PFL founder Donn Davis reveals why he started the league

The Street

The Professional Fighters League is the #2 MMA company in the world.

Transcript

00:00 So talk to me about, from the beginning, as much as you can, what went into building this

00:04 massive business and this wildly successful fighting empire that you've been able to get

00:09 off the ground.

00:10 I started at PFL the day UFC sold.

00:13 I saw three things that day.

00:14 And I was not an MMA fan, but I saw 650 million MMA fans around the world.

00:19 That's the third biggest fan base.

00:21 Only trails soccer and basketball.

00:23 I had no idea.

00:24 I think it's a niche sport because 85% of those are not in the US.

00:28 Big global sport.

00:29 Second thing I saw, 40 UFC events.

00:32 UFC's the only premium provider.

00:35 But there's 5,000 basketball games, 3,000 soccer matches.

00:38 So most underserved fan base in the world of sport.

00:42 And number three, heck, it wasn't even a sport yet.

00:45 It's a great entertainment product.

00:46 We're a matchmaker, whether it's Don King in boxing or Dana White in MMA.

00:52 You, JD against me, Don, because the promoter says so.

00:55 Well, that's not a sport.

00:56 We all want LeBron to be in the playoffs every year, but some years he's not good enough.

01:00 Adam Silver is the commissioner.

01:01 I can't just put him in there.

01:02 But that is what they do in MMA.

01:04 Or that is what they do in boxing.

01:05 So I said, I'm going to make it a meritocracy.

01:08 Transparency.

01:09 Win in advance, lose and go home.

01:11 So that's the foundations of the PFL.

01:14 We're not here to beat UFC.

01:15 We're here to be the second big company, the co-leader in MMA, for those 650 million fans.

01:21 You are no stranger to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

01:24 You've been in the world of entrepreneurship going back many decades.

01:26 How does that inform a bit of your unique background that you're able to take to the

01:30 position you have now with PFL?

01:32 Look, I appreciate the question.

01:34 I like to not reinvent the wheel.

01:36 What is working in other sports and in other industries?

01:39 And we brought that to PFL.

01:41 So when you look at our video product, it's really gamified.

01:45 So 35 years old is the average viewer of MMA.

01:49 Most of them are 18 to 35.

01:50 So they like a really interesting, gamified, short, high action experience.

01:54 So punch impact, you can see it on the screen.

01:57 Real time gambling, you can see it on the screen with PFL.

02:00 The smart cage, data and technology, you can see what's going on with PFL.

02:05 So think of it as like we brought the yellow line from football or the strike zone from

02:10 baseball to MMA.

02:12 So if you're a sport fan but not an MMA fan, you now know what's going on inside the cage.

02:18 So we borrowed that from eSports, if you will.

02:20 We borrowed that from gaming, if you will, to make MMA more interesting to the casual

02:25 fan.

02:26 So those are the kind of things having invested and built other types of companies, I say,

02:30 number one, what's the most interesting thing we could do to serve this fan with this product?

02:36 And that's what we've done at PFL.

02:37 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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