BONUS: Jake Paul's Plan To Challenge the UFC

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1:11Listen to Next Africa on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. Welcome to a special edition of the Bloomberg Business of Sports. I'm Vanessa Perdomo-Maglione. Here with a conversation I had with boxer, influencer, and co-founder of Most Valuable Promotions, Jake Paul. Alongside his co-founder, Nikisa Badarian, and Professional Fighters League CEO, John Martin. Alongside TV's Romaine Bostic. The three came in to discuss the recently announced merger between Jake Paul and Nikisa Badarian's boxing promotions company, MVP, and the mixed martial arts enterprise, the PFL.

1:55The two companies came together to be a real challenger to the UFC while bringing boxing and MMA under the same roof. Let's listen now. We are here with the latest deal in the world of sports and involves a mashup of most valuable promotions. Of course, the promotional and fighting company founded by Jake Paul and Nikisa Badarian, as well as PFL, the Professional Fighters League. John, great to have you back on the program as well. You now are all partners, combining forces. Why? Yeah, I think there's like a massive gap in MMA right now. It feels like the culture is different and there's just so much space to take over.

2:36We've proven that with our partnerships with Netflix and putting on the Rousey Carano fight. The demand that's there for our events and the events that we put on on a consistent basis. and fighters are being treated unfairly in other organizations. I'm sure people know who I'm talking about, but we've always had the ethos of fighter first. And so giving them the best place, the best destination, making sure that they're paid appropriately and have all the benefits and can still gain the same amount of viewership from the events that we put on. it's just another home that is is needed it's very badly needed so there's a problem and and a solution and that's uh that's us and that's really all entrepreneurship comes down to is fixing problems give me a sense though of how that structure is going to look overall and i know john we've talked a little bit about also this idea of fighters first and a more uh i guess uh sort of equitable uh sharing uh relative to what the ufc and some of the other leagues do does it change materially from what PFL had already been doing?

3:47I think this supercharges the PFL in any number of ways. And I've still been at the PFL for a little less than a year, but it was almost as soon as I joined that I really started to pay attention to what MVP was doing and the attention that they were able to grab. Initially, I was focused on their boxing events. But whether Jake was fighting, which of course was a huge global blockbuster event, or whether just promoting the level of attention that they were giving their athletes was something that I felt was really admirable. So for the PFL, we have better fighters than the average fan realizes.

4:24So this is a way for us to shine a spotlight on them and provide a bigger platform at scale. And also the idea here is that combat sports is more than just any one discipline. So being able to be one company that can offer athletes multiple ways to earn a living if they want to box they can box if they want to fight mixed martial arts they can do that style i think it's going to give us a huge advantage so this really is a combination where i think for the pfl mvp solves what we couldn't easily solve on our own and i think vice versa i think building off of what he just said there is what you know there you have what they needed and so tell me why this was the right move for MVP.

5:07You know, you guys put on your first MMA match in May. And was it from the success of that? But you had said at the time, we're going to do more in MMA. But was it the success of that that drove you to the PFL? Or what was it that made this the right partnership? Look, we started this company five years ago. And we've been disruptors in the boxing landscape and the content consumption landscape, brought the first professional live sporting event to Netflix. When we decided to do MMA, I've always said it was if it was successful, we're going to do more. and what did more look like? Well, more now looks like that we have the benefit of world-class infrastructure, world-class fighters, and the leadership of John Martin as our CEO of the overall platform to go after this opportunity.

5:48In the history of sports, you'd be hard to find where there's a strong endemic brand like the UFC and a newcomer to show up and put on an event at the scale, at the engagement, and at the viewership level that we did. So it's clear there's opportunity to create a second major brand in this sport. and with what PFL has and what MVP has, that's going to be us. Jake, you had mentioned how fighters are being treated unfairly in other companies. And one of the things Nikisa and I had talked about before we went on air was how proud you are of Amanda Serrano and the career that she's built and what you guys were able to do together there.

6:26So tell me about what you're hoping to accomplish with other fighters, how you use your platform as a global superstar. You want them to become global superstars as well. How do you do that? Yeah, I think it's just storytelling. And that's like what I've always been best at since my early days. And even just Team 10, the first company that I created and creating 30 influencers that were the biggest on the Internet and essentially doing the same thing now in the boxing and MMA world is building other personalities up and other talent up around me. And Amanda Serrano was a perfect example of that, where she was getting paid, you know,$1 ,000,$5 ,000 a fight.

