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Last month, Bellator was purchased by the PFL, merging the two promotions into one promotion, making them arguably the #2 promotion in MMA right now.
Endeavor/TKO Group President Mark Shapiro says that despite the merger, the PFL is still the “B Squad” when it comes to who dominates the MMA market.
“I’m excited because I think a rising tide lifts all boats,” Shapiro said during the UBS Global Media and Communications conference (transcript via Damon Martin of MMA Fighting). “So PFL and Bellator coming together, it’s good for the sport. It’s good for MMA. It’s good kind of ultimately for the media rights equation. I like the idea of having more MMA on ESPN. That helps us. Often they serve as a lead-in and they’re good competition, but make no doubt about it, they are the ‘B’ squad.”
The newly merged promotion will hold a champions versus champions pay-per-view next year, with the event reportedly taking place sometime in February.
Shapiro also wants to point out how much UFC CEO Dana White has turned the UFC around in the last 20+ years.
“I’m not being politically correct,” Shapiro stated. “Any entrepreneur that goes out there and launches a sports property that gets a chunk of audience, good for them. Can they turn it into a profitable business long term, sustainable with big lifts? That’s obviously the challenge. It’s amazing what Dana White has done over the last 25-plus years. I mean, he took a struggling brand, a struggling property, a struggling sport that wasn’t legal anywhere for that matter and turned it into a mainstream major sports property. That’s hard to do.”
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