post-fight presser<\/a> when asked if he had any trepidation about the merger. \u201cI will tell you, Nakisa reached out to me first, but I was already planning on reaching out to him after their May 16 event. Because as a business person, I\u2019m interested in growing and accelerating the growth of what has been PFL. And in order to do that, we have to lift the brand by getting more attention on our athletes, and we have to fix our U.S. distribution. And I thought if we did those two things, we would be able to really accelerate.<\/p>\n\u201cHowever, if you look at MVP, what they have and what they\u2019ve been able to do, they grab attention better than we did at the PFL. Jake Paul as an athlete is unique, as a promoter he\u2019s unique, as a content creator he\u2019s unique, and whether you like Jake or you don\u2019t like Jake, you pay attention to Jake. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a unicorn. He\u2019s an incredible individual. If somebody said to me five years ago, this young man could disrupt the world of boxing, I would take the other side of that bet all day long. Look at what he\u2019s done.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd MVP is only five years old. Now you look at MVP together with PFL; we are the only organization, at this point, that will allow athletes \u2014 You want to box? Great. You want to fight MMA? You want future crossover type of opportunities? Great. We want to put the best fights and the best events together for the benefit of our fans. And I absolutely am convinced that this merger is going to be a huge accelerant in our ability to do just that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin took over leadership of the PFL a year ago, and since then, he\u2019s been open about some struggles he\u2019s had, particularly with the level of support he feels their broadcast partner, ESPN, has given them. With PFL in the market for a new deal next year, fans quickly speculated that the merger with MVP could open doors to Netflix, which has held several MVP events already, including its debut MMA event earlier this year. And Martin admits that\u2019s a possibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was one of the attractive elements, to me, of getting together with MVP,\u201d Martin said. \u201cThey have now put on, I believe, four very, very successful events with Netflix. They don\u2019t have a long-term, exclusive relationship with Netflix, so we\u2019ll be sitting down and speaking with them to find out what they want. But for our fighters, being on a fantastic platform and being distributed in front of as many people, in as many places, in as many ways as possible is gonna be huge for us. So, Netflix isn\u2019t the only game in town. I\u2019d say over the last 24 hours, no fewer than six U.S. broadcasters have hit me up and said, \u2018This is big. This is huge. Let\u2019s start talking.\u2019 So that\u2019s going to be a very busy part of our work for the next several months.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Martin was also quick to add that just because they\u2019ve had a rough relationship with ESPN thus far, things still might change. Another benefit of the MVP merger is that MVP recently signed a deal with ESPN to broadcast women\u2019s boxing, and Martin says that could reopen lines of communication there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve expressed frustration, which I stand behind, by the lack of commitment and support that ESPN has been willing to give us this year, but I don\u2019t dismiss ESPN as a massive entity with a fantastic platform,\u201d Martin said. \u201cThey have an output deal with MVPW, women\u2019s boxing, which has just started. They seem to be showing them more love than they have with us, the PFL. I\u2019m hopeful that with this announcement, possibly we can go back and maybe they\u2019ll rethink what their commitment is, and that will open up a new line of communication. I\u2019ve got great respect for Jimmy Pitaro and the team there, but I stand by what I said. They just haven\u2019t done much for us this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, for any MMA promotion, the issue always comes down to the UFC. While PFL and MVP merging creates a potentially big brand in the space, the UFC dominates the MMA landscape. But Martin believes that this merger allows MVP to truly offer MMA fighters another option besides just the UFC.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things that really drew me with admiration to MVP was Jake and Nakisa\u2019s very early and consistent commitment to fighters,\u201d Martin said. \u201cAnd for us to differentiate ourselves from the leader, we have to be able to appeal to elite talent and the fighters. And equitable pay, maximum visibility, and providing maximum opportunities to the fighters has been critical at the PFL. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI get asked questions all the time, \u2018Are you just a feeder league for the UFC?\u2019 because they\u2019re just going to come in and cherry-pick every athlete that they want. That\u2019s not true. We\u2019re going to be able, I believe, to offer fighters a different path. One where they will have more opportunities to do what they want. Don\u2019t discount just the mere fact that if we\u2019re talking to an athlete and they express a desire to do boxing and MMA, we\u2019re open to that. We\u2019ll talk about that. Whatever is good for them, whatever is good for the promotion, we\u2019re just going to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, the ability to give them a platform where they can become famous, and they can fulfill the goals, the desires that they have, that\u2019s the goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
And while it\u2019s early days in the partnership, Martin is optimistic about where this new venture is headed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll tell you, there was not one conversation that we had when we started talking where there was a strategic difference of opinion,\u201d Martin said. \u201cI think Nakisa and then Jake recognized the same thing that I did, which is that together, we can really accelerate and fundamentally change this sport. That\u2019s a huge ambition. That\u2019s the ambition we have. That\u2019s why I joined the PFL.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything I\u2019ve done in my career has been at big scale, leading big companies, big brands, growing big brands. Combat sports has unlimited runway. Global, instantly recognizable, no borders. There\u2019s a huge opportunity for us, and we\u2019re gonna go after it hard.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The PFL has merged with Jake Paul\u2019s Most Valuable Promotions, and PFL CEO John Martin is thrilled with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,211425,248131,1863,8417,82],"class_list":["post-844678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-mvp-mma","tag-mvp-mma-news","tag-pfl","tag-pfl-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}