Major League Baseball has the minor leagues; the NBA has the D-League; the NHL has the AHL; and the NFL has college football.
All the major sports leagues have “feeder systems” and now Southern California fight promoter and sports entrepreneur Roy Englebecht has decided that mixed martial arts also needs its own legitimate minor league system.
In an effort to help develop the next generation of MMA stars while providing investors a chance to own their own professional sports franchise, Englebrecht announced Wednesday the launch of the Professional Mixed Martial Arts League (PMMAL).
Set to begin play in early 2010, the PMMAL (www.pmmal.com) will award charter ownerships to teams in eight specific areas including six Southern California counties and Las Vegas.
“The time has finally arrived for mixed martial arts and for the PMMAL,” stated Englebrecht. “As a club promoter of MMA since it was approved in California in 2006, I know first-hand the struggle young fighters have in trying to get fights, and the major struggles small mixed martial arts promoters encounter just trying to promote a show, give the fighters and fans a good experience, and most important — hopefully turn a small profit.
“Now with the Professional Mixed Martial Arts League, some of the best young MMA fighters competing today can be part of a team, know when and where they will fight each month, and be paid and treated like the professional athletes they are.”
As one of the founding owners of arguably one of the most successful minor league baseball franchises ever, the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, Englebrecht knows what it takes to make a professional team organization work and how owners can run a profitable pro sports team business.
“I know the fun and profitability that an investment in a professional sports team can provide,” he stated. “I know about the dreams of most every sports fan to be just like Jerry Jones, Jerry Buss, Arte Moreno, or George Steinbrenner and own a pro sports team, as I realized that dream with the Quakes. Now the dream of owning a professional sports team can become a reality with the purchase of a PMMAL team.
“Having the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of any business is worth its weight in gold, so buying in as a charter owner of a PMMAL team, involving the hottest pro sport today, is an unbelievable opportunity and one that should not be missed by anyone.”
The PMMAL concept will see qualified owners awarded a team and have exclusive territorial rights in seven regions; San Diego County, Orange County, Los Angeles County, Ventura County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, and Las Vegas.
The eight team league will be broken up into two conferences, the Ocean Conference consisting of San Diego County, Orange County South, Los Angeles County and Ventura County, and the Desert Conference comprised of Riverside County, San Bernardino County, Las Vegas and Orange County North. Each PMMAL team will be allowed to select 14 fighters in a League Draft scheduled for December of 2009.
Each PMMAL team will also play an eight event regular season schedule once a month beginning in February of 2010, with four home events and four away events, and all eight teams qualifying for the quarterfinals of the PMMAL Championships starting in October. Four teams will advance to the semifinals in November and two teams will compete in the Inaugural PMMAL Championship in December. PMMAL fighters will earn a minimum of $10,000 per year, and can earn upward of $25,000 per year.
“I am extremely grateful to the UFC, to Strikeforce, and to M-1 Global for what they have done to grow mixed martial arts in America and the world over during the past ten years,” said Englebrecht. “I just felt that if the sport of MMA was to really become mainstream and greatly enlarge its footprint to consumers, sponsors, and regulatory bodies that a minor league system needed to be established. Over the past three years, young MMA fighters just didn’t have the proper stage to perform on, and that club promoters had great difficulty in making it a viable business. Now with the PMMAL in place their will finally be a platform in place so that fighters who dream of one day competing in the UFC or Strikeforce can see their dreams come true, thanks to the Professional Mixed Martial Arts League.”
Persons interested in acquiring a PMMAL team, or fighters interested in competing in the 2010 PMMAL season and entering the PMMAL draft, can get necessary information and documents at the Official Professional Mixed Martial Arts League website at www.pmmal.com, or by contacting Roy Englebrecht at pmmalroy@aol.com.
Contact: Roy Englebrecht
pmmalroy@aol.com
949-760-3131 – O
714-429-7903 – F
I like Englebrecht but I have to strongly disagree. Leagues just aren’t for fighting. I have the impression that by “mainstream”, they mean Americanized. Leagues and teams just aren’t for fighting. I understand their intentions but this is just not a good idea at all.
I’m sorry, but Englebrecht must have forgotten about a little, now defunct, organization called the IFL. To my recollection they tried to implement a league format to MMA and even had the word league as part of their name, the International Fight League. Would they not be the first professional MMA league?
Hmmm… I seem to remember a team based fight league existing in the recent past. Does anyone recall how that ended up?
This thing seems destined to copy the flaws of the IFL. The IFL created teams named after cities. Yet the fighters werent from that city therefore no one from that city cared about the team. The teams also seldom ever trained together as they all lived all over the world. Not much of a team just a group of individuals.
This group is naming leagues after small little communities and probably having fighters with no connection to that area. They will soon realize the double edge sward they have created. If you go with local talent you cant expect people to believe those locals are really one step away from the UFC by beating other locals. If you go with talent no matter where they are from then you wont be able to draw the local fans but he fighters will be more legit. But that dont pay bills.
IMO, the best chance at success is have league based in each state. Only fighters from that state compete in that leageu. When they are the best in that stae and establish themselves. THEN they move on to the UFC or a National Championship on PPV with all the top fighters from each state.
MMA doesn’t need the PMMAL to succeed in the mainstream, nor do I think it would act as much of a “feeder” or “minor” league. For starters, its geographic limitations (just SoCal??) are readily apparent. Plus, you already have camps such as Militech, ATT, Xtreme Couture, Greg Jackson’s group etc,, etc, etc. These teams have become their own feeder leagues of sorts, nursing and developing new talent. There are also a decent number of smaller promotions throughout the US that are the defacto minor leagues of MMA in the US. These are essentially mini-ufc’s without all the issues that come along with having a league such as the IFL, which wasn’t that big of a success in the grand scheme of things. Team events, such as M1’s team fights (eg Team Spain vs Team Japan etc) are more of a novelty event or part of a promos overall strategy rather than being the main reason for being a promotion. PMMAL sounds like another scheme to try to captialize on the growing popularity of MMA rather than being a viable alternative or even addition to the current MMA landscape. The Strikeforce route pre-Emelianenko (at least till he hopefully wins a few fights in the promo) of developing a promotion should really be the blueprint that other fight promos/leagues use to develop themselves and their talent base as they try to become a major player. Not this PMMAL/WAMMA/IFL-resurrection dreck.
I greatly appreciate the comments by several of your readers, but they all need to go to the Professional Mixed Martial Arts League website at http://www.pmmal.com and read how the league will be structured. The PMMAL is a true minor league concept, where the IFL was not. The PMMAL is local ownership, local fighters, and cities vs cities…a true minor league concept. To compare the PMMAL with the IFL is just not correct. The over 500 emails our site has received in less than 12 hours since the league was announced, with every one of them excited and positive about the PMMAL, tells me that the decision to spend eight months developing the PMMAL was time well spent.