MMA Weekly reports that MMA agent Ken Pavia has sold his agency, MMA Agents, to Paradigm Sports Management. The transaction includes Pavia’s company and his stable of fighters. Pavia is moving on to become Vice President of Business Development at sports agency Takedown Entertainment.
Via MMA Weekly:
Speaking to MMAWeekly.com on Friday, Pavia confirmed that he has sold his company and fight roster to Paradigm Sports Management, but will remain on in a consultant’s role to help the transition for his fighters.
Takedown Entertainment is a publicly traded company that produces and packages MMA shows for broadcast as well as digital release.
Mike Whitman of Sherdog spoke to Pavia about the offer from Paradigm:
“The timing and the opportunity were both right. Takedown represented an opportunity that, in the long run, not only benefits me, but also benefits my clients and the industry,” Pavia said. “The funny thing is that over the last four or five [years], because of my roster and connections, I’ve been offered two or three things a week — whether it’s helping out with a promotion or consulting or advising in some capacity, but it was never the right time or opportunity. With Takedown’s business model, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
Pavia indicated that all employees of his company were going to Paradigm or staying with him in his move to Takedown so the transition would not leave anyone without a job.
Payout Perspective:
Its an interesting move within the industry and we will see if any of Pavia’s fighters will seek other representation. The report indicates that Pavia will stay on with MMA Agents for a period of time to ensure a smooth transition so maybe there will be no switching of agents. Based upon the recent MMA Fighting article on the state of MMA sponsorships, the role of the MMA agent can be a difficult task. It appears as difficult as an NFL or NBA agent without the market of sponsors or big financial payoff as the two sports. This could change, ever so slightly, with the UFC-Fox deal. We are not saying that Pavia left for any specific reason, merely pointing out the tough and competitive job it is to be an MMA agent.
Pavia eats a lot of shit from regular MMA fans, but the guy and his staff were always nice to me when we ran URDirt. So I wish him the best of luck in this move. Hope he is successful.
I wonder how this affects the UFC’s lawsuit against Pavia?
Also, I wonder if former Pavia clients are going to see an improvement of their chances to get in / stick with Zuffa.
Narcisist
Pavia ate a lot of shit from MMA fans because there was a laundry list of fighters who claim Pavia stole from them. Go search for Pavia threads on the UG and you will find thread after thread of guys complaining about Pavia setting it up so that sponsors paid him rather than the fighters and then paying himself before forwarding the money to them. His clients never saw the original check.
Also, he did an awful of job of managing guys careers beyond just getting them into the UFC. At one point, his clients had a winning percentage in the low teens inside the UFC. He was doing an terrible job of getting them reasonable fights for their level of talent and experience. He was just rubber stamping any matchup no matter how ridiculously over-matched his fighter might be.
Finally, he was a notorious poacher, which made him persona non grata in the agent community. He had a habit stealing guys away from with pie-in-sky promises and then not delivering.
Sounds to me like Pavia really f’cked up by faxing those Zuffa documents to Rebney. I think he was basically run out of the MMA business by Zuffa and his reputation had clearly caught up with him in regards to fighters saying he stole money from them