7:08And she's one of the best fighters in the world. And so really all I did was shine a spotlight on her that she, you know, deserved but didn't have. And the rest is history. And, you know, we told her, you're going to be on billboards, you're going to be a movie star. You're going to be a millionaire pretty quickly. She just laughed because she didn't believe it because she had been treated so unfairly for decades in the sport of boxing. And it seems like so simple. But yeah, what I did is come in with my hundreds of millions of followers and just told her story to them. And everyone fell in love with her.

7:51and then she's headlining on Netflix. So just replicating that model and scaling it out is really what we're doing here. Can you share what kind of share fighters will get out of this combined MVP PFL? What do you mean? In terms of revenue share? In terms of revenue share. The focus has always been to at least provide 50 % of revenue to athletes. So when we look at the traditional ball and stick sports that achieve those types of revenue share metrics for the athletes, all of those entities have created massive amounts of enterprise value so jake and i's believe from day one the first day i met him in 2019 i walked into his house i actually didn't know who he was prior to the meeting being set up you didn't know who he was i did not i did not and he said i want to be a fighter i want to be an actor i want to be a rapper i want to be a concert creator i want to be an entrepreneur yeah and i was like well that's a lot of things he goes but most importantly i want to start a fighters union yeah i want to make sure fighters get paid well yeah we're the talent we're the ip we deserve fair share yeah and if you look at other sports when athletes get fair share they're more invested they're more committed the product is better and there's total cohesion well i'm curious jake i mean where are you all going to be in this whole mix are you going to be more behind the scenes or are you going to be are we going to see you uh in the ring in the cage going forward with this new league frequently i mean you kind of tease an mma fight with this uh with this merger announcement yeah both behind the scenes on the business side of things, especially as it pertains to marketing and being a voice and promotion of all of our fighters.

9:28But it's kind of this flywheel because also when I fight, it's some of the most viewed fights ever. And so we can uplift our fighters on the undercard. And that's actually what happened with Amanda Serrano is that at first we started putting her as the co-main event on my fights to build her up. So it's this flywheel where when I fight, it's actually boosting the whole company's enterprise value. Yeah, you have the star power. I'm sorry, just be clear before we go anywhere. Are you able to fight now? I mean, your jaw and everything back. I mean, physically, are you ready to get back? Yeah, I mean, not currently, but in the next couple of months, I'll be clear for sparring.

10:08So the jaw is still healing. But, yeah, just going to hopefully get back in there later this year. We have negotiations to work through eventually next year. And then wanting to do MMA. I have a wrestling background, Division I. When I see these MMA fighters wrestling, I'm actually embarrassed for them. They wouldn't last a minute in Ohio Division I high school wrestling. Yeah. I'm so excited to go into MMA and showcase my skills there next year. Jake, I'm curious, what you were saying there is putting them on the same cards as the fights that you're on obviously drives a lot of attention. But for other fighters who can't fight at the same time, you can't fight all the time, right?

10:48So what's the plan for those fights and to drive more attention on that? Yeah, I mean, it's just, again, it goes back to storytelling and me being a promoter and just, you know, saying to my audience, like, this is the fight that's happening. This is why you should care. This is a world championship fighter. This is her story. This is what she's fighting for, his or her story. It's no different than when Serrano and Katie Taylor fought on Netflix and just me being there as a promoter saying this is going to be one of the greatest trilogies of all time for people to watch. And so, yeah, people can't buy a product if they don't know about it.

11:34And so essentially I'm just bringing awareness to these fights. And I'm the best in the world at that. John, for you in the PFL, what are you most looking forward to working with MVP? And like Jake mentioned, his following and all of that. And how do you think it's going to change your business? How is it going to change having MMA and boxing under one roof? I think just to echo what I said a little bit earlier, you know, Jake is, I referred to him yesterday as a unicorn. because he's an athlete, he's talent, he's a promoter, he's an influencer, and he's got the biggest megaphone that anybody could ever ask for in terms of a promotion.

