The Professional Fighters League traces its origins to a single day. On July 11, 2016, the UFC was sold for more than $4 billion. Watching that sale, venture capitalist Donn Davis concluded that mixed martial arts, a sport he saw as the fastest growing in the world, was big enough to support more than one major league. Within months he and a group of Washington investors bought a struggling promotion and set out to build a rival [1].
- How a 2016 UFC sale inspired a venture capitalist to build a rival league
- PFL's season, playoffs, and championship format with a $1 million weight-class grand prize
- The 2023 Bellator acquisition that made PFL the clear number two in American MMA
- Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund holds a minority stake and a board seat in PFL
- Equity partner Jake Paul's politics and Francis Ngannou's guaranteed $2 million opponent clause
From World Series of Fighting to a League Model
In 2017, an investor group led by Davis, Russ Ramsey, and Mark Leschly acquired the World Series of Fighting and rebranded it as the Professional Fighters League, with the first season staged in 2018 [2]. Davis brought an unusual resume to combat sports. He had spent a decade as a partner at the venture firm Revolution alongside AOL co-founder Steve Case and current Washington sports owner Ted Leonsis, and earlier held senior roles at AOL during the early internet boom [3]. The founding investor group leaned heavily on Washington money; reporting at the time listed Leonsis, owner of the Washington Capitals and Wizards, and members of the Lerner family, owners of the Washington Nationals, among the backers [2].
The league's core idea set it apart from the UFC. Instead of a promoter arranging one-off fights, PFL borrowed a structure from traditional sports: a regular season, playoffs, and a championship, with a $1 million grand prize for the winner in each weight class. Davis has called the model "March Madness meets MMA," a fighter-driven meritocracy in contrast to the UFC's promoter-driven approach [4]. Events aired on ESPN platforms, giving the young league mainstream reach [1].
The Bellator Acquisition
In November 2023, PFL made the move that cemented its standing as the clear number two in American MMA, acquiring rival promotion Bellator MMA from Paramount Global [5]. The deal folded Bellator's champions and roster into the PFL structure and, in one stroke, removed PFL's closest domestic competitor, leaving the UFC as the only larger MMA organization in the United States.
Saudi Backing and the Sportswashing Debate
The most politically notable feature of PFL's ownership is not American. In August 2023, PFL sold a minority equity stake to SRJ Sports Investments, a fund launched weeks earlier by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. It was SRJ's first investment, reported at more than $100 million, and it brought a seat on the PFL board for SRJ chairman Bander Bin Mogren, who had served as the Public Investment Fund's chief operating officer [6]. As part of the agreement, PFL launched a regional league, PFL MENA, and agreed to stage pay-per-view "Super Fight" mega-events in Saudi Arabia [7].
The stake placed PFL inside a much larger story. The Public Investment Fund, one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds and chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has poured money into LIV Golf, Formula One, professional wrestling, and an 80 percent stake in the Premier League club Newcastle United. Saudi officials frame these deals as part of his Vision 2030 plan to diversify the kingdom's oil-dependent economy and grow a domestic sports industry [6]. Critics, including human rights organizations, describe the spending as "sportswashing," an attempt to soften scrutiny of Saudi Arabia's human rights record [8]. Both framings are widely reported; what is not in dispute is that a foreign government fund holds an ownership position and a board seat in the league.
Star Power and Its Limits
PFL has repeatedly tried to close the talent gap with the UFC by signing marquee names into a revenue-sharing "PPV Super Fight Division," in which fighters take half of the pay-per-view revenue [9]. The division was co-created with social media personality turned boxer Jake Paul, who, with business partner Nakisa Bidarian, received a minority equity stake in the company [10]. In 2023 the league landed its biggest catch, former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou, who signed as an equity owner and chairman of PFL Africa after leaving the UFC in a contract dispute [9]. As part of that deal, Ngannou negotiated an unusual provision guaranteeing that any opponent who faced him would be paid a minimum of $2 million, a clause his first PFL opponent collected when the two met in October 2024 [16]. The results were uneven. Ngannou fought only once, winning a title in October 2024, and the league parted ways with him in early 2026 after less than three years [11]. Kayla Harrison, a two-time PFL champion once tied to the same division, departed for the UFC, where she went on to win a title of her own.
