Battle of the Giants Should Spur PFL Media Rights Lift

Battle of the Giants Should Spur PFL Media Rights Lift

Professional Fighters League (PFL) is hosting its ‘Battle of the Giants’ PPV on Saturday (October 19). The event will be headlined by two of the most anticipated MMA matchups of the year (Francis Ngannou vs. Renan Ferreira and Cris Cyborg vs. Larissa Pacheco).

That reality signifies professional MMA is “now a duopoly,” Donn Davis (founder and chairman, PFL) said. 

Or at least that PFL has established itself as the number two promotion, to the UFC’s one, in the eyes of English-speaking American sports fans.

That perception doesn’t change anything for the UFC. But Davis is convinced it will have a dramatic impact on his promotion’s upcoming rights negotiations.

UFC will go to market first in January 2025. PFL expects to draft off its success 12 months later.

“If UFC is going to get $800mm/year, we’re a bargain at $100mm or $50mm annually,” Davis said.

PFL’s current deal with ESPN has a $20mm AAV.

The UFC’s upcoming rights negotiations are noteworthy in the context of the broader media landscape. They represent the last opportunity for rights holders to land a tier one property until MLB returns to the market in 2027.

That could spur increased competition for the property’s rights and drive up their value.

The UFC is believed to be “asking for $8bn over 10 years for its [40+] events, including both media and PPV,” Davis said. 

TKO declined to comment on that figure.

$800mm/year may sound like a big number. The TKO subsidiary’s expiring deal is worth $450mm annually ($300mm for the media product, $150mm in additional PPV guarantees). 

However, “the last time the UFC was in market seven years ago there was just one bidder,” Davis said. 

This time around he expects there will be a handful. 

If one assumes UFC plans to retain some semblance of a PPV model, then its broadcast partner will need to have the ability to deliver them. 

ESPN fits that bill. Look for the UFC’s incumbent rights holder to be in the mix, even though ESPN+ may not exist by the time the next deal begins.

Warner Bros. Discovery could too. 

“The pay TV system is not dead yet. It's got a while to go before that happens,” media consultant Patrick Crakes said. “The UFC has a lot of content that could go on WBD’s linear platforms, and it could elevate the most premium fights up to Max.”

AEW recently signed a deal like that with the company worth a reported $150mm/year.

Amazon Prime Video, YouTube TV, Netflix, Apple TV, and Facebook have never done traditional PPVs, but all could and presumably each would see value in year-round live sports programming and predictable revenues/viewership.

But just because those outlets could bid, doesn’t mean they will.

“WBD would need to make a strategic commitment that might impair future content acquisitions," Crakes said. “Given its future plans, the UFC may be out of scope."

Alphabet has only invested in one sports property to date (NFL Sunday Ticket) and Apple is still wrangling with how to profit on its MLS deal. There are reasons to believe the others could remain on sidelines too.

Of course, the UFC only needs two bidders to create a bidding war and a large rights increase.

The question is will “two bidders enough to receive the ~2x increase they are said to be seeking,” Crakes wondered.

Particularly, in a shrinking pay TV landscape, and with the pay-per-view business having become increasingly challenging since its last negotiation (see: piracy).

Bulls argue that the UFC’s potential impact on a streamer’s business makes it a ‘must have’.

The property is ESPN+’s “number one performer per dollar,” Davis said. “Everybody who wants to be in streaming is going to say, ‘look what it did for them’ in terms of acquisition and retention.”

Perhaps. 

While there’s no doubt the UFC aided ESPN’s efforts to launch Plus, it’s hard to argue the promotion is responsible for much more than one million subs (see: PPV buy figures).

And it’s not as if ESPN+ subscribers are consuming anything en masse (the UFC does over index the service average). Monthly viewership on the platform represents less than one percent of all video minutes consumed across all digital platforms.

In the end, expect the UFC to do well in its upcoming negotiation. The street is anticipating a 1.7x-1.8x increase in the deal’s AAV.

The road to achieving that lift (or one greater) may simply require some creativity.

“ESPN changed the UFC’s model. They took the risk off the table for the promotion with pay per views,” Crakes said. Perhaps the UFC takes back some of that risk, “regardless of whether it stays with established television broadcasters or decides to go all in with a streaming platform.”

Presumably, those ‘broadcasters’ would be two non-exclusive partners. Remember, the UFC has just ~40 events/year. There really isn’t enough live fight inventory to carve its rights package the way volume properties do.

Should Davis’ prediction come to fruition, multiple bidders will lose out on UFC rights. One must assume some portion of them will still be looking to add high-quality MMA programming come Jan. ’26, and the presumption is Battle of the Giants makes it clear which property should be next in line.

PFL is “currently doing 45% of the UFC audience [on ESPN],” he noted.

And there’s a chance the broadcaster who lands the UFC package will want to corner the MMA market (or at least the top end of it). 

“That’s why ESPN buys us now,” Davis said. Unlike with international soccer, “you can own the sport. There’s no leakage.”

So, there should be a market for PFL rights when they come up.

That does not mean it will receive a deal roughly half the size of UFC’s (or a comparable increase on a multiple basis). While fans consume the promotions’ content, it’s not yet a hook for acquisition.

At least, it hasn’t been historically. Battle of the Giants shows the promotion is capable of staging marquee PPVs.

At a fraction of the cost, broadcasters that lose out on the UFC will likely view the challenger property as a bargain.

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