PFL Founder Talks Growth, Likens Francis Ngannou To LeBron James

Professional Fighters League (PFL) is in the midst of an important aspect of its regular season across multiple divisions, and the combat sports organization is also deep into a time of growth and advancement from a business standpoint.

PFL Founder Donn Davis Talks Growth, Viewership and Engagement

I spoke with PFL chairman, founder and co-owner Donn Davis ahead of PFL’s 2023 regular season event on Friday, June 23. He expressed his excitement ahead of the Atlanta card featuring Olivier Aubin-Mercier, Shane Burgos and Sadibou Sy (who delivered a KO of the Year candidate in the co-main event), and he also discussed the current state of his organization.

Davis recently tweeted a graphic that conveyed some pretty hefty metrics related to viewership, engagement and overall growth for the organization.

“We’re super proud of this,” Davis told me in an exclusive interview on a recent episode of Unanimous Decisions. “Overall, sports is about flat, and overall TV viewership is down about 5%. Yet PFL is up 45% this year. This our fifth season. Everybody who sees PFL stays with us, but clearly more and more fans, and more and more viewers each year are watching. The 45% growth is astounding. I think it makes us the fasting growing league in the United States, and probably globally.”

You can watch the interview in its entirety below.

According to Davis, the PFL’s goal is to create an entertaining and informative broadcast while also offering fighters the most attractive compensation for their efforts. Is PFL trying to create a smarter combat sports fan?

“If you’re a diehard MMA fan, we give you more data, more analytics, more information,” Davis said. “So that’s great if you’re a diehard fan. But if you’re new to MMA, which about half of our viewers are new to MMA, they’re sports fans but not MMA fans prior to PFL. We give you a way to understand what’s going on. So think of it as a yellow line for a first down in football. We give the equivalent of a ball and strike and pitch speed indicator for baseball. UFC or others don’t do that. They assume everybody is a diehard fan. These are the greatest athletes in the world, and we give you a way to understand that, and appreciate that.”

PFL Founder Donn Davis Talks Francis Ngannou, Potentially the LeBron James of MMA

At the center of the movement PFL is experiencing is the high-profile signing of former UFC Heavyweight Champion, Francis Ngannou.

Davis also spoke in depth about the signing as he likened the heavyweight’s impact on his sport to LeBron James on basketball.

According to Davis, there were three important details when negotiating Ngannou’s deal. Ngannou wanted to explore boxing. Secondly, he wanted to be involved with leadership and fighter growth, which he was given as a figurehead in the launch of PFL Africa. Lastly, Ngannou wanted to be paid his market value, and the 36-year-old also wanted his opponents to be paid well. According to Davis, Ngannou asked for his opponents to be paid at least a minimum for facing him.

“I don’t know why it was so hard for the UFC to come to an agreement, other than they have a model that they will never change,” Davis said. “Maybe they make some changes for Conor McGregor, but they don’t make any changes for anybody else. Look, we’re running a business also. We’re focused on delivering revenue and growth, and good business value for our investors. But that starts with the athletes. That starts with having the best athletes here, and having them happy.”

I asked Davis why does he think it was difficult for the UFC to treat Ngannou similarly to McGregor?

He said: “My 92-year-old dad says, ‘every business is easy until it’s yours.’ So I try to focus on building PFL, and recruiting fighters to PFL, and making PFL the best place to be. I leave the UFC business to them.”

“There are certain athletes that just want to be athletes, and other great athletes that are leaders,” Davis said. “LeBron James, what he’s done to change free agency and control for other basketball players. That’s what Francis is doing for other people in MMA. He’s showing they have a choice. He’s showing them they have options. He’s showing them how to control their own career, and not to be held hostage. To me, Francis is an unbelievable fighter, but he’s going to go down as a leader of his sport also.”

The comparison was an interesting one, but it wasn’t the first time I’d heard the concept mentioned since Ngannou inked his multi-fight deal with PFL. Because of the source, I wanted to dig deeper on the point. I asked Davis if he would consider Ngannou the LeBron James of MMA.

“I think that’s what people are going to see over the next two or three, or four years. As PFL becomes the co-leader in MMA, as more and more fighters have the choice between UFC and PFL, and more and more fighters take that choice and decide where do I want to be, that’s all going to happen because of Francis. He’s going to be the guy that made that happen.”

Time will tell if Ngannou’s impact is as far-reaching as many believe it will be, but there is no question the deal has widened the MMA conversation.