PFL acquires Bellator MMA in landmark deal

Donn Davis, founder and owner, Professional Fighters League joined TheStreet to discuss what this deal means for the MMA industry.

Transcript

00:00 announced PFL is acquiring Bellator MMA from Paramount Global. Huge news in the

00:05 world of MMA today. Why do you think this makes sense for you and the folks at

00:10 PFL at this time? Everything is about athletes whether it's the NBA or MMA and

00:15 today with PFL acquiring Bellator we now have the same quality and depth of

00:21 fighter rosters UFC. PFL plus Bellator, 30% of our roster is top 25 ranked. UFC

00:29 the same 30% top 25 ranked. So it's a new day at MMA. We go from number two to

00:37 poised to be co-leader. We now have the capability and the fighter roster. New

00:41 competition, new day. Fans would love to know to whatever degree you're

00:44 comfortable kind of pulling back the curtain a little bit. How long has this

00:48 been this deal been in the works for in terms of conversations with Viacom? We

00:52 started in January. We reached out to them because we knew we had the vision,

00:55 the format, the business infrastructure. We just needed more top fighters and

01:01 Bellator was a place we get all in one fell swoop. We've been winning four or

01:05 five free agents a year. We get 45 in one fell swoop in top 25 with this

01:10 acquisition. As Shakespeare says all's well that ends well but it did take all

01:14 year. You teased a mega event for fans in 2024 PFL champs versus Bellator champs.

01:20 I'm sure there's a lot of details about this Don that you know that you can't

01:23 yet talk about but what can you give fans a sense of because that's something

01:26 that really stood out in the announcement. Well the main thing I

01:28 would say is most MMA companies don't do things like this. We are fan first, fighter

01:36 first. It's what fans want and what the fighters want. Whether the Bellator

01:40 fighters go 7-0 or PFL goes 7-0, we all win because if you give fighters what

01:46 they want and fans what they want, the company will win. So we're gonna do it

01:49 sometime in February or March. Location TBD, it will be the biggest fight event

01:55 of 2024. Bellator champs, PFL champs, let's see what each of them have. I can't wait

02:01 to see it as a fan. How are you approaching things like TV deals, event

02:05 schedules, figuring out all the logistics, those things that will make fans really

02:08 excited to find out as soon as they're announced. Again I'm sure you know a lot

02:12 more than you could say but how do you even begin to approach after an

02:15 announcement like this, the enormity of answering those questions. Now the one

02:18 thing we did say is we want to relaunch a revitalized Bellator product. We want

02:23 to give a little bit more order and more sense to it. Fans have liked that with

02:26 the PFL season but what Bellator becomes in the PFL platform is our one-off event

02:31 product where we can match up fighters. We're calling it the Bellator

02:35 International Champion Series. Eight one-off events in great cities around

02:39 the world.

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