12:16That's life-changing for a promotion like the Professional Fighters League. And I really believe we have an event tonight at the UBS Arena on Long Island, and we're going to feature what I believe are two of the best fighters in the world in our main event with Usman Nurmagomedov, who's 21-0. And on the co-main event with Dakota Ditchfield, who's 15 and 0, to make them, you know, or other fighters of that caliber, household names, stars, where they can walk around, everybody will know who they are. That's difficult for an organization like the Professional Fighters League. We have better fighters and better product than our brand represents currently.

12:55And some of that is through distribution, which we're going to work really hard to fix that. and I think it's going to offer our promotion and our athletes opportunities that, like I said, we were trying to get there on our own, but this is going to dramatically accelerate the pace of that. Well, I am curious about that. I mean, so you have 885, a couple of nighthead affiliates. I mean, what is kind of the ownership structure right now, kind of split between MVP as it was prior to this week and PFL? We're not sharing the overall structure, but Jake and I will continue to be the largest shareholders.

13:29Would you be willing to disclose the terms of the deal in terms of financially? I would say it's a, it puts us as, $5 puts us clearly as the number two platform within the combat space. I mean, I would say it's a merger and the thing you, since you mentioned 885 and Nighthead, you know, they've been incredible investors for us at PFL and they are, they are in this enthusiastically have supported me in my desire to merge with them from the day one. Talk to me about media rights as well. You know, you had on one hand, you had the ESPN. On the other hand, you had Netflix, which of course, and what is the Netflix commitment to this?

14:07Is that, I mean, are they committed longer term to what you do? We have a long-term relationship with them that we haven't disclosed the terms of, but we've, we've put on four events with Netflix. So you think they're serious about a commitment to, not just, not just. I mean, they're serious in their commitment to sports. They're serious in their commitment to MVP, right? We've, we brought professional sports to Netflix, The first ever professional sporting event was Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson. Yeah, yeah. And we look forward to meeting with them in short order and figuring out more events to do together.

14:34So with the merge company, you have between the Hodgepodge deals, ESPN, Netflix, Sky. I think I'm forgetting a couple of others. Those are the three MVP core partners. Those are the three core partners. PFL has 40 plus partners internationally as well. Is the idea to keep that fragmentation or maybe are you looking for one sort of gigantic umbrella media deal? I think when we think about the brand architecture and the different athletes and how they service each of those, we'll figure out what's the right distribution. Nikisa, when you're looking at a measure of success in the next five years, do you believe it's market share, profitability, or changing the economics for fighters that you'll look at and say, we really did what we set out to do?

15:09Success number one is fighter happiness, right? Fighters recognizing like they do with MVPW that we've changed their lives for the better. And there's many different ways of measuring that. but that starts with how we position them and positioning leads to then platform and platform leads to push which comes from him that's what i'm curious so the happiness is more than just the money they're getting paid in the ring i mean i mean there's a reason why jake paul is here i mean he brings more than just you know what happens inside the ring right yeah i mean look it's as small as yeah how did you post me how many times did you post me right what did you say about me what picture of that we pay attention to every single detail yeah in helping you build your brand because end of the day, your individual IP is what's really helping MVP monetize its platform.

15:52Another thing that was just announced was a strategic alliance with Matchroom Boxing in terms of to grow women's boxing. We talked a little bit about this and Jakey talked a little bit about what you've done with Amanda Serrano and how she was treated unfairly. She didn't think she was going to be able to make millions of dollars. Do you think that's just the plight for a women's boxing right now? Or tell me about your investment into the sport. You know, it was it was the play and it was, you know, how women expected to be treated in the sport. And they weren't even motivated. I think we've we've even brought back older women fighters who are like, wow, everyone's making millions of dollars now.

16:30I want to get back into it because at the time they were not making much money at all. And so we've completely changed the whole entire game of women's boxing and have been able to procure, you know, the largest paydays for so many of the women time and time again. And it wasn't just one time or here or there. It's the whole entire sport is changing. The pay levels are at such a higher level now. And, yeah, it's directly from, you know, what we started with Amanda Serrano and believing in women's boxing and arguing that, you know, 90 % of women's fights are more entertaining than Floyd Mayweather's fights.

