The Professional Fighter’s League is back with NBC Sports Network as part of a one year revenue sharing deal according to John Ourand of the Sports Business Journal.
Previously the World Series of Fighting, the organization went through a regime change and renamed itself the PFL. This year it will offer a league setup with the promise that fighters on its roster will get regular fights and offer a league-style makeup for its six weight divisions culminating with a $10 million prize for fighters at the end of the year.
The article indicates that Jon Miller, NBC Sports Networks’ head of programming reached out to the new PFL heads as he has previously worked with PFL Executive Chairman Russ Ramsey and PFL President of Event Production Carlos Silva. Miller was also fond of CEO Peter Murray, who Miller worked with at the NFL and Under Armour.
In addition to NBC Sports network, Facebook has agreed to pick up the streaming rights for the PFL which include events that are not carried by NBCSN and will carry the first three hours of a PFL event before NBCSN takes over.
Payout Perspective:
The deal appears to be better than the previous WSOF “time buys” in which the organization purchased time from NBCSN. Although no financial terms were not disclosed, it would seem that revenue sharing would mean that at least a portion of the advertising dollars and sponsorships from the televised event would go back to the network. This may give a little more incentive for NBCSN to promote PFL. The online streaming proved to be successful with the organization’s fans with PFL’s one event last year. We still don’t have a solid date for the PFL to start but with this news, we should expect it happening sooner than later.
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