Professional Fight League’s CEO, Peter Murray was interviewed by Awful Announcing about promotion’s ambitious plans for next year.
Cancellation of 2020 season
Murray started with a statement, that the cancellation of the 2020 season brought many good things to PFL, as it allowed to raise capital, expand the management team and improve the product by signing new athletes and prepare the smart cage system that provides viewers with real-time statistics.
It also resulted in the launch of PFL Studios, which were responsible for delivering content where there wasn’t a lot of live sports coverage.
‘We told some stories about the sport, about certainly our league and our fighters, but also icons like Randy Even though Randy didn’t fight in the PFL, he was a six-time champion in the UFC and an icon of the sport. So that was a privilege for us to tell his story.’
Murray also said that the payoff was huge. The audience grew significantly in comparison to the 2019 season. To keep the momentum rolling PFL officials has decided to increase the number of live events in 2022, including brand new initiatives.
‘2022’s going to be all about expanding our portfolio of live event properties. Number one, we will expand the number of events tied to our season format. Our championship will be two events versus one.’
PFL Challenger Series
The PFL Challenger Series will be launched in form of eight consecutive live events that will be held in February and March. Each event will have 4 fights, and on each night one contract with the promotion will be awarded. This is a chance for fighters, who are within the early stages of their career, to get a development deal with PFL and make it into the promotion’s regular season.
Events held under PFL Challenger Series will be heavily digital-focused, which means a lot of data, statistics, and real-time betting included within the stream. A panel of judges, in that role we will see MMA legends and other famous personalities, will analyze and advise fans on who they should vote in order to get the contract.
PFL PPV
According to Murray, fans can expect PFL’s debut at PPV market.
‘We’re also going to launch pay-per-view events. And to top it off, we’re really excited about launching the first-ever MMA combine, on a scale that’s never been executed in MMA. We’ll be staging that at a world-class facility, invitation-only for more than 100 fighters, and measuring their mental and physical capability inside and outside the cage.’
Additionally, there will be some international qualifier series events held outside of the USA.
The ongoing threat of COVID
As ambitious as it may sound, all those plans may be ruined by COVID-19. Murray said, that the promotion will handle virus situations as well, as it did this year.
‘We put a plan in place to ensure that we could execute the season, and our team really rose to the occasion. We executed in the regular season a bubble format, very similar to the NBA, where fighters and our operational and production team were in a bubble environment to keep them safe. There was rigorous testing as well as segregation and mask-wearing. There was a lot of added expense to it all.’
Only time will tell if PFL will thrive through this difficult time and keep its expansion intact amidst the COVID threat.