The Politics Around the League
The UFC has become closely identified with President Trump through its ownership, its commentators, and a 2026 card staged on the White House lawn. PFL's political profile looks different. As a company it has not staged a political showcase event, and unlike many large sports enterprises it has no widely reported record of corporate political donations or federal lobbying. Its politically relevant threads run through ownership and talent instead. The largest is the Saudi sovereign wealth fund's minority stake and board seat, described above, which is a geopolitical matter more than a domestic-partisan one. Among its equity partners, Jake Paul is the most politically vocal: he endorsed Trump to his roughly 80 million-follower audience ahead of the 2024 election [12], attended the second inauguration, and in March 2026 received Trump's endorsement for a potential future run for office [13]. These are individual and ownership-level facts, separate from any official position taken by the league.
What PFL Is Today
By 2025, PFL was valued at roughly $1 billion and described by its founder as the second-largest MMA organization in the world by fighter quality, distribution, audience, and revenue [4]. By the company's account, roughly 90 percent of its audience sits outside the United States, and it has built regional circuits in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, with Australia planned. In 2025 it shortened its season and shifted to a single-elimination format to simplify the product for a broader audience [3]. From its earliest seasons the league leaned on its venture-capital roots to set its broadcast apart, fitting its cage with biometric sensors, branded the "SmartCage," that feed real-time data such as punch speed, power, and heart rate into its telecasts [15]. Davis, who left a comfortable venture-capital career in his mid-50s to build the league, remains its founder and chairman and continues to frame PFL's future around two words: global and growth [14].
Sources
[1] ESPN, "PFL invested in bringing familiar sports context to the fight game." https://www.espn.com/mma/story/_/id/24802815 [2] ESPN, "World Series of Fighting relaunched as Professional Fighters League." https://www.espn.com/mma/story/_/id/19193269/world-series-fighting-relaunched-professional-fighters-league [3] Sportico, "Coffey Talk: Donn Davis on the PFL." https://www.sportico.com/personalities/owners/2025/coffey-talk-donn-davis-1234841735/ [4] Entrepreneur, "The Professional Fighters League Is Now Valued at $1 Billion." https://www.entrepreneur.com/starting-a-business/professional-fighters-league-is-now-valued-at-1-billion/488428 [5] SportBusiness, "PFL acquires rival Bellator in direct challenge to UFC." https://www.sportbusiness.com/news/pfl-acquires-rival-bellator-in-direct-challenge-to-ufc/ [6] Sportico, "Saudi PIF's New Sports Fund Pours $100M Into PFL MMA Circuit." https://www.sportico.com/leagues/other-sports/2023/saudi-pif-pfl-investment-sports-fund-1234735454/ [7] Public Investment Fund, "SRJ and Professional Fighters League sign MMA investment agreement." https://www.pif.gov.sa/en/news-and-insights/newswire/2023/srj-and-professional-fighters-league-sign-mma-investment-agreement/ [8] Al Jazeera, "Saudi Arabian fund buys stake in PFL mixed martial arts league." https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2023/8/30/saudi-arabian-fund-buys-stake-in-pfl-mixed-martial-arts-league [9] CBS Sports, "Former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou signs with PFL." https://www.cbssports.com/mma/news/former-ufc-heavyweight-champion-francis-ngannou-signs-with-pfl-to-join-ppv-super-fight-division [10] John Wall Street, "PFL Partners with Jake Paul, Nakisa Bidarian to Launch New PPV Division." https://www.johnwallstreet.com/p/pfl-partners-jake-paul-nakisa-bidarian-launch-new-ppv-division [11] Front Office Sports, "PFL's Francis Ngannou Experiment Is Over." https://frontofficesports.com/pfl-francis-ngannou-experiment-over/ [12] The Independent via AOL, "Jake Paul reveals presidential endorsement in 20-minute video." https://www.aol.com/news/jake-paul-reveals-presidential-endorsement-164212443.html [13] Newsweek, "Fact Check: Did Donald Trump Endorse Jake Paul for Office?" https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-endorse-jake-paul-office-run-11667962 [14] WSC Sports, "Donn Davis: The PFL Founder and Chairman Disrupting the MMA World." https://wsc-sports.com/blog/industry-insights/donn-davis-the-pfl-founder-and-chairman-disrupting-the-mma-world/ [15] Professional Fighters League, "The PFL Continues to Reimagine MMA with Launch of the First-Ever SmartCage." https://pflmma.com/news/pfl-continues-to-reimagine-mma-with-launch-of-the-first-ever-smartcage-for-2019-season [16] ESPN, "Inside the negotiations that brought the No. 1 heavyweight in the world, Francis Ngannou, to the PFL." https://www.espn.com/mma/story/_/id/37702902/why-francis-ngannou-left-ufc-signed-pfl-contract-deal