17:17There's just so much more action. and and like i truly believe that it's like i say it as like a joke but it's like not a joke like i'll be sitting you know ringside watching these girls fight and i'm like oh oh like every like 10 seconds just screaming because they can women have higher pain tolerance they endure more pain um and just keep on fighting so i'm just saying like there's just facts to to back this but but Yeah, we've changed the landscape, and now everyone's getting paid more. Nikisa, tell us a little bit about the strategic alliance with Matchroom. Listen, it comes back to we've had conviction in women's boxing unlike any other combat sports platform, and that includes UFC.

18:01Ronda Rousey made her debut in MMA, even though Dana White was very clear he didn't want to have women's MMA at the time. So that was Lorenzo Fertitta, who owned the UFC, who brought women's MMA to the sport. from day one jake and i had three priorities being fighter first focusing on gen z and gen alpha and giving a platform to women and that positioning the only person who's come close to that over the past 10 years is eddie hearn to his credit he has made some level of investment in women's boxing and had success in it so going forward we will have the opportunity to work with his fighters to give them the platform that mvp has wait so eddie hearn is he going to be kind of a partner in all this, or is he still going to be your rival?

18:39He's both, always. But I can tell you, as soon as we did this deal, his text to Jake and I was, let's do more. I have to address the elephant in the room, because I think both you and Eddie Hearn, and I don't want to speak for Jake and John, there is sort of a competition with Dana White and UFC. And I am curious as to how you're positioning this new MVP up against that. I mean, they've got, obviously, the big backing with TKO, the big deal with Paramount and all that. So you're going up against a force in terms of, not from a business perspective and probably in a lot of other ways as well. Are you staring him down head on?

19:17And are we making too much of that? Yeah, 100%. 100%. Yeah, that's, that's, it's, it's war as far as I'm concerned. We're here to make Evan May great again. Yeah. And there's so many things going on behind the scenes back and forth, mostly them attacking us, manipulative things. I can't even be in my own brother's WWE matches because TKO has blocked it. They don't want me to get any publicity from the WWE. So there's so many things going on behind the scenes. It's war and it's only going to get crazier. But it's Coke versus Pepsi. It's Nike versus Adidas. This is exciting. And we're five years in with this new relationship.

20:00They're 30 years in. So we're the new young hungry kids on the block. Dana White, you know, was at a press conference yesterday, like didn't even know who was fighting or what he was talking about, just berating a reporter. They're old. They're worn out. They're public. They're like, hey, we did this. Yeah. And we're coming to eat their lunch. And they should be scared. They are scared. That's why they're doing these tactical moves behind the scenes. And this is beautiful. This is capitalism. This is entrepreneurship. Yeah. And this is the game of life. So it's very exciting. I've been remiss in that point out, though.

20:34There have been a lot of other challengers to the UFC empire, Pride and Strikeforce and a few others I'm forgetting. UFC bought Pride. UFC bought Strikeforce. What's your goal? Is your goal to stay independent? Is your goal to become public? I mean, from a business perspective, what do you want MVP? I think we're just getting started. We've been in business for five years. We've never lost a dollar, which is very rare in sports. Yeah. Right. And now we have the benefit of who I believe to be the best CEO in combat sports and John Martin leading the charge. We have amazing investors in 885 and Nighthead who own some of the most prolific sports assets in the world.

21:09And he's 29 years old. Right. And he's hungry and he's looking to go after it, as you just heard. And there's a need for change. As I said, for us to come in and put on an event that we did and for fans to consume it at the level that they did. When has that ever happened? The NFL competitors that pop up, they do 5%, 10 % of the viewership. Just it's a very rare occurrence. And the benefit is we're a private entity. We plan to stay private for a long period of time. And we can have financial flexibility that you really can't as a public entity. In many ways, I wish the UFC would show up tomorrow and say we're increasing fighter pay to 50%.

21:44But guess what? They can't do that. That will crush their margins, which will crush their enterprise value, which will crush their personal net worth. We have the ability to be aggressive in how we structure our deals and go after the best talent in the world. I mean, we've had Dana White on this program. We've asked him specifically about MVP, as you know, specifically about PFL. His words were polite, though not necessarily kind. I, by the way, think they're phenomenal. They're the best organization in the world. No one can argue with their business. You can quibble with Dana White on a lot of things, a lot of levels, on personality.

