But the pay-per-view business, even in good times, is often a treacherous place, and if the PPV division bombs, the question that would naturally follow is about the viability of the overall product.
PPV is hard to do unless everything aligns properly, and even then it often requires a bit of luck. The factors generally that determine if a specific PPV will do well is quality of the match, the date it's on, the other competition it faces on that night and cost being the most significant.
Mark Boccardi is the senior vice president for marketing and programming at InDemand, and is one of the foremost experts on pay-per-view. He said promoters who look to turn to pay-per-view often don't understand what it takes to make one successful.
"One of the things I always advise people is that the pay-per-view platform is not one to grow your brand; it's the platform to monetize your brand," Boccardi told keviniole.com. "I think a lot of people make the mistake of going to pay-per-view too early in their existence and they end up being disappointed that they're not getting the results they thought they could get. That's simply because a specific brand is not big enough yet."
There have been numerous attempts at PPV by MMA promoters, but to this point, only the UFC has been successful. PRIDE put on two stacked cards in Las Vegas that bombed, and Affliction had very deep cards that sold next-to-nothing.
Boccardi said when any promoter opts to go to pay-per-view, they need to ask themselves three questions.
"First, do you have marketable talent?" he said. "Two is, when are you doing the event? The date you pick is critical. Are you going up against other big events in sports, in entertainment or in culture? Is it a free weekend or are you going up against another promotion of some sort? Number three is the price that you charge for an event. Those three really have to be in perfect alignment to have significant pay-per-view success."
That's a challenge that the PFL will have to overcome, but it believes with Ngannou, Paul and Kayla Harrison, its former women's champion, there are the makings of a solid beginning. Murray pointed out that Harrison could fight someone like two-time PFL champion Larissa Pacheco or Bellator's Cris Cyborg, one of the most notable and decorated women in MMA history.
There are a lot of obstacles to overcome, but Murray is right that PFL sits in the No. 2 spot behind the UFC, and that there is the potential for growth because of the worldwide demand for the sport.
The PFL will have to increase the quality of its roster, though the Bellator acquisition helps that and Murray points to the rankings by Fight Matrix to insist PFL athletes are top-tier. But most of the most familiar names in the sport are in the UFC, and so PFL will be very active in the free agent chase. Most big fighters whose contract expires in the UFC will be pursued by the PFL, Murray said.
That increased competition can only be good for the athletes, who will have more people interested in their services, as well as for the sport at large.
After what he called a transformational year in 2023, the PFL must keep the momentum going and take its game to the next level in 2024 and beyond. Can Jake Paul and Francis Ngannou change the path of MMA the way Joe Willie Namath did to professional football in 1965? That the challenge's facing Davis, Murray and their team as they try to maneuver the PFL to the top of the MMA landscape.