22:17You can quibble with Jake Paul a lot on personality as well. But we're talking about how you build a business and who actually has the moxie to pull it off. And maybe it does become what you're saying, Jake, which is like a Coke versus Pepsi where you can have two giants sort of coexist. Or does it end up being a winner take all? Yeah, I guess time will tell. But I think what we've already proven and what combat sports has proven and boxing in general just over the past century is that there's an appetite for fights and consistency. And the true fight fans cross over from loving boxing to MMA.

22:57And if there was good fights on every weekend, I would be watching them. And so there's so much room. so much room there's so many nba games uh there's you know the nfl is thursday you know sunday monday sometimes saturdays now like they're popping up new days all the time and i'm there watching them so there's so much uh room and you know space for us to create tons of fights john i think that's like a great part for you to step in here is is it really even a question does it have to be a question does it have to be a topic of needing to be number two having to push UFC or is it just focus on doing what you're doing and potentially change the entire market like Nikisa was saying if if everyone raised fighters pay maybe that's great for everyone in the sport I think it's a little bit of everything that you just said um in other words when when you look at before I decided to come to PFL I convinced myself that UFC was not going to be a winner take all the world is too big a place there's too many fight fans fighting as a sport is primal.

23:59It really has no borders. As Jake said, if you're a fan, you could be watching two Africans fight from the continent of Africa and be equally as enthusiastic in that as you would if it was, you know, fight somewhere else. I think that it provides a tremendous space and opportunity for us to bring great events. And like I said, it could be MMA, it could be boxing, we could do hybrid events. And it's really just about finding great athletes, finding great fighters, putting on great events and delighting the fans. I think there's a huge amount of space, but scale matters. It's always matter in the businesses that I came from.

24:38I was a builder. I built big businesses. I scaled existing big businesses. And this combination is going to give us scale to move faster and speed matters. Right. Absolutely. And obviously with this, Jake, you're doing something that I don't know if you did this when you set out and you created MVP. You know, when you created it, people kind of had this idea that you're an influencer and this isn't real boxing. And now you're acquiring one of the biggest players in mixed martial arts in this game. Do you think you changed the perception of what people think you set out to do here? I don't know.

25:15Like, I don't really care. Like, I think, yeah, people always have some sort of opinion. And I just like prove with my actions and words. I do definitely talk a lot of smack, but I just don't really care. We're doing it regardless of what they think. So I would say the track record proves that I've made more of an impact in the sport of boxing than any boxer that's alive today. And no one could argue that. I could sit there and argue. You like shrug your shoulders. I would quibble with that a little bit. Who would you say that? More than Tyson? You said alive today? Outside of Tyson, outside of the ring?

26:01Outside the ring. Oh, you're talking about outside the ring. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were talking about for the sport of boxing. Not in the ring. Outside the ring. But actually helping fighters. Who do you think has made a larger impact than Jake outside of the ring for other fighters? For other fighters, I don't know. I mean, I can't quibble with that. I thought you were talking about in terms of boxing as a sport. Inside the ring. And look, I don't take anything away from Jake. We all know that he brings a lot of attention to the things. And, you know, the smack talk is a big part of boxing.

26:27It's way more than attention. Explain that. It's actual change. And me grinding on business calls and working with fighters and teaching them about branding and putting my time, effort, and energy into other people, hiring employees, teaching them the ways and the things that I know and the skills that I have. business calls on a consistent basis, the attention and the posting is actually such a minimal part. That's the easy part. That's the easy part. Bringing the Gen Alpha and the Gen Z to it all, like you said, right? Because it was lost to that generation, I feel, for a while. And that brings in new people to the sport, meaning competitors into the sport that maybe would have been a little bit turned off by maybe the previous structures of some of these deals?

27:19Can you say that again? New competitors against us? No, new fighters. I think he said it really well. If we look at where we focused, which is big, massive events, where we're the clear leader, and then if you look at women's boxing, it's re-energized the, I would say, the more mature fighters that had left the sport to come back because they hadn't seen opportunity and push this way. And it's energized young athletes to say, wow, there's a real path to a career here versus one-offs. That's me and Bloomberg TV's Romain Bostick speaking with boxer, influencer and co-founder of MVP Jake Paul alongside his co-founder Nikisa Badarian and professional fighters league CEO John Martin.